I feel proud of not drinking for a night - does that mean I’m an alcoholic

[cbr333]

I have posted here before about trying to reduce my alcohol intake. I have it all together on the face of it but have decided to try and do dry June as I have been drinking one or two glasses of wine every night and more at the weekends. Doesn’t impact my day-to-day but I definitely don't feel fresh in the mornings.

I managed last night and feel confident I can do the same tonight, but the sense of achievement I’m feeling about a single day off wine is a bad sign isn’t it.

I feel like I’ve sleep-walked into a problem and because it’s lovely cote de Provence rose and I’m drinking it alongside perello olives and Torres crisps that it’s somehow not an addiction but just a mum of youngish children having some sort of reward.

I feel a bit ashamed to be honest.

Were you a wine drinker? I’m ashamed of how drunk I’ve been on occasion whilst the children are running around playing. It’s all wrapped up in ‘look how happy the kids are playing together, making memories’, but if something went wrong and we’d had to take
them to hospital, well I can’t even think about it.

Well done on your 3rd day without alcohol. Particularly as you went for lunch with your friend.

It's not self-indulgent at all.
Keep posting and we'll be happy to support you.

It’s very easy to creep up on you. I barely drank for years after binge drinking through my 20s.

Then in the last 2/3 years post Covid I realised my drinking had ramped up. It was definitely habit but thankfully I’m basically a child and a lemonade in a wine glass was a perfectly adequate substitute.

Well done for recognising the issue - sounds like you’re doing great 👏🏽

I was just going to suggest these but mine are called Skip - same thing I think, 99p a can from home bargains. They genuinely make me feel relaxed (probably a placebo but who cares if it works) and they taste nice especially with ice and a sprig of mint and a couple of raspberries.

I will try that, thank you! I have been drinking an alcohol-free cider called Galipette. Basically appletiser!

Sounds nice though.

There's a lot of decent alcohol free stuff around now. I can barely tell the difference between taste with things like Guinness and Heineken (for world cup watching purposes), the Kylie AF prosecco is decent as well imo, and some of the white wines are ok especially with ice and fizzy water to make a spritzer. Red wine is more difficult to replicate - Waitrose sells one by Thomson and Scott that's pretty good but it's a tenner a bottle.

Well done on making the change. I agree with pps that what you call yourself doesn't really matter - it's what you do that counts. Very easy for a glass to become two, to become just one more, to become might as well finish this off ... Nobody ever started their drinking career getting hammered every day/night, they all lead into it gradually. I think it's great that you've realised you're doing something that you don't really want to, and exploring how to not do it.

Alcoholism can be a very narrow lens to look at having a dependancy on alcohol through, people can see the more extreme stage of being dependent (for eg unable to get through the day without drinking) as an independent condition and not see that there are so many variants of problematic drinking that can all escalate (or are actually worse than the person describing their own problem can admit to themselves). Most people who end up completely dependent on alcohol got there in stages as their tolerance of alcohol increased, anyone who drinks a half bottle of rose daily and several bottles at the weekend and is lazer focussed on getting to 7.30 for a drink is at risk. (it can and does happen to anyone). You are doing a very good thing for yourself and your family but don't be afraid to look for proper structured help and guidance to help you through the physical and mental dependence and give you tools to keep going

I have frozen raspberries in, just for that purpose!

Surely if you were an alcoholic you'd be dependent on drinking - you wouldn't be able to function without it?

An manager I knew couldn't function until he'd had a couple of whiskies in the morning (before work). He never appeared to be actually drunk - and I think that's alcoholism, isn't it? You need the booze to be 'normal'? He topped up at lunchtime too.

I speak as someone who can't function without my morning caffeine - but I guess that's a lot less of a problem healthwise.

My thoughts towards alcohol during the week are as follows: wake up and think ugh, I feel a bit fuzzy and groggy I won’t drink tonight, at 7pm when I’ve got my youngest down, oh I feel fine now I’ll just have a drink whilst I cook dinner, then I top it up to eat and then again to watch tv. So it’s usually half a bottle. Doom scroll on social media for half and hour then go to bed a bit too late and repeat the next day. So it’s not that I’m constantly thinking about it all day, there are just definite trigger points and it’s habitual.

I think it’s a problem. It’s not an addiction as such but it’s disordered drinking.

It’s definitely behaviour of an acoholic, two glasses a night is that behaviour ignore others saying it’s not. Well done on breaking the habit, i’m not usually proud of strangers but I am with you!

