Less Alcohol - MARCH 2021

globalhiker

Still AF. I was reading about the science of motivation.

Turns out dopamine is a key player. Now this makes sense. Since alcohol messes with the dopamine system, it messes with our motivation. It's a motivation hi-jacker!

Also explains why this go around I am doing better being AF since I didn't deprive myself of treats and intentionally added more dopamine boosting activities into my daily life. I gave my body the dopamine fuel it needed to keep me motivated. And I am diligent about rewarding myself. The science of positive reinforcement works.

Also believe going AF for a longer stretch helped heal those alcohol damaged dopamine pathways. If anything, my motivation became stronger.

globalhiker

When motivation is just not there, adding in small pleasurable activities into the daily schedule can provide a good boost. Simple is good. But whatever it is, if you want to change, something in your daily routine needs to change.

Even if you don't "feel" like it because the energy is low or life sucks right now, the idea is to intentionally start filling in your day with positive stuff which will begin to crowd out the negative burdens we carry.

Humans detest deprivation so if we deprive it of alcohol, it will just get fussy with us. But if we dopamine-load with these types of activities, the brain should have an easier time as we slowly deprive it of alcohol. And the day will be happier.

Dopamine feed ideas:

1-schedule 10 min break and move. Dance or sing if you want.
2-laughter break - watch a comedy or something funny on youtube
3-call a friend
4-buy a new treat
5-go somewhere new
6-plan your new wardrobe
7-read to learn something new - or a new language
8-play music
9-schedule movement time in the morning and afternoon
10-coffee if you like it
11-hot chocolate even better
12-take 10 min to plan out weekly fun activities, ie: short drive to someplace
13-shop online
14-walk outside
15-anything that makes you happy and doesn't harm you

StephieHockeyGirl

globalhikerglobalhiker Thanks!! I play hockey I started at 36 after watching my kids have tons of fun, now am over 50 and hope to play into my geriatric years lol!

lmlmrnlmlmrn thanks this challenge group will add more than just being on mfp to log food.

dawnbgethealthydawnbgetheal I love the Bruins! And play hockey too. Where I live there are tons of women (and men) who play for fun, we have even traveled to FL to play in recreational "nationals" ha ha and stay at the beach between games

side note, not sure how I do the tagging people thing? mine don't have links wondering how you all did that!

vvlucky

@dawnbgethealthy The photo is from SC - we stayed at a beach condo for a few days in September. There was a deck outside the unit, and since it was September (during the week), very few people were there. South of Myrtle Beach, somewhere (cannot recall name).

@globalhiker Thank you for your suggestions and discussion of dopamine. I'm reading "The Easy Way for Women to Stop Drinking" and he says willpower won't cut it. In our case - the stress in my home is high, as hubby is having tremendous work stress and is recovering from depression - and I have my own anxiety/PTSD from raising a RAD daughter, now 19. We are both in therapy and love each other and will get through this, I know. My point is that there needs to be more for me to really accomplish AF or moderation - and your suggestion on raising dopamine levels throughout the day is awesome. I have also taken to heart your suggestion that we do not have to operate at maximum stress levels. Having a child with multiple psychiatric dx's has conditioned me to live like that - but she is out of the house and I don't have to do that anymore.

I thank you for accepting me into this group. I did download the drydays app. I love reading how good you all feel when you are AF.

chocolate_owl

3/1-3/7: Very bad, lots of drinks
3/8-3/14: 4 AF days, 8 drinks
3/15-3/21: 5 AF days, 5 drinks
3/22-3/28: 4 AF days, 7 drinks
3/29: AF
3/30: AF

Despite the bumpy start to the month, I got my 15th AF day in last night, and I plan to be AF tonight because Thurs - Sat are probably going to be a little wild.

I've had the concept of treats/rewards taking up space in my brain for a couple of weeks now, and it gets brought up on here a lot. Why do I personally use alcohol as a reward? Well... It's practical.

TL;DR: consumables fit my life best as rewards, alcohol is the best bang for my buck, and I probably need to stop expecting a daily treat.

