Anyone gone teetotal after heavy drinking..if so how did you do it and for how long have you kept it up ??

[no1andno2]

Anyone ? I need some help and fast..........

I'm really twitchy tonight. DH was going to be away in which case I'm sure my resolve would have slipped. But he's here and will be hogging the PC the rest of the night to watch the footie. So I'm having a glass of lemonade and hoping I feel better after dinner.

Still sleeping OK - and i got a lovely cuddle all night which is rare. I guess stinking of wine and probably snoring puts DH off the idea generally.

Maybe TMI, but I have certainly noticed the change in my wee! Nearly clear which i guess is as it is supposed to be! I have been drinking lots of water too though.

There's an article in Good Housekeeping this month about middle-aged women and alcohol. It's quite interesting. It's a good time to either get the booze under control or become a raging alchoholic. I think it's very easy to slide into the habit of drinking, then veer towards dependency.

There is a lot of guilt hanging in this thread. That this thread is here is something to be proud of, and that we are taking action of one sort or another is positive.

I expect that some of us may stop drinking altogether, and some won't. Whatever, it is very important that alcohol loses its power. It's just a thing. There is a big difference between having a strong abusive relationship with booze and just knowing it. It's the difference between knowing a wife batterer and being the wife involved.

F2B, it WAS me who said that - although I nicked it off Allen Carr talking about why he never ran out of cigarettes and so could honestly say he would only smoke his chosen brand. Same strategy, though - and the same self-deception. Not judging you - I know I've been there and also deceived myself in a hundred other ways in my time.

1&2 - I am in Peckham. I attribute my continueed longevity to my sobriety ...

hi all,
i've been battling with the booze for about 15 years now, with time off for pregnancy and breastfeeding!
i currently drink about 30 units a week - on a good week its 20,on a bad its 40. this is much better than pre-children: then i was more like 70 units a week, a bottle of wine a night and a bit more at weekends.
so now i have about 3 or 4 nights off.but i still lose a day a week to a hangover, i suffer memory loss from binge drinking, i take stupid risks: like cycling home completely twatted.
sometimes i think just giving up would be less hard than cutting down. but that thought terrifies me! and yes, just read allan carr's book. hasn't put me off.
not drinking tonight, i don't feel a desperate need to drink every night. but heres my big worry:
i've drunk since i was 15, and ALWAYS have had sex when drunk or hungover. so for 20 yrs i've connected the two. i don't really know how to be sexual without booze. even if its just half a bottle of wine to relax me, i associate the two so closely.
i worry not only that my partner and i will suffer if i stop drinking, but we have an open relationship and i have another lover- who is a massively heavy drinker, indeed, he's more like my drinking buddy in some ways-and future involvements.
has anyone else faced this dilemma?!
also,my plan for now is at least 2 weeks booze free, so will use this thread to support me through that....if thats okay?
thanks!

hi maebee and come in and join the gang. I understand and sympathise with your dilemma. Im there a bit too. I have been far less interested in bedroom antics in the last month since I cut down my drinking.

To be honest 30 units a week is not too bad. But you dont spread it out and thats why you have a hangover etc. I too am like that as I stck to the weekends. Eventually I want to reduce that as well.

I did 2 weeks booze free at the beginning so I am right behind you.

keep posting. How hav eyou done tonight ?

Welcome, MaeBee.

How's everyone doing tonight?

About to go to bed here after DH finishes watching Fantastic Four .

Didn't do well last night - drank rather less than I would have before but not pleased with self. On the upside, I don't feel bad this morning but i do feel a bit disappointed with myself. Still, onwards and upwards, eh? How's everyone else doing?

It's good see all the new "joiners"! bella, I wouldn't dwell on feeling bad, maybe use it as a positive thing tonight - "I won't have any as it has made me disappointed with myself."

For me the big thing is that I told my DH that I would NOT drink in the week. I know he has been concerned for ages, so now I feel that no matter how much I want to, I don't want to disappoint him.

On one hand this is good, as I've done 8 alcohol free nights out of 11. I certainly have not done that EVER since I was pregnant and dd is 5 next week. And for that i am very chuffed with myself.

On the other hand, I don't think I am as strongly motivated by not letting MYSELF down. Hence if DH went off with work and felt tempted, I'm not sure what i would do. Hopefully he'll be staying home for at least another couple of weeks. I need to work on this.

Keep going!

I'm still reading posts here as well.
Been pretty good this week 2 nights off and only 1 glass off wine last night.
One of the things that has really taken me a while to get my head round is when you drink, it's fine to have a couple glasses every other night.
I started by not drinking in week but then used my units at weekend...I have since learn't that it takes the liver 48hrs to get rid of toxins and can only really manage 2 units at a time....a nurse told me that. Whether that is perfectly true I don't know, but it kind of made sense.
This is not to say I am Miss Goody Two Shoes...but most of the time...apart from when we have visitors or go out...(which since kids came along isn't much) I do try to stick to this...mainly because it made sense.
I can really truely say that once you break the habit of drinking every night it really does get easier..especially if your cutting down, it doesn't feel so pressured. Last year if I had made the goal to give up...I would have lost at the first hurdle...thats just me...I can't cope with unrealstic goals...it's so depressing when you fail.
Anyway...looks like we are all staying on the right tracks...jumping back on if we've had a bad day etc etc.
I wish I'd had this thread last year!

