How much do you drink? Honestly!

[Starlight1984]

And yes, yes I know there is an "alcohol support" section of MN but this isn't for help or advice or anything other than curiosity!

Just been reading on another thread about what people do and don't do which others would find unusual and a LOT of the posts include people saying they don't drink alcohol which I find insane as pretty much everyone I know drinks to some degree!

Anyway I'll start, I don't (or try not to!) drink from Mon - Thurs but on average will have a bottle of wine on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. So 3 x bottles of wine a week. I know it's above the guidelines of "normal" drinking and know I need to cut down but it's something I genuinely enjoy. DH is the same. We never get drunk. We just slowly drink 3-4 glasses over the course of the evening (from about 6pm to 11ish) whilst making dinner, sitting down to eat, watching a film / reading a book... It's just something that helps us to unwind after a busy week!

So for AIBU

YABU - No thanks, would rather have a cup of tea.
YANBU - Pour me a large one!

I mean, yea, it doesn't do you much good. That said I've always been in the 'I could get hit by a bus tomorrow' camp.
It's probably not the best attitude, but after seeing two people close to me die from cancer/heart attacks who seemed like the healthiest people going, I've been a bit more 'fuck it' lately.

Rarely, I’m the only adult in my household with 2 kids and I don’t drink when I have them (which is most of the time) in case something happened and I had to get in the car. Also I live quite rurally so public transport isn’t great, so I’m always in the car! I will have a drink very occasionally when I’m with friends and without the children but that’s not very often.

I drink half a bottle to a bottle every night with perhaps one day break in the week, maybe two. I know it’s way over what I should be having but I work a stressful job which has driven me to it.

Zero, mounjaro put paid to it, 60lbs down and I don't want to drink again, it's not a woman's friend post menopause, I have realised how much people drink to socialise though and not drinking around people who do is not fun, about 3 drinks in I can't bear it, so annoying when you are not drinking, listening to the shite spouted by drinkers is painful.

I haven't read the 22 pages of replies but 3 bottles of wine a week is a massive amount.
More than 2 small glasses of wine a week significantly increases your cancer risk, especially breast cancer.
I don't drink at all now, it is poison unfortunately.

3 bottles of wine a week is not fine!

I drank heavily in my uni years and then maybe a bottle of wine over a weekend in my 20s. Early thirties I was having IVF and babies so I didn't drink at all then started on the wine again during the toddler years. I did go through a phase of having a glass of wine with tea each night but never more than one. These days (early 40s) I don't drink at home at all but will have a glass of wine maybe once on a weekend with food. One glass gives me a buzz, any more than that a headache!
I do have the occasional big night out with wine and cocktails but I never get drunk as it really affects my sleep and I can't cope with hangovers any more! I know a few friends who have totally given up the booze but equally know lots who drink lots!

I know. I sat next next to a man at a wedding recently and as we chatted I told him that I don't drink. He said: that's boring. And I just thought: you're boring. Just because you're pissed, you think you're amusing but you're a drunken bore. And I think that some people really think that drinking somehow gives them a sparkling personality. I'm not against people drinking and sometimes drunks can be funny, but mostly they're just boring and annoying. I actually dislike going to places where there will be loads of pissed up people.

I remember trying Chardonnay once to see what the fuss was (maybe back in the 90s when it became a thing?). I thought it was awful and never tried it again 😁 in fact there’s only been three times in my life when I had a glass of wine and I thought oh that’s nice (so rare that’s why can I still remember them). One was in a very nice restaurant and it was a Chablis, one was when I was a legal secretary and the lawyer brought in a bottle of champagne. It was really lovely, a deep golden colour and tasted quite toasty (no idea which Champagne) and the third was a Merlot from Waitrose. I bought other Merlots to try and find it but they all tasted like vinegar.

@BunnyLake sounds like Bollinger. Wonderful and the only champagne I enjoy. There seems to be a lot of judgement on threads like this. Either for drinking or not drinking. What I would say is if you drink a small amount, it’s no more risky than any other unhealthy habit. Even sitting down for too long watching a film increases risk to your health. I don’t get why drinkers judge non drinkers-maybe it’s repressed guilt-they’ll feel better if everyone is the same as them. For large drinkers-maybe look at cutting down as risk does go up-at lower levels than the suggested 14 units a week. Which is less than a bottle and a half of wine.

According to the drinkless app, which is based on the alcohol in England Survey, running for many years, surveying 90k people monthly and anonymously -https://www.alcoholinengland.info/graphs/monthly-tracking-kpi - 13 out of 20 people (drinkers and non drinkers) drink once a week or less, while for drinkers it’s 10 out of 20 that drink once a week or less. It doesn’t feel like that prob because drinking is highly visible both in person (walk through London or any other city post work) or advertising/ media

Not enough.
Certainly not as much as I did 20 years ago.
Love my wine but have hugely cut back.
Would have zero difficulty putting a bottle away still.
Most of my very MC friends drink more at home than I do.
All around 60.
I cut back a year ago and dropped 25lbs through this, less bread, butter etc.
I am happy with the changes.

Bollinger’s probably right as they were wealthy lawyers lol, it definitely wasn’t a supermarket branded one.

I admit I don’t get the love for wine (or spirits) as I just think they taste horrible (in the same way a ten year old would), apart from those three individual exceptions. Wine tastes like vinegar, spirits taste like paint stripper (I’d imagine) and more than one small beer is too bloaty.

Now if I was to have a supply of Bollinger maybe I’d change my mind 😁

Well people like all different things! And yes, everyone's taste buds are different. I don't understand people who say they like oysters (make me gag) or blue cheese (tastes like what sweaty feet smell like) but clearly people do enjoy them otherwise they wouldn't be sold!

