Giving up Alcohol

[Lightstorm]

I think I've just decided to stop drinking.

[writing this, I've realised, is mostly a way of getting my thoughts on paper - and seems to be a lot longer than I originally intended - apologies :-) ]

I've been thinking about this for a long time in various guises, and this weekend's finally hit the nail on the head.

I'm not an alcoholic, not by any means. I don't 'need' to drink, I don't drink in the house (ever), and to be honest, I generally don't really even drink that much a week.

I'm not even a bad, aggressive, moody, or even argumentative drunk. I'm actually pretty positive, happy and tend to be the life and soul of the party.

So why am I thinking about giving up??

When I drink, it never tends to be 1 or 2. It's more like a complete bender once I get a taste for it. I went out Thursday for a work's xmas party, started at 12 noon and got home at 5am. Friday - friends 30th, out at 7pm, back at 4pm. Sat, meet up with a friend to catch up. 1300 - 1900 in the one bar, red wine, beers and shots flowing.

There's a few issues I have with this lifestyle that mean I really need to put a halt to the binge drinking:

a) Weight Control. Drink = Calories. No matter how 'healthy' the alcohol; drinking it for 12 hours straight will do bad things to you. I need to lose weight, not keep gaining!

Money - Spent close to $1000 over this weekend just on nights out, including taxi's home, the dreaded post-pub cheeseburger, and other suchlike needless expenses.

c) Wasted days. Waking up with a hangover destroys most of the next day, either meaning an unproductive day at work, or (usually) a wasted weekend.

d) The Fear! That feeling where you know you've said or done something to someone, but don't know what it was, how bad it got, how they took it. It's fairly bad with close friends, but amplifies with things like work nights out. As it stands, I'm dreading the office on Tuesday just on the off chance I made a twat out of myself - I recall trying to tell the big bosses how to improve things at work, and also telling someone totally inappropriate stories about my old love life.... oh hell!

I don't think I'll give up totally. I do enjoy an occasional glass of red over a nice dinner, or the occasional beer with a friend on a flight. That seems acceptable to me, as long as I factor it into a diet plan and keep it scarce. But I will give up these crazy nights, and find another way to have my fun.

Does anyone else have a similar story? It'd be interesting to hear what your reasons were, and how you fared?

JT

[bigm141414]

So why am I thinking about giving up??

When I drink, it never tends to be 1 or 2. It's more like a complete bender once I get a taste for it.

I had the same issue back in the day. 1 beer turns to 7 turns to 14 pretty quick. While I still drink I don't drink as more or as hard as I used to in my younger days. Two main reasons: 1) I am getting old and my body can't recover as quick as it used to. 2) I had a blood clot in my leg which put me on meds for 6 months where I couldn't drink without major issues. So during those 6 months I went cold turkey because of fear. At first it was weird and difficult to hang out with my friends while they drink.

At first it was because they were seeming to have a better time then met, then as 2am rolled around I realized they were pretty obnoxious. During my sober months it was shocking to me to see what people are like when drunk at a bar. I also found that after a while I didn't have any need to go to bars as much since I liked waking up refreshed on the weekends and enjoyed doing things with my free time.

So currently I still drink but not too get drunk (Although there was one weekend that destroyed me, but that is a different tale), and I often find myself glad I didn't, since the gym is so very quiet on weekend mornings. Plus being off alcohol for so long lowered my tolerance which helps out on the money and calorie aspect since I can't drink that much. I went from drinking every weekend to probably once a month now.

Word of advice though the first few months are going to be rough, and your friends will probably not understand when you start refusing to drink offered shots etc. Learn to sip slowly and alternate a cup of water in between each round. It will keep you from drinking more and will slow you down. That was my biggest problem, fast drinking.

Best of luck man. It's not easy but you've got good reasons to do it.

[ebm1224]

this is really a revelation you've had. i think you've made an important distinction here - normally, the only ones we think of "giving up alcohol" are alcoholics...but, in reality, there are lots of other reasons (which you've listed above) to give it up or cut back. i think alot of times people use alcohol as a crutch in social situations. i don't know if that's what you're doing but it does sound like alot of your social outings involve lots of alcohol. it will certainly be something you need to get used to when you're used to hanging out with certain people or going to certain places with beer goggles on.

have you thought of how you're going to break the news to your friends...or will you just change the habit and let them figure it out?