MaeBee

Welcome to thread. I identified a lot with your problems.

The good news about the sex thing - the first time you try sex sober it is terrifying but that soon goes and the sex is much better (TMI?) without it - unless, of course, you've been wearing beer goggles and find you don't actually fancy your partner when you're sober!

For me, stopping altogether was, initially, literally unimaginable - but that's what I did and, what do you know, it really was much easier than cutting down, with the ongoing support and encouragement of like-minded individuals who'd been there themselves and knew what they were talking about.

Re units - I don't wish to question your judgement but, given your history, 30 units per week shouldn't be having that effect unless you drink them all in one night or are a mere slip of a girl. When you tell a doctor how much you drink, apparently they automatically double it to balance out the patient's "optimism". Are you sure you haven't under-counted? A bottle of wine is about 10 units as a rough guide, I think - the "seven units in a bottle" thing is really only if you drink Beaujolais Nouveau exclusively, as it's based on 10% ABV and most normal wines are up around 13%.

hello again!
man; no, i'm dead accurate with my counting units, if anything i veer on the side of over counting in order to punish myself further! i do assume a bottle of wine is 10, so half a bottle is 5 units etc. i think you hit the nail on the head with the doing them all at once. i have about 3 nights a week where i overbooze, the rest i dont drink at all. my problem is once i start, if i can access more (we dont have it in the house generally) then i just carry on. and if i've had one of those 15 units a night nights my hangover lasts two days and my guilt even longer!

i went to the doctor about 6 years ago when i was drinking double what i drink now, and he wrote that i was a chronic alcoholic. i was furious, that seemed a really negative label! especially for a bottle of wine a night. and i certainly never had withdrawal symptoms or physical dependency.

so my problem now is always just battling to control it. i'm scared of creeping back up to 70. i know that 35+ units a week is considered the danger zone for most women, so if i go over that i get frightened.

my partner doesn't want me to stop, just cut down, and just be able to get drunk....without getting to the level i get which is slurring, memory loss, etc etc. sometimes i'm fine, i can be like a 'normal' drunk, and i find it easy to do half a bottle on a night in too, but i usually match pint to pint anyone i'm with, and i don't have the 'stop' that other people have.

as drinkers go, i'm relatively functional, but i do put myself at risk (eg cycling home when i can barely walk etc), and i do worry about my health. and it is embarassing. i came on to someone entirely inappropriate last saturday! he's in a monogamous relationship and is best friends with my london lover. we both thought it was funny in the morning, and theres no harm done, but i don't even fancy him, why did i do that?!?

last night without a drink was easy, tonight will be too, its when it gets to day 3 i start to get edgy!!

its not so much the actual sex i'm scared of sober, but mostly i just don't want sex unless i'm drunk.

For some people, though, it doesn't work to cut down. For others it does.

It's a different journey for everyone.

Glad you found us, Mae!

Are you actually more bothered about whether the doctor's label is negative or whether there is any truth in it?

I'm afraid that a hangover IS withdrawal symptoms, so you've had those whether you like it or not. Also, sorry to prick your bubble further, but 35 units+ is the danger zone for MEN - for women I think it's 21, though I could be wrong on the exact number.

It's very difficult to diagnose someone as an alcoholic, be that acute or chronic, and more to the point it is not worth it because, unless they agree with the diagnosis, they will not change, and denial is very strong in many problem drinkers.

A lot of what you say about the effect drinking has on your life - especially the bit about being largely functional but not having an off switch - sound very familiar to me. I found that, for me, the right solution was to stop drinking. It was very scary before I did it but my life is fantastic and my worst days now are better than my best days then.

When I was drinking I thought I was very good at holding my drink.

I now realise that I was just very good at staying vertical.

How about seeing a different GP or perhaps a private consultant about having a health check and bloods done, MaeBee? That could help your mindset.

I also thought I was good at holding my drink and because I held down jobs and never got into any sort of trouble with the law or that because of my drinking (I was never, for example, violent), that I was doing okay.

I had to have the effects of my boozing really hit me in the face before enough was just enough and I wanted to live, no matter how I had to change my life, because the life I was leading was killing me fast.

Glad you found us!

I think it rather depends on how old you are. I do not think that 15 units is a lot of alcohol to drink over the course of a boozy day with friends. It's not such a good idea to do it all the time.

What the experts think about the so called limits is that about 14 units a week will not do much harm to most people. It's a wild guess, but seems to be increasingly advertised as a fact.