I think there are some food and drinks which are more divisive than others though. Red wine, coffee, blue cheese, seafood, truffle probably being the ones that spring to mind.

Absolutely this.
I can understand not liking oysters (although, factually, they are delicious) but the blue cheese thing I feel I need to address. Have you tried a dry crumbly blue cheese? With a bit of sea salt sprinkled on top? I don’t like ‘sweaty’ blue cheeses but the crumbly sort is a whole different ball game.

That aside, I’ve been really surprised by the amount of posters on this thread who are teetotal. I really don’t think that’s in proportion with the general population of the U.K. Unless the drinking of myself, and many of those I know, is dragging the figures up for the U.K. Otherwise, why would there be whole aisles dedicated to alcohol in supermarkets?

I used to drink the same as you @Starlight1984 but perimenopause has given me wine headaches and reflux, so now I tend to have 1 bottle a week, with only 1-2 glasses a night. Sometimes will have more if I am out socially. Some weeks I have none at all.

But on average I am in the 1 bottle a week average now. I actually miss being able to drink more!

I have a half bottle of wine on each of Fri and Sat, nothing on Sunday. Monday to thurs I usually have either a gin and tonic or a small beer each night.
That's a typical week. Sometimes its less, sometimes more .

So probably less units than OP. I will tell the gp or nurse that I have 13 units per week though.

I can take or leave oysters, I think they're a (expensive) waste of time. I do like blue cheese in small amounts with fruit (and yes the dry crumbly kind - like a blue Cheshire - are nicer than the soft ones).

Like you I think the proportion of non- / very low level drinkers is higher here than across the population. But in fairness it is Mumsnet - and when you've got children to care for and a house to run you have less time for drinking, less money to spend on it, and less tolerance for hangovers in the morning. And of course the majority of posters are women (who generally drink less alcohol than men).

Everyone has an addiction they. don't admit to. What rubbish, I have a hiatus hernia and gut issues caused by previous abdominal surgery, I have to be extremely careful what I eat and drink..I'm booked for an endoscopy in 2 weeks, but at least I know I am doing all I can to prevent symptoms..

Usually one bottle over a weekend

Usually nothing Mon - Thurs.
Fri, Sat, Sun a G&T and two small glasses of wine.
Works out at 15 units so one over the guidelines.
Drink because I like the taste, don't drink to unwind or relax as fortunately my life is pretty stress free most of the time.

This is one of those things that I'd love to see some detailed statistics about. If there was a graph of "units consumed per week" on the x-axis and "number of people drinking that amount" on the y-axis you'd imagine it'd follow the normal distribution kind of shape. But I suspect you'd have a lot of people on the left end of the graph who drink little to nothing, a fair amount in the middle who drink an unremarkable amount and a relatively small number of people at the right who are having catastrophic amounts of booze.

I think it'd also vary based on age as when I (a gen-X'er) was growing up alcohol was rife in social situations but I have definitely noticed the difference in younger generations. I work at a university and they've closed down a couple of the bars because they simply weren't making enough money any more to justify them staying open.

Binge drinker here. Most of the time I don’t drink at all. But when I do drink I go a bit silly. I have no off switch. DSis and I go to as many concerts as we can and do our annual pilgrimage to Download festival. At DSis last BBQ I drank 6 cans of cider, 2 pints of snakebite and a few vodkas. DH was fuming because he was pissed and I was just a bit tipsy. He said there’s something wrong with me 😂😂

I started drinking when I was a teenager, and university until I left I was horrifically bad with binge drinking. I would just drink vodka all the time during the week as I was always out etc. I left and met my husband and even though he would drink socially aswell, neither of us were bothered at home. I then had my first daughter and found I’d occasionally get a bottle of wine and drink the entire thing, it would cycle like this over the years. I’d have periods where I wouldn’t drink at all and then others when I did. Socially I couldn’t stop once I started drinking, I’d be terrified of going out and around drink because I knew I genuinely just couldn’t stop at a responsible place. I’d say beginning of this year when I was deeply unhappy I used to order things like wine or beer on a shop and drink them whilst cooking tea etc, I didn’t get drunk just found it helped me to function doing the boring tasks. Didn’t realise at the time how much of a problem it really was because if I thought right I need to not do this now for abit, I would. In May I was diagnosed with ADHD after being on the waitlist for 3 years, and in June I started my medication, and in that time I’ve maybe had 6 drinks in total? Mostly a beer or glass of Prosecco, but always at a meal or family event and I’ve never finished the glass. Have absolutely no desire or craving for it anymore. I’ve also lost about 3 and a half stone, a lot of the weight was caused by binge eating but some was the alcohol. I think having researched heavily around ADHD I was self medicating with it. The dopamine I’d get from a drink and the calm feeling I got from it was what kept me doing it. Now I’m more balanced on my meds the need and craving to do it isn’t there. Crazy really, and I’m so happy to be diagnosed and medicated because I can see how it could have really spiralled out of control!

Honestly ! Too much … I’m surprised like you about the amount of 1 drink a year replies though . I probably get through 4/5 bottles of wine a week , it’s the only thing I drink, most week nights 2 glasses an evening (so 2 bottles during the week ) more close to a bottle a night Friday and Saturday especially if socialising. I’m aware it’s too much , I’m trying to drink less and have alcohol free nights , but after a day at work, household chores it’s just how I like to unwind ! I rarely get properly drunk 🥴 I’m not drinking to get smashed , I still do everything I need to do, it’s not affecting my ability to function I live and work a completely normal life but I’m pretty borderline wondering I lf I am a functioning alcoholic ?! My social circle and everyone we know is pretty much the same though so it’s very normalised I live in a climate where we get amazing summers , bbq and drinking by the pool , winters we have a basement bar (as does everyone we know ) - but would I like to cut down , yes