[sumdawgtwigg]

It's great that you've decided to give it up. I has similar experiences not to long ago and it's what actually set me out on my whole fitness "quest". I really hated not being able to remember what I might have said or even done at times. Lately when I think of drinking thought the wasted days part stands out a lot. If I do drink it is very little because I don't want to have a hangover and not be able to workout, etc.

I just quit (About 4 times before it took) and once I finally did I stayed completely sober for over a year and a half. After I felt a little more confident I started having a drink here and there. I would never, ever, go back to drinking like I used to. It was hell on every part of my life.

I really do wish you luck and you can do it!

.

[Guest guest4729]

Thankfully this semester my schedule is a lot more grueling than last year so I have less time to drink. Instead of having the whole weekend off to go to college parties there are some weekends where I don't think at all. This weekend I went out one night to party and I had three drinks total: I still stick to diet drinks and low calorie mixers to try and offset some of the calorie intake and I feel less guilty. I can't even imagine how bad the drinks were that I had...so many juices, sodas and generally terrible drinks. Ugh. Now I try to stick to lower calorie things and because my tolerance has gone down I need less to drink before getting tipsy/drunk so I save myself some calories there. lol

There are a lot of good things about drinking less:

You spend less money

You save yourself a lot of calories

You remember everything you do

You give yourself more time to workout or sleep

You don't get a hangover from being sober

And, of course, that list could go on.

[Ninja]

I need to give it up myself. Trying to limit my weekends out as much as possible. If I gotta sit home and stare at the ceiling on a Saturday night so be it. I need to save the money and the calories.

[scarletleavy]

I gave up drinking over the summer and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made, although my reasons were a bit different than yours. I will still occasionally have a glass of wine with a nice dinner, but I don't drink normally in my every day life, I don't go to bars, etc.

There were two big reasons I stopped drinking. The first was that I used alcohol horribly in college, I drank to excess quite often and didn't always make the best choices, which caused me to be deeply unhappy. I spent so many days hungover or sick when I could have been doing more productive things. The second reason is the history of alcoholism in my family. I felt like I was on the road to becoming an alcoholic and I wanted to avoid that at any cost. I've seen what alcoholism does to a family and I don't want that for myself and any family I might have in the future. Alcoholism has almost destroyed my family.

I stopped drinking about the same time I really changed my fitness and diet and I'm a much better person for it. I feel like I have a new start on life, I'm happier and healthier than I was before, I've made amends with the people I've hurt and with myself.

It took a few weeks to really break the habit to be honest, drinking was part of my life and I was used to it. But after a few weeks I didn't really think about it anymore. I was more interested in working out at night than drinking. I knew I really made it when I went out for a friend's birthday and didn't drink at all. I've been out for a few dinners and few birthdays since then and have had 1 or 2 drinks, max, with no problem. So it definitely can be done.

My social life has changed and I've definitely lost a few friends. I no longer have any interest in bar-hopping or clubbing while a lot of my friends still do that a few times a week, so that's been hard. So I've been working on finding new friends in things that interest me, developing a few new hobbies.

Good luck! It's hard at first, but it gets easier, I promise.

[Lightstorm]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

@bigm141414 - I think your method is probably the way I'll do it myself. I am a bit concerned though about finding my mates obnoxious and annoying. I've never been good with dealing with drunk folk when I'm not in that state. It'll be tough, but hey, most things are right?

@ebm1224 - I travel so much these days that I only see most friends every few weeks or so, so I think I'll just not make a big deal about it. I won't announce it, I'll just turn up later, stay for a few then leave, or I'll bring the motorbike etc. I can always claim I need to be somewhere in the morning so can't have a heavy one - sooner or later it'll just fade away and be something I do. Going out for dinner I'll still have a few, so not too concerned about that.

@sumdawgtwigg - Thanks - I'm hoping this will spur me onto a bit of a fitness kick as well.

@awsd00 - I like that list. I think I need to keep that in my head whenever the urge to go on a crazy night comes over me

@ninja - that's one of my fears as well. Staying in bored while others are out having fun. Guess I'll need to find some new activities to do!

[Lightstorm]

My social life has changed and I've definitely lost a few friends. I no longer have any interest in bar-hopping or clubbing while a lot of my friends still do that a few times a week, so that's been hard. So I've been working on finding new friends in things that interest me, developing a few new hobbies.

Good luck! It's hard at first, but it gets easier, I promise.

Thanks - I'm looking forward to seeing how the journey goes. Bit of a risky time to make the decision, with it being right before the holiday season, but I'd rather that than wait for some arbitrary 01 Jan date!