Doctors also do not know who will become ill through alcohol and who wont.

I've been really cross with my h because he hasn't been doing what he said he was doing. He's been pissing around procrastinating. I'm also really fed up with my bloody family and not really being able to cut myself off properly. It's very difficult talking to other family members about them. I feel that I will not really be believed, that I am part of the ghastly dysfunction, and that really I am past it. It makes me very sad and angry that I have spent my life just surviving, being unable to fit in and feeling terrified of people because of things that were not my fault, and now I wonder if I am too old to really do anything about it. I try to tell myself it is possible to start again, but I'm not sure I really believe it.

I think most doctors - and, for that matter, most drinkers who have passed their 25th birthday - would say that 15 units in one day really is quite a lot, in the sense that you will definitely pay for it the next day.

Also, while you have a point about numbers of units being largely guesswork, I think it is a bit misleading to say that "Doctors also do not know who will become ill through alcohol and who wont." around the 14-24 unit range it probably is quite hit and miss and genetics will play a big part. I think your chances of drinking, say, 40-70 units a week for any period of time without that taking a toll physically, mentally and emotionally are minuscule - even ignoring all the "incidental" damage (fights, mental illness, suicide, trips, slips and falls, house fires ...)

All in favour of a balanced approach to questions of drinking - and, certainly, government scare tactics help no one - but let's not lull each other into a false sense of security either, eh?

interestingly I was talking with a GP this am who is burying his afther this afternoon at the age of 88. he somked 40 a day and drank a bottle of wine a day for 74 years!

It was a twisted hernia that finished him off and he even got the paramedic to stop the ambulance on the way to hospital for a fag!...........

i think part of the problem, and what i'm worried about, is i don't fancy my partner if i'm not at least a bit drunk.
i feel far too 'in charge' in my house, and the weight of responsibility def gets in the way of my sex drive.
also, my aforementioned sex drive used to be sky high, and is now very low.
as i write this, i do realise this is something of a situation i need to somehow sort out,and just getting pissed every week isn't a very sustainable solution!
hows everyone else doing tonight?

well this thread has now scared the s* out of me. I guess I've been in somewhat denial. I have been polishing off give or take 8 unit/night for the past few years. I've been working on 7 units/bottle so majorly underestimating my units

I was already feeling disappointed with myself as last night dh came home and poured a glass. I stuck with water but by the time he was on his third I poured 1/2 glass to drink with my dinner. I was feeling mixed - disappointed that I'd caved in but good I'd only had 1/2 (which is hard) but now having read how many units I've been putting away I'm convinced I've done damage etc etc.............

It would be so much easier if he would give up as well but he probably drinks half of what I do and is 3 times the size so not an issue.

oh another thought I would never have more than a bottle in one sitting - I don't know is that a good thought or not????

Where were all these men who are into wine back when I was drinking it like water?

DH is a beer-once-a-year type (usually New Year's), when it's usually two cans of lager and a dram for the bells.

lol expat I wished he'd stick to beer then I just wouldn't buy any. It's a 20 min car drive to the mearest shops so I'd be sorted but he loves (like me) really heavy reds.

It's interesting that you only fancy your dp when you're drinking, MB. I find the opposite! I don't find alcohol actually enhances anything apart from drunkeness.

I find that drinking too much leads to the most awful remorse, regardless of whether or not it is justified.

What kind of false sense of security is the unknown?

As I've written already, I think it's really important to look at what is driving the drinking as well as cutting down. Alcohol can be like a friend you don't really like. Perhaps we hang out with people we don't really like when we are lonely.

Anyway, nothing to drink tonight but tea. Yum yum yum

I have been teetotal for about 6 years now after my digestive system gave up processing alcohol. Took a good many weeks before I saw my life really change - for the better! I discovered Sunday mornings, for a start. I did stop hanging around with one friend who seemed interested in just drinking and picking up random guys as a result and once sober, realised didn't have much in common actually. Instead, started spending more time with other friends who didn't usually drink so much and went out on weekend mornings - as no hangovers, spent a lot of time chatting in starbucks/costa coffee instead of the pub. That way not tempted. I still enjoy going to bars and pubs, but am more fussy with the environment and prefer to go for something to eat. Stick with it and you'll find you feel sooo much better quickly.

i think my main triggers are about pressure and responsibility. so, i just raised a thorny issue with dp about taking our little one to the dentist. he promised he'd take him for the first trip, and i promised not to nag him...if he did it by the end of feb.he hasn't. and so i raised it. and he got all bolshy, doing this stupid teenage sarcastic 'sorry', whilst asking me why i always ruin it for him when he's having a nice time.
and i thought, god i want a drink. i want not to be in charge! i try to delegate one of the childcare duties (i work, he doesn't, so he has more time with our child but i do all the decisioning around it and things like that).
but i didn't. but i feel cross still, and distant from him. and that if i had some drink i would stop feeling like the boss of just about everything. when i'm pissed, he has to look after ME!