365 days without booze... join me?

[johnwilliams77]

olly22n said:

Oh wow!

Mega!

I have a stag do in september which will be tricky...

I have been on quite a few holidays without it. These were probably the hardest. New year was tough too, Christmas was a little tough but didn't feel like I was missing much and my first birthday since I was 15 with no booze. It gets easier with time.

If you can devote your time to any activity: gym, running, cycling, anything. It makes a whole lot more sense. After a few months it will become very normal.

I didn't suffer from any peer pressure fortunately (very little) and it wasn't hard to deal with. Most people think 'well done' for putting my mind to something and completing it.

[King Herald]

King Herald said:

I think I'm up to about three months dry now. Don't feel the need for it, unless I'm down our local watering hole with my bike and car buddies. Some beer always makes the evening flow smooth and easy, always feel a little 'surplus' if I'm sitting there drinking iced tea.......

Wife and daughter go away for three weeks soon, so I'm debating whether to have a few beers then, or whether to just stay off the juice.

Usual trouble will occur I fear, a couple of cold ones the first day, four the next day, and then 8 the day after, feeling good, doing well......then off down the big city and the go-go bars not long after that, 18 hours, crawl home at stupid o'clock.........

Think I'll stay dry.

Wife and daughter went away to the USA for three weeks. One night I popped over the road to see an English buddy who was visiting the place. He persuaded me to have a couple of beers, which turned into several more, and a couple of glasses of vodka orange.

I toddled off home about 1am, feeling pretty good, had a shower, got into bed.......then the inner demon took over and I decided it would be a good idea to go down the big city, to the gogo bar street. (I don't live in England) I drank beer, lots and lots of beer.

5pm the following afternoon I got a ride home, had a shower, fed the dogs, cleaned my teeth, and went back down the town.....sat in an afternoon bar, watching the world go by, then headed into the gogo bars

10pm is about the latest I can remember where I was, and I woke up the following morning, at home, feeling like an ebola victim. No idea what time I came home, or how.

A 48 hour session, after three months dry, and three days later I am still not feeling good.

[trackdemon]

Christ, that sounds bad. I recognize some of what you've mentioned, but have always been able to find the stop button, thank god. Good luck!

[King Herald]

I think something must have happened to make me go home, after some 36 hours on the lash, but no idea what.

I could do this quite easily 25 years ago, but not any more.

[grumbledoak]

At least you go off the rails in some style! Good effort.

I think it's pretty clear that one is too many. How you deal with that is your call.

[King Herald]

grumbledoak said:

At least you go off the rails in some style! Good effort.

This is where I live. You don't need much of a skill set to go crazy here.

http://www.balibago.com/nightlife.php

[6th Gear]

Watched this last night. Very dark.

Rain in My Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwv7Utcf-gM

Just day 3 for me. As they say, one day at a time.

[anonymous-user]

3 weeks for me, tough but feeling good.

[johnwilliams77]

The Spruce goose said:

3 weeks for me, tough but feeling good.

It just gets easier. Do you have something else to focus the mind? Sports?

[jmorgan]

Something I used to focus my mind, quite frankly, I want to live longer and not find myself going down the complete loss road and this was one of the things I had control over that will affect this.

[LordGrover]

The Spruce goose said:

3 weeks for me, tough but feeling good.

We appear to be in sync - three weeks yesterday for me too.

[jmorgan]

I bailed before drinkers nose (and cheeks) set in.

Although at Weddings, I thought Dad dancing was compulsory, half cut or not. The example needs to be set.

[The GMan]

It will be 9 weeks on Sunday since I last had an alcoholic drink.

I have been ill and stopped drinking when I started my medication for a DVT in my leg. I have not struggled giving up the drink as my mind has been on getting well and doing the right thing.

My concern now is though they are talking about maybe taking me off my medication early at the end of September and I'm honestly not looking forward to it. I don't want to go back to how much I use to drink as I'm starting to realise it was way to much. I feel now I have a reason why I'm not drinking but if I come off my medication that won't be there.

Bit of an odd situation but I'm determined not just to cut down on my drinking when I come off my medication but to give it up all together.

I've discussed this with my wife and she is fully supportive. I'm really enjoying no hangovers and what feels like more quality time with my family and I just need to make sure that is my focus and reason for not going back to the typical weekend binge drinker I had become.

Edited by The GMan on Thursday 11th August 22:12

[King Herald]

The GMan said:

Bit of an odd situation but I'm determined not just to cut down on my drinking when I come off my medication but to give it up all together.

I've discussed this with my wife and she is fully supportive. I'm really enjoying no hangovers and what feels like more quality time with my family and I just need to make sure that is my focus and reason for not going back to the typical weekend binge drinker I had become.

When I packed in drinking the first time, for 16 years, it worked so well because I WANTED to stop. But now I'm trying again I don't have that drive. I NEED to stop, because I am a bad drunk, but I don't actually want to this time. I like a few beers, but when you have a gluttonous brain like mine, a few beers is never enough.

[jonamv8]

King Herald said:

The GMan said:

Bit of an odd situation but I'm determined not just to cut down on my drinking when I come off my medication but to give it up all together.