People bring up things like bubble baths or shopping or skin care, I have pretty negative reactions to those things being rewards. Baths are WORK. They take a long time to draw, our hot water system is really screwy so getting the temperature right is effort, the tub is small so I spend most of the time sliding down to get my boobs underwater, but then my legs get cold so I'm sliding up again, and I'm never comfortable. Eff that. Baths suck. Skin care or beauty routines? I live in a shoebox and don't have a spot for a seated vanity. Standing, especially standing in front of the sink counter slightly tilted forward to see in the mirror better, gets painful quickly. Shopping means accumulating more stuff, and as mentioned before, I live in a shoebox without space for stuff. I do have a list of big-ticket items that are direct replacements (new iPad, $200 kitchen knife, redoing my closet layout, better dining chairs), but I can't be spending $200+ 5 times a week, and "window shopping" online doesn't feel satisfying. Same idea with hobbies that require materials - knitting a scarf, sewing a quilt, scrapbooking, etc. all result in me having stuff I don't have space or a need for.

How about entertainment? I think my husband having the TV on all.the.time. has made me lose interest in watching shows, and I feel like I've watched all the good ones anyway, so I can't ration out an episode per night. I'm using audio books as a motivator to go for walks now and to get more "reading" in because I was utterly failing and reading books before bed. Music is now streamable at any and all times, in any variety you want - definitely not the days of my youth where buying a CD by your favorite artist was a BIG DEAL. Games... well, that's complicated, and this is already really long.

OK, OK. So I've ruled out "self-care" that's actually more work than fun, items that add clutter, entertainment. That leaves consumable items... Basically food and drink. My husband brought home some Cadbury eggs for me the other day because it's that time of year. They're 170 calories apiece, and the eating + lasting flavor is around 90 seconds. 150 calories of ice cream might give me 5 minutes of enjoyment. A 150 calorie glass of wine? I can make that last an hour. Two glasses of wine, which is fewer calories than a small dessert, can last me from dinner to bedtime. A whole bottle of wine, which is still fewer calories than most slices of cheesecake, will stretch from 5pm to 10pm and keep me feeling good the whole night. (Until tomorrow, which I ignore in the moment.) It's easy to see how that evolved to be my "treat" of choice.

I mention sugar a lot in the previous paragraph, but I don't actually eat a lot of sugar. My average day is usually under 20 grams (total, not added), and a "high" day for me might be 30 grams. Last night the wine devil would NOT shut up, and around hour 4 of it screaming at me I told my husband what was going on the dear man went out and got me some hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was really, really good, it lasted for more than 5 minutes, and I got a mild sugar high that crashed right as I went to bed so I fell asleep easily. But it doubled my usual sugar intake, and my stomach is super screwed up today. Idk if sugar is something I want to consume more of - I honestly feel like that's just swapping one bad habit for another.

I really want to entirely reframe the idea of treats/rewards, what they should be, what feelings they should bring about, and how often they should happen. I think with technology, social media, food availability, etc. we're all so used to super-frequent dopamine hits that we almost feel like we DESERVE a treat for "surviving" a very normal, not at all stressful day. I think about how my generation talks about "adulting" - you know, working an 8 hour day, cooking dinner, and doing a load of laundry in the evening - as a hardship rather than...well...life. I know laundry isn't the epitome of fun, but is it that soul-sucking and joyless? Are our sitting-all-day, staring-at-screens work environments screwing up our brains' ability to be content? Yeah, I've been thinking about this too much lately

I don't know where I'm going from here, but I guess I'll be thinking about it a lot more.

ahoy_m8

I'm really interested in your "entirely reframe the idea of treats/rewards" concept, @chocolate_owl. I think that would help me a lot, too. And I'm totally on board with you about shopping being a stressor (opposite of treat) and beauty regimen being a chore (also not treat). I personally have done the exact same chocolate vs wine calories per minute of enjoyment calculation, so you are speaking my language on all fronts.

MissMay

Hello and happy last day of March.