Clinicians do not actually use the term "alcoholism" any more it is now Alcohol Use Dissorder. There are different degrees and types of dependence. It does not sound as though you are chemically dependant on alcohol, your need for it is probably psychological, as a habitual way of winding down after the daily grind.

No judgement from me for that. But drinking becomes high risk if you have more than 14 units per week for long periods of time according to NHS guidelines. You are consuming around 50.

It’s not bad, no. It’s great to feel proud that you can do it. But it’s the actual drinking too much that signals you have a drinking problem. It sounds like what you’re trying to do now is sabotage that and find an excuse why you will just find it hard and should just go back to drinking because you’re ashamed that you feel this way.

It’s fab you’re having a break. Keep going. I cannot recommend enough This Naked Mind or doing the Bee Sober 30 day experiment along with it. It really does get better so keep going. I stopped drinking over 3 years ago (I was drinking A LOT more than you). It’s wonderful. I truly do not ever think about it and never wish to go back to those days. It’s very freeing and life is so much easier now.

I think I had worked it out to be 40-45 all things considered which is bad!

Yes, it would depend on the alcohol volume of the wine, size of glasses and if you are accurately counting what you drink.

I doubt if you have done any damage that is not reversible and habits can be changed.

Try to create a new habit. So I tended to start drinking after I collected the kids from school and knew I was home for the evening, no errands or clubs to run around to. So I started a 5pm AF drink routine and I put on a podcast (for me I listened to sobriety podcasts, you may feel freaked out at the thought of listening to a podcast about sobriety but they really are aimed at drinkers like you, mums indulging in too much wine, not homeless alcoholics in the gutter, One for the Road and Sober Awkward are both very good).

Anyway, I started a new habit. It doesn’t have to be an AF alcoholic drink. Don’t just go out buying AF gins and stuff. Have a kombucha, have a tonic with lots of garnishes, make yourself a nice iced tea with all sorts of of fruit in it, a hot chocolate on a rainy afternoon, etc. Also eat earlier and go to bed earlier. Once I stopped drinking, I loved climbing into bed earlier with a book and a herbal tea. Even if you were ‘only’ having 1-2 glasses during the week, that is enough to completely wreck your sleep. You can start catching up again. In bed, herbal tea, book or a series to watch. It’s lovely.

Thank you - I have been getting into bed and watching Off Campus which feels really indulgent to be awake and not squiffy and enjoying relaxation time.

with the weather as rubbish as it is this week I could even have a bath!

Really great suggestions, thank you.

@cbr333feel free to join us here if you want to continue being sober and wanting support- we are a lovely lot https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/5515037-calling-time-on-wine-the-next-100-days-after-the-first-100-day-reset-thread-3-continuing-to-support-and-navigate-together?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I found the same - the couple of glasses of wine a night became a habit. So easy to justify that I'd had a bad day. Or a good day. Or....

I got the drinkaware app and now I love seeing the drink free days. I usually have wine just Fri and sat nights now. Sometimes have a can of non alcoholic beer on a hot day. I definitely missed it at first but don't usually now. I just stopped buying it so couldn't drink extra.

Way too many people on this site measure problematic drinking by 'how you feel', 'if you get drunk', 'whether you can have a night off'. Your drinking is problematic if you exceed the guideline – false stop.

OP, someone could drink well within the recommended guideline and feel proud at having a whole week or month off – it's not a useful or meaningful gauge.

So many people get offended at the guideline as though they are some sort of moral judgements – it's not, it's a measure at which, statistically, drinking becomes harmful. That's it. If you are well exceeding that measure, then, statistically, you are likely experience problems – regardless of how you feel about it one way or another.

Way too many people on this site measure problematic drinking by 'how you feel', 'if you get drunk', 'whether you can have a night off'. Your drinking is problematic if you exceed the guideline – false stop

This ^
@Didimum is absolutely right; if you’re regularly exceeding the guideline
and having to make excuses why, you have a problem. Full stop. You’re kidding no one except yourself.

Be kind to yourself - you’ve done great starting to make a change x

This from Aldi is very good

Cooking dinner and I really really really (really) want a glass of wine. Need to distract myself! Maybe because it’s nearly the weekend!?

If you really, really, really (really) need a wine then sorry but you are absolutely hooked. I was raised by a nightly wine drunk mum and it was horrible. It also absolutely ravaged her looks!