I've discussed this with my wife and she is fully supportive. I'm really enjoying no hangovers and what feels like more quality time with my family and I just need to make sure that is my focus and reason for not going back to the typical weekend binge drinker I had become.

When I packed in drinking the first time, for 16 years, it worked so well because I WANTED to stop. But now I'm trying again I don't have that drive. I NEED to stop, because I am a bad drunk, but I don't actually want to this time. I like a few beers, but when you have a gluttonous brain like mine, a few beers is never enough.

Know what you mean. I really enjoy a few, read 15, pints but I'm not a bad drunk we just have the crack with one another so although I enjoy no hangovers I have no motivation to stop.

Had a day sesh with the boys yesterday and it was the most fun I'd had for a while. Good times good friends but I am cutting out mid week drinking which was getting a bit OTT

Edited by jonamv8 on Sunday 14th August 22:42

[LordGrover]

LordGrover said:

The Spruce goose said:

3 weeks for me, tough but feeling good.

We appear to be in sync - three weeks yesterday for me too.

Four weeks today for me. Spent the weekend sat, on me own, in a hotel in Warrington. Before I set off I'd been a little concerned I'd be tempted, just to relieve the boredom - but I needn't have worried. Breezed it - even spent a while in the bar drinking sparkling mineral water. Very happy.
Also feeling the benefit more now. Lost a bit of weight, and thinking is definitely sharper.

[bungz]

Dropping in here to see how others struggle with drinking in moderation.

First off however hats off to KH, if you are going to fall of the wagon I think a 3 day stint in gogo bars and a blackout is the way to do it

I had slipped into daily drinking (moderate stuff few beers a night) and the thing that has got me thinking about seriously cutting down is I am finding for the first time in my life I cannot sleep when I am drunk, this was becoming a serious problem with work and general drive.

I am 33 and I have not really had alcohol have an effect such as this before, is it just age creeping up on me?

Also the waistband could do with dropping a few notches, I guess sticking 3 or 4 pints on average every day will not help that. Crikey that's 100 pints a month!

[King Herald]

Went to a friends kids birthday party last night, and found they'd bought me four cans of Red Horse, a very strong local beer. Of course I could not refuse, be awkward wouldn't it....

Four cans went down slowly but surely, then the wine came out. And someone had a bottle of Jack Daniels too.....

However, I showed incredible fortitude and took myself off home to bed after two glasses of wine.

Woke up 6am today thinking "thank fvck"

[Smitters]

bungz said:

Dropping in here to see how others struggle with drinking in moderation.

First off however hats off to KH, if you are going to fall of the wagon I think a 3 day stint in gogo bars and a blackout is the way to do it

I had slipped into daily drinking (moderate stuff few beers a night) and the thing that has got me thinking about seriously cutting down is I am finding for the first time in my life I cannot sleep when I am drunk, this was becoming a serious problem with work and general drive.

I am 33 and I have not really had alcohol have an effect such as this before, is it just age creeping up on me?

Also the waistband could do with dropping a few notches, I guess sticking 3 or 4 pints on average every day will not help that. Crikey that's 100 pints a month!

One of the tools I used to motivate myself was doing the sums. How many calories, how many £££, equivalent in Mars bars or cans of Coke. I also used sums to motivate my cutting it out - £££ saved (and then a treat at intervals, like a day out, weekend away, car parts etc.), weight lost, gym and running gains. I have a Caterham, so kg lost was technically a performance gain. Since I was saving money at the same time, it may be the cheapest performance gain known to man.

Don't lose sight that moderation for one is too much for another. Everyone is different. Your assessment of alcohol having a detrimental effect on your life theoretically should be enough to instigate change but humans are good at adapting and coping. As soon as feeling ste and tired becomes normal, it ceases to be an apparent problem. Except that you may look permanently knackered, your work productivity will be down, you'll not have any energy to do extra-curricular stuff so you'll sit around, and coincidentally, you can do that sitting round in the pub, or on the sofa with a glass of wine and bingo, the cycle starts again.

This may describe you. It was definitely me. I used to have a couple of beers 4-5 nights a week, sometimes in the pub, sometimes at home, but that was enough to disrupt my sleep, making me tired and in turn demotivating me in a whole range of ways, leading to weight gain, poor food decisions (more tiredness, more weight gain), being less productive at work, so working longer hours, so less time to cook, exercise and so it goes on. Soon I found myself with hobbies of eating convenience food, drinking beer and lying on the sofa. Sometimes all at once. Then the penny dropped and I did something about it.

Having worked it out, it's day 1642. The only thing I would do differently is have that penny drop sooner.

[King Herald]

I worked out many, many years ago that four pints was the maximum I could drink of an evening and still feel okay for work in the machine shop at 6am next day.

Amazing, that armed with such well proven knowledge, developed from years of field work, I would still on occasion go out and drink ten pints, and feel like death warmed up next day, all day. How/why do people do this to themselves, again and again? Is the buzz from beer really that amazing that the suffering over the next day or two is worth the fun???

I should be the one answering that, but I guess that is the whole crux of this thread; common sense, facts and logic do NOT figure into how much alcohol people drink, or how often.