Is my dh being unreasonable to ask me to stop drinking wine?

[40thisisit]

I won't pretend that I don't love white wine and yes on occasion may drink too much. But it's my only vice in life. I work hard during the week (am a chemistry teacher), run twice a week, eat healthily and also have 3 dd's to look after. I see my wine time at weekends and school holidays as a little time for me to relax. He thinks I'm shortening my life and has said he's going to give up wine and wants me to join him. AIBU to tell him to go whistle???

It's not just the amount overall, it's that you're drinking it in two big binges. It's actually much worse for your liver and body than if you drank the same two bottles spread over the week.

Not to mention your relationships. In all honesty, you're probably a bit drunk every single Friday and Saturday night - making you (a) not the best company and (b) presumably leaving any jobs or general parenting and family stuff to your DH.

Giving up altogether is a bit harsh but cutting down sounds pretty reasonable.

I totally understand you want to relax with such a busy life, and am a fan of wine in general. A bottle of wine in a night is a lot though - both for health and any negative impact on behaviour (is that relevant?). For what it's worth if my dH was drinking that, I'd find it upsetting, and I'd say something

The AA define a drink problem not by the amount, frequency, pattern, etc - but by how your behaviour when drunk AND hungover impacts on those around you.....your dh is telling you it is an issue...you are definitely drunk if you have a bottle of wine in one go....maybe not troublingly so eg vomming in the gutter, picking a fight with a bouncer etc - but you will be heavy eyed, half asleep, slurrying if you even bother to speak....tedious company probably and not present practically or emotionally for those few hours on Fri and Sat night....then tired, grumpy, flat & dull when hungover all the next day......cut down to half a bottle I do that - and I am aware that is too much (I get in the state I have described) so I am looking to cut down more.....more for being robbed of my limited energy for the whole of the next day which is a big price to pay for the 2 hrs of pissed relaxation

I've had 2 bottles tonight. I have no DC and drink if I feel like it. So long as you aren't in charge of kids, about to drive, operate machinery or do anything daft then they can swivel on it. My DP has his vices, I have mine. We settle on a comfortable middle where we are both fine so long as nobodies health is at risk.

but you will be heavy eyed, half asleep, slurrying if you even bother to speak....tedious company probably and not present practically or emotionally for those few hours on Fri and Sat night....then tired, grumpy, flat & dull when hungover all the next day.

Depends on tolerance. Plenty of people can drink a bottle of wine and not be as described above, especially if they do it on a regular basis.

I'm curious OP if you drink every night during the holidays? That would be too much by anyone's standards.

Seems quite abstemious to me tbh!

I'm also a teacher.

Have, today, drunk shedloads - a bottle of beer with lunch out with the dc, 3 glasses of wine with dh in the pub this afternoon, 4 more glasses of wine at a gig this evening, & am relaxing with another bottle of wine since returning - lie in in the morning, lovely!

Planning a big walk with dh & kids at 9am tomorrow. I'll be a bit headachey but enjoy the sea air & exercise once I get out there. I certainly won't be adversely affected all day.

we're at a music festival for the weekend, so tomorrow I won't drink in the day - busy doing stuff with kids - but will certainly put away at least a bottle of wine in the evening & the same again on Saturday night.

I lay off the booze during the week in term time, & enjoy relaxing with rather a lot of drink in the holidays when I have a few precious evenings of not working & having the odd lazy morning.

My dh has been teetotal for 9 years. He wouldn't dream of telling me to not put away a bottle of plonk in front of Emmerdale catch up on a Friday night, any more than I'd tell him off for his Friday night Xbox marathon. These are our separate ways to unwind & we give each other that space.

I'd definitely be telling him to whistle.

Sheesh, I would really feel that next day! And I like a drink or two - socially. It's not just while you're drinking, it's the next day too that you are affected. I'd be having words with dh if he was putting that much away. If we drink at home we will usually hate half to a bottle between us.

