LESS Alcohol ~ MARCH 2023 ~ One Day at A Time

Womona

@mfowler883 so sorry to hear little Bentley passed. Big giant hug to you! It’s so hard to lose a pet. They are family. You were a great doggie daddy to him.

Womona

Yesterday we went to a champagne tasting- actually the ladies did the champagne while the guys did a whiskey tasting. I was so proud of myself that after about 4 oz of champagne, I switched to water. I had a few sips of the delicious Rye that my husband had, but it was so nice to not reach for that glass of wine.

Tonight I had 1.5 glasses of wine with dinner, and I’m done. I’ve done a good job with food choices this weekend and my weight is coming down. Yay!

Hope everyone has a good week, and if any of you went over your goals, well, tomorrow is a new day.

tmbg1

Been too busy to log daily, but so far this month I'm 6A and 6 AF

joans1976

Hello! I’m Amanda, I’m a crazy cat lady from Michigan! I joined this forum in June of 2022 and since September I have decreased my drinking to one day a month! This is a huge accomplishment from where I was and I absolutely could not have done it without the wonderful mix of people in this group!

March goals: just make it through the month unscathed! (27 doctor appointments)
Alcohol goals: 95-100% AF

3/1-3/7: 7 out of 7 AF

3/8: AF

3/9: AF

3/10 AF

3/11 AF
I stayed AF but I did visit the dispensary. Which is right next to the liquor store in my town. I got some gummies with CBN and terpenes in them and I finally slept past 4 am. The clock said 6:30 am but with Daylight Savings Time, that meant 5:30. 5:30 is better than 4 am in my head!
Rolling total 35 days AF

3/12: AF
This time change has got my body all confused. A new week lies ahead, 4 more radiation sessions to complete.

I have been perusing flights to Bali as I am still planning on going this year but there is still one thing medically that may hold me back. Once I get clearance from that, I’m gonna book it!

May we all face our Mondays with courage and grace….

MissMay

I had a lot of catching up to do reading, so if I have missed giving you a comment, my apologies.

My husbands work schedule continues to be non existent. Because it is written down does not mean that is how it will remain that week, it Infuriates me.

They say around here, Spring break is about to unfold. This area is a mega draw for them to come to. While most are dreading the Spring breakers I am looking forward to seeing the change in this beach town.

Ruby sorry to hear you broke your leg. Healing thoughts.

Lmlmrn your path is following the one I had last Spring/Summer. I am excited for you to have new adventure ahead as you pack, sell and move. It will all work out.

Joans1978 big hugs as you continue through your treatments.

Accountability for March so far:
2A days
10AF days

Just a small note:
Three years ago at this time our worlds unraveled with the invasion of covid. It is as devastating as 9/11. So much changed, we either learned who our true friends were or who our foes were.

So many turned to alcohol to ease the pain or to help find an answer at the bottom of the bottle as we lost people we knew and loved. Lost jobs, a sense of security and faith.

We are strong, remember you are not alone.💞

dawnbgethealthy

I am Dawn, I live in South Eastern British Columbia.
I joined this thread in November of 2018, a daily drinker at the time
My primary goal with drinking less is weight loss.

My usual goal is 16-20 AF days for the month,
I had 16AF days for the shortened month of February.

I do this diary style, I normally post the next morning.

Friday March 10 - 2 drinks. It wasn't a planned A day, but when I finally crawled home at 10:00 I tucked into a couple, it was nice. Going out for drinks before the Modern Ballet tonight.
Saturday March 11 - 5 drinks!! This was over the course of 7 hours, but it is way more than I usually can handle. Time to rack up some AF days.
Sunday March 12 - AF - I have a few outings this week, a comedy show and a String Quartet Chamber Music show. I am unsure whether I will have drinks at one or both of those.


Rolling total: 6AF day out of 12 days.

RockinRobyn672

Hello My "LA" friends! Happy March! I am SO ready for spring! My goal is 16 AF days. I usually post the next morning.

3/8: Drinks (4)
3/9: Drinks (3)
3/10: Drinks (4)
3/11: AF
3/12: Drinks (3) - Well, the leftover bottle of Chardonnay that we had bought for our friends' visit called to us last night (my plan was AF). I also had an IPA. The plan now is AF until Thursday.

Rolling Total: 6 AF Days out of 12

Michieb125

@sgsurlord and @Stacimfit welcome! If your goal is to have less alcohol, then this is a great thread with wonderful support. Check out the first day of March for some great tips.

@joans1976 you are nearing the finish line this week! I so admire your strength and perseverance and sharing your journey. Bali sounds fabulous - sounds like an exotic and beautiful vacation.

