To ask what's so great about being sober

[sallysaysrelax23]

There's so much talk about how great sobriety is these days, I don't think it's ever been cooler to be sober.

I desperately need to lose weight and I know drinking isn't helping my case. I drink over the weekend (usually wine) and I may have a gin and tonic a few nights during the week. I'm certainly not one for getting sloshed like I did in my twenties but I'm afraid I still really enjoy that relaxed, tipsy feeling I get from one or two drinks at home in the evening.

I don't think it affects my sleep or my mood the next day particularly (I know many will say it does and I just don't realise it) but I know I make poor food choices after a drink and that the calories in wine and gin are pretty significant too. So I'm looking for inspiration to cut down - what do you love about not drinking?

I am a massive twat drunk.

Massive fucking idiot.

Very sweet, non aggressive, but still a massive twat idiot.

I can't do it sensibly either, I binge terribly if I drank. So in 6 years have drank twice and both times made myself both very ill and depressed.

No more for me.

My friends are all heavy party girls and it's hard to say no constantly, because they never saw my drinking as problematic, but they weren't the ones found collapsed on roundabouts/needing stomachs pumped etc. It was always, "Oh good, Lwren is giving her rent to the homeless again/Lwren has made friends with everyone on the bus and now they're all invited to her wedding/Look, Lwren is best friends with the Arctic Monkeys now, we leave her alone for 5 minutes and we're all going on a world tour".

Sober am I as fun? Not really. Am I less likely to think Ted Bundy and I are having a lovely drive to go see baby goats and get a mcflurry? Damn right.

Also, yeah, nicer skin and less money.

In your shoes, I'd calculate the actual calories you are drinking, which will probably be much larger than you think, then work out what you could swap it for. You could probably have a takeaway or a few whole family bars of chocolate and have less calories. Or work out how many days calories you are drinking each month. Instead of an hour with a glass of wine, have a 30 minute run and a hot shower, just as nice and better for you.

And you say you dont get hangxiety or regrets but you do, they are just about your subsequent food behaviours rather than party behaviours.

I'm a light drinker and can go for weeks in between without thinking about it.

DH and I have Garmin watches with a "body battery" feature that basically works out how rested you are. I hadn't paid much attention to it until DH got his, but alcohol plays haywire with it. Even one or two drinks in the afternoon will have an impact on sleep quality, heart rate and feeling fresh in the morning.

Being a light drinker is cheap, good for my waistline, is a sign that I have multiple ways of relaxing and good for general health. I rarely have a hangover, and on the occasions that I do, it's the consequence of a special occasion where I had a great time, not a routine.

I have a good sense of when to stop and am strong at resisting peer pressure.

I drink a little because I like the change of taste. Particularly in pubs where the choice of soft drinks is usually awful (I don't drink artificial sweetners) so the choice is often coke, coke or coke. Worse if it's Pepsi at which point I'll risk the sweetner headache from lime and soda.

I cut out almost all booze when I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. I didn’t drink a lot before - perhaps a bottle of wine a week. Now I probably have about a couple of glasses a month. I’m £30 better off each month and I lost well over a quarter of my pre-diagnosis weight

@BadGranny a bottle of wine is only about 650cals so cutting one a week wouldn’t get you to lose a quarter of your weight. It’s the equivalent of one meal a week.

I have a family member who is alcohol dependant, it took a long time to take hold but to begin with it was just a few cans of a weekday, not drunk and a few more of a weekend. Over the course of years it became much more than that and non-of us knew because they always had a drink in hand a never seemed drunk, unless it was a party when everyone was.

So when My drinking grew to gin daily (2 measurements in a fish bowl sized glass of lemonade) 1 on a weekday and 2/3 on a Saturday, this was slowly creeping up to 2/3 on a weekday and around the same or maybe 1 more on a weekend. I'd tell myself ok, just 1 tonight but then I'd have 2 and I really didn't like the feeling of lack of self control when I'd had 1, so then I told myself I wouldn't have one in the weekday, but I'd fancy one so I'd have 1 that then might have stayed as 1 or become 2. Needless to say I really didn't like how easy it was for me to ignore myself because I fancied it and I don't have a dependency. Only - it starts somewhere.

I sometimes have a drink now when out for food or socially with friends but not get drunk. In the house I don't touch it. I have it for guests if they want one, but I don't touch it. It's breaking the habit that's the hard part. Not the not drinking it part for me.