First...... @lilylay3k....... gigantic hug to you in your difficult struggle this month. I KNOW you will not only get back to your goals YOU WILL rock them. We have been through worse than this. It is only a small test of some sort.

A huge hello and welcome to all the new posters this month. Your life just became a lot easier by finding us.

My accountability this month~
8 days of drink (15 drinks total)
23 days alcohol free

ALSO here is the new APRIL thread link. So we shall see ALL OF YOU on the April forum as of tomorrow.
Looking forward to a LESS ALCOHOL Spring.

~GO TEAM~

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10828925/less-alcohol-april-2021-one-day-at-a-time/p1?new=1

dawnbgethealthy

Happy March!
In like a lamb.
Going out like a lion around here.

I am continuing with my goals that I have mostly been following for a year:

16-20 AF days per month
Don't drink 2 days in a row
Try to keep 2 AF days in between drinks days

I choose the diary style so that I check in every day, keep myself accountable, and can see at a glance where I am at.




Monday March 29 AF - No brainer, busy early day tomorrow. I will find a way to take off to go ice skating, Thursday is the last day of it until October. Priorities : - )
Tuesday March 30 - AF - Extremely long work day, a nice brandy or champagne would have been perfect in the tub, but I had drinks both days on the weekend, so skipped it. It wasn't easy to not have drinks for sure. Tuesdays are always a very long day for me, it is a nice day to be able to have a drink. Next week I will go back to that rotation. If I am going to have drinks a couple of times a week then Tuesdays is a good one for me. Happy to hit my 20 AF days. Tomorrow and Thursday are the last opportunities for ice skating until next October (unless I could get to Phoenix or Dallas where they have it year round unlike Canada for *kitten*'s sake). Staying AF today and tomorrow will give me the absolute best skates that I can have to end the season. Turned my 14 hour day into a 16 hour day so that I could duck out and skate at the half way point. Totally worth it. We have just entered another lockdown here, restaurants, gyms and stuff are closed.
Wednesday March 31 - AF - Tomorrow is the last day of skating. Stayed AF so that I can enjoy it as much as possible. Planned drinks for Thursday night.

Rolling total: 21AF days out of 31 days. Happy with that : - )

globalhiker

See you all in the April thread........

@chocolate_owl I am liking your deep dive thinking and questioning....!

Lilylady3k

@MissMay - Thank you for the encouragement and hug!

Well finished up March and good riddance!
Mar accountability: 4/31 days AF
Alcohol: 27 days (54 drinks)
Goal: Limit 1-2 glasses per day; 12-16 AF days per month

This anniversary party mid April I'm committed to throwing for DD is stressing me out (I was close to tears yesterday around 5pm and needed a hug). Then right after that my god daughter is having her anniversary party in June but wants the shower I was suppose to throw her last year so ... I'm throwing it May 8. The funny thing is I went through all the planning down to menu & grocery list, decor, etc last year and the invites are in the attic so all I have to do is scratch out the date and mail them out. I'm not going to reorder invites and think others will understand.

DH & I decided to not go to the camp this weekend and also not to host easter lunch at our house. His foot after 6 weeks the ligaments are still not healed and he cannot walk/run for his endorphins which mentally is messing with him on top of everything else. We had a long long talk last night and I'm just not sure where we ended up. No one is happy and evenings are boring. The commitment to my mom is getting to us both (monthly $ commitment since we are her retirement plan to supplement social security, maintenance wise with her 5+ hours away needing constant support). He wants to detach himself from our adult children and move away. We've been doing a lot of retirement planning and he wants to retire and move on. I retired in Jan 2019. He would like to now but thinks he will wait until Jan 2021 due to golden handcuffs ... but I'm not sure if mentally we'll make it till then.

Taking all this in ... I've got to quit supporting his daily drinking by me joining in. It doesn't change anything and it definitely doesn't help my weight loss.

MissMay

Just in case your looking for us....we are over on our April 2021 thread.

Follow the link below. See you there.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10828925/less-alcohol-april-2021-one-day-at-a-time/p1