@MissMay I appreciate your reflection on Covid-19, exactly 3 years ago. I remember it well standing in my family room with my husband and daughters family. Shocking news of deaths and lockdown cities, counties, and states.
So much uncertainty and angst for many, including myself. I made the Costco trips and stocked up on plenty of big box wine - just in case we couldn’t get out! Seems surreal now. Today, I have been enjoying getting back in touch with old and new friends and life seems more anew with adventures to come. Thank you so much for your Monday words of encouragement!

March accountability: 20-23 AF days
AF - 9
A - 3
No more than two glasses per A day. Planning 0 A until the weekend.

I try to post each morning from the PST zone.

zensome

Hello LA gang! I was so looking forward to day light savings and now that it's here, it is just another dreary, wet, cold, winter day in the PNW. Whenever it rains like this, I tell myself we need the rain, because we really do, but I personally need more sunshine!

I have 2 AF days in a row for a grand today of 6 AF/12 for March
(goal minimum16 AF days)

Plan to be AF today too.

lmlmrn

Hello everyone
Was AF all weekend, but today we went to local place and I had 1.5 beer's with my hummus plate.

Yesterday I met up with a few gals from my gym. Since covid and it shut down we make plans about every 3-4 months and get together to stay in touch. The gym reopened but we had all moved on to new routines. So picture 3 ladies in a panera...for 4.5 hours laughing, giggling, crying and getting a lot of side eyes directed at us. I admit a few of the loudest laughing topics were maybe a bit scandalous. No children were harmed.
I did not even have a glass of wine when I got home. Instead I watched a movie and painted.

Today we took some small end tables and odd's and ends to the donation center. It was raining so tomorrow we hope to take the dinning table/chairs and a credenza. Then we will be down to just a sofa and love seat to donate. the other small things left in the house will go to the landfill or get packed.

waving to everyone. This week will be busy busy. Sister is flying in tonight then it is girl time shopping/gabbing and then our mothers 89th !

joans1976

Hello! I’m Amanda, I’m a crazy cat lady from Michigan! I joined this forum in June of 2022 and since September I have decreased my drinking to one day a month! This is a huge accomplishment from where I was and I absolutely could not have done it without the wonderful mix of people in this group!

March goals: just make it through the month unscathed! (27 doctor appointments)
Alcohol goals: 95-100% AF

3/1-3/7: 7 out of 7 AF
3/8-3/14: 7 out of 7 AF
Rolling total 40 days AF

3/14: AF
I have made it through 13 out of 30 medical appointments for the month. And I’m not even doing chemo! I am thankful for certain things.
@MissMay Thank you for bringing up the covid anniversary. It made me stop and think. I have read other women’s breast cancer stories on other forums and covid restrictions did affect their treatments or who they could have with them for support. I am lucky things are pretty “open” now and I have access to treatment.

I drank a lot during Covid, well I started drinking everyday and heavier in 2018 and continued into 2021. I’m not sure I can blame it on Covid or if my situations would have come about even without Covid. I lived with a cheating boyfriend, my job turned horrendous, I lost my best furry friend in March of 2020 (RIP Simon, my tuxedoed gentleman) and my best friend was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic cancer. I was drinking multiple glasses of wine every night, going to work hung over everyday. I’m ashamed to say how much alcohol I was consuming. On the weekends, I stayed drunk all day, would pass out at 5, wake up at 8 and continue to drink. Yuck. Eventually I dumped the cheating boyfriend, started working from home (boy was that a saga with Narcissa) and unfortunately lost my best friend to *kitten* cancer. I cut way back on my drinking in Fall of 2021 to take care of her and eventually (June 2022) stumbled across this forum. Thank the gods!

You all are priceless to me. Thank you!

Womona

My biopsy came back negative, so that’s good news. Now to solve the mystery of why I get flattened during PMS. I’m sure it will involve some kind of HRT.

Doing well on the weight loss front. Amazing how logging my food helps me to make better choices- I even have room for a glass of wine! I’ve only had one AF day so far this month. However, I’m taking the win of sticking to only one glass.

@zensome I remember these being the dark days of living in PNW. Most people I knew headed off to sunny Mexico for a long weekend to just see some sunlight! Thank God for high doses of Vitamin D.

@lmlmrn very exciting to get get all that furniture out of your house! Now if the weather would start to cooperate, you’d be on your way!

@joans1976 I guess that’s the one bright spot in all of this, you’re not so restricted anymore with Covid.

I have to say, I’m so glad my dad passed before the Covid lockdowns. No way would he have been able to deal with all the restrictions and not be able to have me there while he was ill.

Covid brought such an ugliness to our society. The whole debate about lockdowns vs. keeping things open, all the deaths, the virtue signaling on both sides of the argument, people not being able to be with loved ones during terminal illnesses ,raging
debates about the vaccines…. I think it’s going to be a long time before we heal as a country. As for me, a friend dumped me because we disagreed (respectfully!) about the lockdowns, and that was it. Ghosted after 30 years.