Hopefully I'll start to develop new social circles based around some new interests and hobbies as well

[Lillie]

I am SO with you about the hangovers, the wasted weekends and the cost of it!

I gave up alcohol for 3 months a couple of years ago. It was to help me also give up smoking at that time. It worked and I am completely smoke free now. But I went back to the alcohol (I love a smooth glass of red wine).

When I think back to not drinking there were times when I felt "cut off" - as drinking with friends and family is so much the norm in my life. I did find some friends very boring after they got onto their 3rd large Sauvignon Blanc and so I didn't tend to go out so much. BUT ... while I didn't lose weight, I didn't gain either at the time (a problem when giving up smoking), my skin was glowing, I woke up every morning without that horrible fuzzy feeling and I had SO much energy. I got SO much work done and I generally felt calmer, more in control and ..... happy.

My Seasonal celebrations finish on 27th Dec - so I think that's when I'm going to stop. I'm self-employed so luckily no office parties to negotiate.

Good Luck and keep us posted!

[Guest guest4729]

@awsd00 - I like that list. I think I need to keep that in my head whenever the urge to go on a crazy night comes over me

It's something I try to keep in mind every time I don't go out to drink. Whether or not I go out and drink with my friends or not - they're still my friends. Thankfully I've learned to choose the right people to surround myself with. I don't make friends at parties or keg races or things like that. I make my friends within my (co-ed business) fraternity, within my business classes and within my other higher level class. THOSE are the kinds of people I want to be around; they're the people who accept me whether or not I drink every weekend.

Also, this past weekend I drank with my friends on "F*ck Finals Friday" because I had off work for once and I literally slept until 12:30pm on Saturday. That is NOT like me at all. Even if I don't have anything to do during the day I always force myself to wake up before 10:00am because I don't want to sleep all day. I felt like I completely wasted my day and I didn't even go to the gym because, at that point, I didn't have the motivation to do it before work at 3pm or after I got done from work that night. Such a terrible feeling.

[aj_rock]

I have to say, I'm just coming off a weekend where Sunday just kinda disappeared because of what I did the previous night.

I'm still at a point in my life where I can bounce back from weekends like that, but I can definitely appreciate the motives for wanting to give up alcohol.

I also agree that if you tend to lack self-control when drinking, it starts being a problem. If you can't keep 2-3 beers from becoming 12-13, then maybe it is something to consider giving up.

Sigh* If only self moderation were easy.

[WizardTrip]

You have just outlined many of the reasons I decided to change my drinking behaviors. I have not given it up entirely. For me, I love good beers, wine, rum and whiskey, so I didn't want to give up some of the pleasures I get from a good drink. I did notice that I needed to stop the binge drinking for many reasons.

1) When I stopped and added up the calories I would drink in a week, I noticed it was on average ~4000 a week, with a heavy week peaking at ~6-7500!!! Wow!! I'm 6'3 and 250lbs...I don't need that!

2) At one point I forced myself to see how much I was spending on drinking, clubs, taxis, etc and saw that I was hitting $1200-1600 a month on a regular basis (no VIP or bottle service, just straight drinking from the bar). This took me by surprise!

3) I have never been the one to black out, but saw myself having 2 semi-black out moments in the same month. Although some people may be OK with not remembering things, I AM NOT! Anytime I hear a story about something I did (bad or not), that I do not remember ties my stomach into knots! I hate it!

Like you, I don't need it, but I do enjoy some good drinks. However, unlike you, I did drink at home. A couple beers with dinner would turn into a 6 pack, a couple drinks before heading out to meet friends for the night would turn into 4 drinks before leaving. This told me the first thing I needed to do was get rid of the drinks in my house unless there was a special occasion (a couple bottles of wine in preparation for friends coming over, etc). The other thing has been much more difficult, stopping after just a few drinks on a long night out with friends. I have been forcing myself to drink slower (I would typically finish 2 drinks in the same amount of time a friend would finish one), I now go out with a specific budget for the place I'm going to (and no more buying rounds of shots for all my friends every night), and I am trying to convince myself that I do not have to close down a place. This has been 70-80% successful for me, but again, it is a tough thing to overcome. Luckily I have a couple of friends that (unknowingly) are helping me in different ways. One gets wasted really quick and it allows me to see what I do not want to be, and the other is not a big drinker and tends to leave places earlier than most, so I leave when she does.