I now sleep much better, wake up easier, stay awake longer, had the urge to start my fitness back up and just be healthier again. I was always naturally healthy growing up and very active, so the will power side of life has never been a skill I needed to learn or practice, so as an adult I've found that the hardest.

Maybe just limit yourself to a couple on the weekend? And change your habits, I also think you're drinking for the wrong reasons on the regular, as you've said it's about the feeling you get rather than the taste. Plus my thought process would also be with having children at home, what if something happens and one needs to go to hospital, after a couple drinks you can't take them. In my case that wouldn't be an issue as my partner is tee-total, but that is probably why it's also easier for me to not care for a drink whilst in the house.

It took a while to stop wanting a drink though - that really bugged me. My brain would be like 1s fine, maybe at 9pm, that's ok. It also took a few months to go a full week without drinking. But slowly I didn't even want one.

Many of us eat our body weight in snacks when drinking…

@Lwrenagain love your post. I certainly do not miss 'mystery' taxis home (probably weren't even taxis)

Some really great and insightful posts, thank you all very much.

I think my issue is that my life is pretty self contained at the moment. I don't go out much (young kids, no childcare other than dh) and so a lot of my evenings and time and general is spent at home. For me it's just a way to unwind and beat the monotony. A weekend without booze and a takeaway would just feel like another boring weeknight.

It's quite sad really.

I think you've named lots of reasons. I think most people who are 'weekend drinkers' will say that their sleep and mental health improved, as did the quality of their weekends. Don't underestimate how different a Sunday will feel if you haven't had 3+ glasses of wine the night before. You can be up early. You get stuff done. You can exercise. You can be present with the kids. You can focus on cooking healthy meals. You may not think that feeling a bit blergh from drinking the night before would make this much of a difference, but it does.

Obviously, for people (like me), who have a drinking problem, it's so much more than that, but definitely my mental health is so much better. I'm a better parent. More present with my kids. Not so irritable and short. Get more stuff done. Sleep better. I've lost half a stone in the past 2 months without changing a thing about my diet other than not drinking - still eat plenty of cake. It's improved my symptoms from a chronic illness so feel much healthier over all. I see the difference because dh still drinks and he spends his weekends being moody still, eating junk, not enjoying things we do, lying around in bed. You only get one life, so it's no way to spend 20% of it really.

Yep! I absolutely am lucky to be alive and its not lost on me! I once ended up at an address I'd moved out of. 13 years earlier.

I'm glad you're safe now too, alcohol just doesn't agree with some of us!
I know they say drunk you is real you, but I assure you, sober me doesn't throw an air guitar competition in a taxi queue in the arse end of of a rough area in-between people getting glassed and fighting.
(I came 3rd, which is almost as embarrassing as starting it, but not as bad as a pint glass to the chops!)

But yay for us for being alive and safe DR! 💐

As for feeling like life would be boring without weekend drinking, I think that's a common worry. But honestly, it's not. If at home, I do all the same things as I would while drinking - BBQ, spend time with the kids, hang out with dh, nice meals - but I've also found it's easier to go out and do other things. Unless you have a bf baby, then you can get out and do things! I've taken an evening class on a Friday or Saturday. I took my primary age dd out for dinner and shopping in a city about an hour away - because you can drink back late at night if you aren't drinking! You can go see a film with friends. You can take a walk or do some sort of other exercise you enjoy. You can watch a film - heck, you can go to the cinema if you want, with friends or alone (I love a solo cinema trip). I was a big party animal all through my 20s and 30s. At first, yes, it seems weird to not drink on a Saturday evening (er, from noon...), but I don't really even think about it now. I realise how much I was missing out on all the things I could do for fun because I was stuck at home, unable to go anywhere, drinking or just too tired from drinking to plan something fun. My kids certainly notice the change too. When my 'fun' at the weekends was drinking, it means I wasn't really present with them. We do a lot more together now, so things are certainly more fun for them too.

*drive back late! 😂

@sallysaysrelax23

Have you got things you're interested in? When I decided enough twattishness was enough, I decided to take up cooking as a hobby. I also enjoyed making mocktails.
Then we'd make a point of doing something different, so cards against humanity was a big hit, sitting in the garden with a little fire and fancy hot chocolates, those little kind of things that cost nothing to do, but feel like you've made an event out of spare time.