But then I guess we are both complete lightweights....!

Have not hate.

And sorry if I sounded sanctimonious. FWIW I have probably been through phases of drinking the amounts you're describing, but being in a space now where I only tend to drink socially I've found my tolerance has dropped so I find alcohol affects me far more.

I also haven't managed to 'do' still white wine for several years. I always found it to be a killer. (Shudder)

Only on mn can drinking a bottle of wine in one go be seen as having a drinking problem.

I often wonder if some of you live in a completely different universe to me....

Drinking that much alcohol in such a short space of time, is binge drinking. Binge drinking is forcing your liver to do too much in not enough time. If this pattern of drinking continues, then yes you are shortening your life expectancy.

Is not being able to restrict yourself to one or two glasses, the real reason for not drinking wine during the week?

Be honest about your relationship
with alcohol? The language you use to justify your alcohol intake is a clue. I think your defensiveness stems from your fear that changing your behaviour might expose your dependancy.

Only on mn can drinking a bottle of wine in one go be seen as having a drinking problem.

Regularly drinking two bottles of wine on two consecutive days is not just a MN problem, it's also a liver problem.

I drink two bottles of red wine spread over a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night period. My partner doesn't drink either. My drinking is spread out over 5 hours per night, which works out around 3 glasses. I used to feel my partner was judging me too, but I am the one who instigates a healthy diet and exercise every day - while he would rather eat junk food at any given opportunity and says he is too tired to exercise. On a Saturday morning I run round the park and Sunday mornings do an intensive pilates class. The alcohol does not hinder my activities over the weekend whatsoever, in fact because of my partners poor diet choices he is generally the one tired, sleeping in, and sat watching TV in the daytime, while I am cleaning the house, tidying up and keeping myself active and busy. I don't see drinking the wine as having a alcohol problem at all, I drink a beautiful red wine and have never experienced a hangover like I used to back in the day!

Those who have alcohol problems are the last to know! So plenty of deniers when it comes to this sort of thing.

For the last 7 years or so (co-incidentally the length of my teaching career!) I've been a bottle of wine a night person. Crap £4/bottle wine. I'd drink the bottle over the course of about 5 hours and wouldn't be drunk but would be relaxed and my mind would switch off. Socially I can drink normally, or not at all, but drinking at home to switch off was becoming a problem. I noticed that when work was going badly, I'd sometimes crack into the second bottle .

In the last couple of months though, I've seen so many problems with this and had to make some alterations. a) I can't lose weight - due to the wine itself and the snacking that ensues. b) I don't get household jobs done - when I have wine open I just want to sit and chill, not do the hoovering, etc. c) I was feeling completely lacking in energy d) It was skinting me and has seriously slowed down my effort to become debt free. e) Sitting in drinking is deeply dull and not going to help me find friends or get hobbies. (I live alone and have no real friends or family nearby)

The stupid thing is, toward the end of the month when I was skint, I wouldn't drink and would always remark on how healthy I felt upon waking. In the evenings I got stuff done! But as soon as I got paid I'd stock up and the cycle would repeat.

I'm now down to 3 bottles a week as opposed to seven and am hoping to take this down even further. I know this is a shocking amount to many on here, but for me those 4 booze-free days make a huge difference. I'm starting Slimming World tomorrow and joining gym today (payday) so hopefully this will be a motivator to really make an effort. I do love social drinking and (if I ever acquire some friends!) would still love the odd all-day session in the beer garden in Summer hols, or whatever, but for me, solo drinking is out.

Never, ever post about alcohol consumption on MN, OP. It's like the Temperance League on here.

Actually, I agree, Erbalunga. And there are too many people posting things as fact when they're actually making biiig generalizations.