[Guest guest4729]

You have just outlined many of the reasons I decided to change my drinking behaviors. I have not given it up entirely. For me, I love good beers, wine, rum and whiskey, so I didn't want to give up some of the pleasures I get from a good drink. I did notice that I needed to stop the binge drinking for many reasons.

1) When I stopped and added up the calories I would drink in a week, I noticed it was on average ~4000 a week, with a heavy week peaking at ~6-7500!!! Wow!! I'm 6'3 and 250lbs...I don't need that!

2) At one point I forced myself to see how much I was spending on drinking, clubs, taxis, etc and saw that I was hitting $1200-1600 a month on a regular basis (no VIP or bottle service, just straight drinking from the bar). This took me by surprise!

3) I have never been the one to black out, but saw myself having 2 semi-black out moments in the same month. Although some people may be OK with not remembering things, I AM NOT! Anytime I hear a story about something I did (bad or not), that I do not remember ties my stomach into knots! I hate it!

Like you, I don't need it, but I do enjoy some good drinks. However, unlike you, I did drink at home. A couple beers with dinner would turn into a 6 pack, a couple drinks before heading out to meet friends for the night would turn into 4 drinks before leaving. This told me the first thing I needed to do was get rid of the drinks in my house unless there was a special occasion (a couple bottles of wine in preparation for friends coming over, etc). The other thing has been much more difficult, stopping after just a few drinks on a long night out with friends. I have been forcing myself to drink slower (I would typically finish 2 drinks in the same amount of time a friend would finish one), I now go out with a specific budget for the place I'm going to (and no more buying rounds of shots for all my friends every night), and I am trying to convince myself that I do not have to close down a place. This has been 70-80% successful for me, but again, it is a tough thing to overcome. Luckily I have a couple of friends that (unknowingly) are helping me in different ways. One gets wasted really quick and it allows me to see what I do not want to be, and the other is not a big drinker and tends to leave places earlier than most, so I leave when she does.

$1200-$1600 a MONTH? I don't even make that much a month working 40 hours (or more!) a week as a student. I got a bunch of alcohol for free over the summer and I haven't bought more than maybe $30 worth this semester when it started back at the end of August. Phew.

[KillerGriller]

Talk about a timely post, this was one of my diet goals for the last 6 Week Challenge. Like many in this thread, drinking has been becoming a problem for me. With kids in the picture now and social groups changing as I get older I don't find myself going out to bars/clubs anymore, occasionally I get to hit the pub with a few friends but mostly my drinking is at home.

Like IcedTrip, my 1 beer when I was BBQing became 1 when I got home, 1 while making dinner, 2-4 after the kids went to bed & while I was working around the house or watching TV. That was the norm, no hangover, no "lost time", but definitely ridiculous....and those weren't even the party nights! What I'm quickly realizing is that when I'm out I'm not keeping pace with my friends, I'm leaving them in the dust. Why? What do I have to prove? All my "big drinker" buddies have moved away or moved on and I don't need to race to the finish line. There's simply no reason for it.

One of the best decisions I made was to get rid of booze at the house. Without it there, it simply wasn't an option on how much I should/shouldn't have. I still miss having a beer while BBQing or working around the house sometimes, but it passes. I can still bring it in the house when we have an event, and now it's a treat when I head the pub with friends. Also, it's become easier to stop after one and just go home. It just takes a little practice.

[ETFnerd]

I don't have brain cells to spare...

[WizardTrip]

$1200-$1600 a MONTH? I don't even make that much a month working 40 hours (or more!) a week as a student. I got a bunch of alcohol for free over the summer and I haven't bought more than maybe $30 worth this semester when it started back at the end of August. Phew.

Yeah...big eye opener for me! At the time, I had the extra spending cash, but it certainly wasn't helping with my current life goal of getting out of debt. Luckily this "regular weekend" time frame lasted about 6 months and not multiple years. Of course, I thought I was doing good dropping from $1200/mo to "just" $500/mo. I've made even more progress since then!

Like IcedTrip, my 1 beer when I was BBQing became 1 when I got home, 1 while making dinner, 2-4 after the kids went to bed & while I was working around the house or watching TV. That was the norm, no hangover, no "lost time", but definitely ridiculous....and those weren't even the party nights! What I'm quickly realizing is that when I'm out I'm not keeping pace with my friends, I'm leaving them in the dust. Why? What do I have to prove? All my "big drinker" buddies have moved away or moved on and I don't need to race to the finish line. There's simply no reason for it.