We decided to listen to albums together instead of usual Netflix etc, just to talk and hang out. DP is a gamer, so he'll find something for us to do together, some old 90s games or we put a stand up comedy on.

If nothing else, it'll get you out the mindset that alcohol relieves the boredom! X

Saving money
Better sleep

I stopped drinking in 2012 when I was put on a certain type of high dose anti psychotic & other meds that don't go with alcohol.. unfortunately I can honestly say that I have missed drinking ever since..
if you put a mojito in front of me now and said I would get no reaction with my medication I would happily drink it!!
So I'm no help sorry.

To be fair though I have an addictive personality so I'd probably be an alcoholic by now if I hadn't stopped drinking, it's all or nothing for me.

To be fair, losing the booze was part of a low carb diet. But it did contribute to weight loss massively because when I’m stone cold sober, I have more self-discipline, so I don’t tell myself that a bar of chocolate or a packet of crisps is ok. After a few drinks, it gets a lot harder to say no to other high calorie snacks.

I'm sober 20 years. It became a problem. I stopped. I don't want to drink now. I never liked it anyway. It became a legal solution to the way I felt about myself.

A heck of a lot of therapy has ensured since. What did I gain? No hangovers, no feeling ugh, no longer waking up with a furry mouth, knowing what I had done, better quality sleep, better skin, quality of life, and more.

If you're finding it difficult to imagine life without alcohol you need to look at your relationship with it. If someone told you you couldn't eat nuts, say, you would be "O K a bit of a nuisance, but not the end of the world" if you don't see drink in that way you need to reevaluate your relationship with it I was told.

Incidrntly alcohol is poisonous sugar, so you may crave non poisonous sugar things if you stop drinking, so work that into your diet too

If you're drinking large gins of about 4 in a glass with tonic, you need to watch it. Homedrinking has become the norm, especially for women, and how so many of us end up with a problem
Plenty to do instead to unwind, which isn't an unhealthy high as alcohol is

I probably have a drink once a week or once a fortnight.

I think you are kidding yourself to drink every weekend plus a few nights in the week every single week and not think it impacts you. A liver surgeon told me people need minimum 4 days in a row every week with no alcohol to look after your body.

@sallysaysrelax23 My life is very self contained and isolating so I get that. But while I thought a few drinks helped ease that it actually wasn't.
The weekend not feeling like a weekend without drink/ takeaway. I don't know what's near you but would there be somewhere ye could go on Sunday to mark the weekend? Near/ Far we always try and do something 2 Sundays a month.

4 shots in 1 pour of G&T a 'couple of times' a week. So if you have 3 G&Ts that night that's 12 units of alcohol. 3 nights a week? = 36units
Then wine weekend = 1 bottle per night = 30units

Write down honestly to yourself what you are drinking each week. I did also lose a fair bit of weight about 1 and a half stone when I stopped drinking. No empty cals and no eating crap when drinking. I'm looking at you cheesy pastry puff. My skin is better. My sleep is a world of difference. I thought I needed #winewednesday #mummyrelaxes #stressfuldayreward

It will take a while 3 months or so to form new habits.

What the previous poster said about being morally superior. No not drinking doesn't make you superior. Some people think they are holier than thou for not drinking. Most people (myself inc) don't really mention it!

When you drink regularly, you get used to how you feel the day afterwards. It becomes your normal so you think it's not affecting you.

When you stop for a bit, you sleep better, make better food choices and have a lot more energy. It's surprising how much energy you've been missing out on.

My mum has this too and I’d never come across anyone else with the same symptom. She was never a massive drinker but liked a few glasses of wine on Friday or Saturdays evenings, but once she hit her mid 40s she would vomit (a lot) after a glass and a half. It happened 3 weekends in a row and she had to stop drinking completely until she was completely through the menopause a few years later. She was fine with it after that.

To ask what's so great about being sober

I’ve been sober/teetotal all my life and can’t see what’s so great about drinking.

6.5k deaths each year due to drunk drivers, I resent them for making me worry when I drive.

I drink quite regularly - around 1.5 bottles a week over 4 or 5 days. I sleep fine, don't get hangovers and enjoy it - I have stopped before for a month before to see if it made a difference, and then again when training for a marathon for 2 months and zero difference to mood/sleep/weight/anything else so I won't do that again!

I enjoy a drink at home, I don't drink drive.