RockinRobyn672

Hello My "LA" friends! Happy March! I am SO ready for spring! My goal is 16 AF days minimum in a month. I'm drinking less for weight loss and the additional health benefits. I usually post the next morning.

3/13: AF - We have (notice I wrote "have") a couple of bottles of nice red wine left over, purchased for when our visitors were here. I was tempted to open one after dinner but had some discipline. DH agreed to save it until Thursday. It's so tempting and would be so easy to fall back into old habits. Instead, I stopped with a single delicious Lagunitas IPNA with dinner. My weight is heading back down.

Rolling Total: 7 AF Days out of 13

dawnbgethealthy

I am Dawn, I live in South Eastern British Columbia.
I joined this thread in November of 2018, a daily drinker at the time
My primary goal with drinking less is weight loss.

My usual goal is 16-20 AF days for the month,
I had 16AF days for the shortened month of February.

I do this diary style, I normally post the next morning.

Sunday March 12 - AF - I have a few outings this week, a comedy show and a String Quartet Chamber Music show. I am unsure whether I will have drinks at one or both of those.
Monday March 13 - AF - I had my grey roots dyed out after work and had a hankering for a couple of cocktails when I got home, but I didn't because my weight is still way up from the drinks (leading to bad food choices) on the weekend.


Rolling total: 7AF day out of 13 days.

Michieb125

@joans1976 - you have been through a lot in the last few years and glad you are in a much better place now to take care of yourself. Very sorry to hear of your best friends passing as well.

@Womona - great news on the biopsy and weight loss! Your comments on the division that society experienced around Covid are so true. I know of people who widely disagreed on many things but the friendships are mostly repaired now that the “crisis” of a pandemic is passing and we’re now living with this endemic type of virus. I’m of the opinion that all people need to do what they feel is best for their personal situation but still, I think it’s safe to say that Covid messed up how we (some individuals) feel about trust and safety. I’m sorry your lifelong friend ghosted you.

@RockinRobyn672 - great job on postponing on the wine and seeing the scale go down!

We’re almost 1/2 way through March and seems like folks are doing well with food, A and AF choices.
The scale is staying down here so now is the time for me to do some healthy and clean meal planning that will help tip it further.

3/14 post
March accountability: 20-23 AF days
AF - 10
A - 3
No more than two glasses per A day. Planning 0 A until the weekend.
I try to post each morning from the PST zone.

mfowler883

Drinking too much has left me feeling generally icky most of the time. It's time to fix it. Nothing so far today and I'm thinking I will try to go AF tonight.

-m

zensome

We finally got some sun here today and I was able to go out for a walk on my (too short) lunch break. It's going to be nice for just a few days, then more rain so I want to enjoy it while I can.

I considered going to buy some beer for tonight but decided to have one of my WellBeing IPAs instead and I am so glad I did! This is definitely going to do it for me tonight and I know I will not wake up tomorrow regretting having an NA beer, lol!

Including today I have 8 AF/ 14 days

(goal minimum 16 AF for March)

lmlmrn

@Womona you mentioned you respectfully had a disagreement with a friend over covid-19 lockdowns and then ghosted. I can relate. People in my area were and still are so divided. It just makes me so sad.

I actually started to drink less after the initial lockdowns. That is when I stumbled on here. I have had good and not so good months but it is always moving me forward. The bad months are getting less and my bar is getting higher as to what a good and bad month looks like.

btw......dinning room table and chairs..donated

mfowler883

Tonight we went to one of our fav TexMex spots since I didn't have anything ready to go for dinner. I had a few sips of a mango 'rita and it wasn't that good so I didn't have more. Sipping an NA IPA right now.

Har-dog is doing a little better. First few days, it was very clear that he was grieving and it was heartbreaking to watch. Today, he spent most of the day laying near my feet in the studio while I handled work stuff, and seemed more like his usual self than he has been.

-m

RockinRobyn672

Hello My "LA" friends! Happy March! I am SO ready for spring! My goal is 16 AF days minimum in a month. I'm drinking less for weight loss and the additional health benefits. I usually post the next morning.

Tue 3/14: Drinks (2) - No workout because I worked on cleaning up a huge stack of papers in my office. I had two (unplanned) Old Fashioneds with DH after dinner (but I didn't open the wine!). It's so easy to fall back into old habits. I also have not adjusted to the time change and ended up watching the movie Babylon until the wee hours of the morning. Little did I know it was more than a three hour movie! I was determined to finish it. I haven't decided yet if it was worth it. I'm sure I'll pay for it at around 3 or 4 today.

Rolling Total: 7 AF Days out of 14