You said it exactly how it always played out with me (minus the kids). 1 beer when I got home, another while making dinner, 2 during dinner, and 2 more relaxing watching TV after dinner....voila, 6 pack, one night; no hangover, no lost time.

I don't have brain cells to spare...

Today on Lifehacker - http://lifehacker.com/5867049/nine-stubborn-brain-myths-that-just-wont-die-debunked-by-science Look at #4....must be losing them some other way :-)

[ETFnerd]

Yeah, according to the literature it doesn't actually kill them, it just impairs their function. either way I think the result is the same...

...if you want a cold wake up call visit the geriatric ward of any mental health institution and ask how many of the patients were alcoholics...

...it's one of society's hidden, dirty little secrets...

[Damy]

My social life has changed and I've definitely lost a few friends. I no longer have any interest in bar-hopping or clubbing while a lot of my friends still do that a few times a week, so that's been hard. So I've been working on finding new friends in things that interest me, developing a few new hobbies.

I wouldn't call them real friends anyway, if the only thing you had in common was bar-hopping.

I have no idea how to stop drinking, because, frankly, I never started to drink alcohol in the first place. (Yeah, such people exist). All I can say is... it's possible to live without alcohol. (If such is a preferable life, however, is another question )

[Centurion]

I haven't had anything to drink for almost 2 years now and as a 22 year old student it always raises a few eyebrows when I tell people I don't drink. A lot of people will immediately jump to the decision that either a) you are/were an alcoholic or you did something really bad whilst under the influence. For me I simply woke up one day with a hangover and decided I didn't want to keep losing days where I'd sit around feeling like crap and being sorry for myself. Initially I just cut back to only drinking on the weekends and then eventually I just got bored of that and it became easier to just not drink at all rather than have to explain to people that I drank but only one or two. As far as friends go most of them were confused by it (probably because I'd been quite a heavier drinker up to then) and only a couple really had an issue with it (even if they never vocalised it it was pretty obvious) but I didn't lose any friends because of it. I'll admit drunk people can annoy me and there have been times where I've felt like the party-pooper sitting quietly, not drinking whilst everyone else is having fun but more recently I've just been finding it easier and easier to enjoy myself on nights out whilst sober. At the end of the day I've had a lot of friends who have tried to quit because they felt they were drinking too much and they only ever last a few weeks or maybe a month. I quit because I wanted to and not because I felt I needed to and I've had no problems with it

[scott82962]

I'm 49 now - better than 20 years ago I decided to give up hangovers. I knew what would cause them - a long night of binge drinking, a short night of binge drinking that started late, doing any shots of straight liquor, etc. so I just didn't do those. I never try to stretch the first beer (I'm from Wisconsin...I was practically weaned on beer), just chug it down. But it's easy enough to stretch the 2nd or 3rd. I know once I get into the territory of the 4th I'm going to feel it in the morning.

When I'm with my buds I'll often drink straight tonic water with a twist and just tell them it's a gin and tonic. If they're into buying rounds I always buy the first one so I can get to the bartender and tell him no matter what they order for me all I want is straight tonic.

I quit drinking entirely from 9/2005 to New Year's eve 2007. Yeah, these dates stand out to me, and I gotta tell you, writing this has me thinking about quitting entirely again.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

I've been contemplating this as well. I'm trying to cut out grain based carbs as much as I can, this includes beer. My friends and I drink whenever we get together and it really doesn't help. The major change I've made thus far is that I made the decision to stop getting completely blitzed. When do drink, the most I let myself get is a mellow buzz. One thing that helped me was switching from light beer to stouts as I naturally drink them much more slowly (down from 3 beers in 45 minutes to 1). I'm considering dropping that as well.

[Novius]

I never really made the decision to stop drinking, it just sort of happened for me. I have always had to drink a lot to even be able to feel drunk so my friends would always be done by the time I was "just getting started". I feel like if I'm going to drink and remain mostly sober while they are wasted drunk what's the point of even drinking in the first place? Props to you for making a choice for a hangover free and money saving life

[Oogiem]

I am not giving up alcohol, I was raised that a meal is not a meal without a beer or wine included, but... I AM changing how much I drink when hubby & I go to the pub in town.

My solution, I knit. It's hard to drink too fast when you are counting stitches on a pair of socks ;-)

Me, knitting in the pub. I need the headlamp to see the stitches.

http://flic.kr/p/aV7SCR

[Oogiem]

http://flic.kr/p/aV7SCR

OK Got link but can't get the picture to show up, frustrated