For example, but you will be heavy eyed, half asleep, slurrying if you even bother to speak....tedious company probably and not present practically or emotionally for those few hours on Fri and Sat night....then tired, grumpy, flat & dull when hungover all the next day

While this might indeed be true for some, if you're large in size and have a high tolerance it's perfectly possible to present as totally normal after a bottle of wine. When people post generalisations, you just don't relate to it. I think posting on MN asking for alcohol reduction help is not always a good idea and the best support comes from people who have conquered alcohol themselves.

On MN, you are talking to a cross-section of the population, some very well informed on medical matters. I agree that does not tend to normalise heavy drinking.

Having no particular drunkenness or hangover from drinking a whole bottle is not a good sign, no matter how big you are. High tolerance is associated with both dependency and damage. Most people are not outliers.

There are two lovely long-running threads on MN supporting those cutting down or cutting out.

Oh don't get me wrong - I don't think heavy drinking should be normalised. I just think sometimes people post things as fact that can isolate someone who might be needing support and understanding. And yes, those threads are fantastic.

Trojan

I was thinking the same. People who routinely drink heavily don't necessarily suffer hangovers, or feel themselves to be drunk.

Two bottles in two days is binge drinking, don't let defensiveness be an excuse not to be honest with yourself.

Those of you saying the government's guidelines on sensible drinking were plucked from the air are wrong, as far as I can make out. I found this document after a few seconds of googling: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsctech/1536/1536.pdf. It's the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Alcohol guidelines, published in 2012.

Key points in there:

Every developed country has similar guidelines. We fall roughly in the middle.

The Royal Colleges of Physicians, GPs and Psychiatrists support the guidelines.

There is a lot of scientific evidence of what alcohol does to the body. Possibly what people are thinking of is that the guidelines are a compromise between what doctors would like and what the government thinks people will accept. Lobbying by the drinks industry will be factor too.

Another point: a whole bottle of wine contains a lot of calories. Looking at the BBC news website today, it has figures about this. 750ml bottle - 8% alcohol by volume, 510 calories; 14% by volume, 690 calories.

We moved over to using small wineglasses rather than big ones and still only half-filling them. It's surprisingly effective in helping to keep consumption down. Psychologically I feel I am still having a glass of wine, even if the amount is far smaller.

I do think a lot of regular drinkers are completely unaware of the effect the alcohol is having on them. This must be especially so if the people you live with are drinking in a similar way.

And finally - every time this subject comes up, some posters rush in to say 'Only on MN would people say that's too much!' Really? There are millions of people in the UK who don't drink alcohol at all or only very occasionally. The Office of National Statistics says <a class="break-all" href="//%27www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_338863.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In 2012 58% of adults in Great Britain (GB) drank alcohol in the week before being interviewed' and this is lower than the previous survey. That's probably got something to do with the recession, the smoking ban and the growth in the number of Muslims in the UK, but maybe the health message is getting through too.

If it was the other way around and you were uncomfortable with his drinking you might come up with a plan to give up drink so he would join you. He is obviously worried so that is reason enough to listen to him . Thats what you would like if it was the other way around. Also if you ever have an emergency at the weekend with one of your children you are in no fit state to take over drive to a hospital whatever. Is needed. Alcohol is a problem if the person you are in relationship with finds it a problem . l would join him see how it goes. You might have the next morn you feel much better.

Two bottles in two days is binge drinking, don't let defensiveness be an excuse not to be honest with yourself.

^ this totally, as I said up thread people can be very (all be it unwittingly) dishonest, even to themselves, about how much alcohol they consume. It's the same with food.

Defensiveness can be seen in posts where someone tries to justify their excess drinking, or proclaim anyone on MN says a bottle of wine a night is excessive as a Calvanistic Methodist or a member of the League of the Cross or proclaim medical research as nonsense or over the top.

It's a very excessive amount and I wouldn't live with a partner that spent the weekends drunk and unable to cater for our children in the event of an emergency. A one off yes but a bare minimum of 104 bottles a years without counting those consumed in the thirteen weeks school holidays is an immense amount.