Less Alcohol - JANUARY 2021 - One Day At A Time

2 glasses of wine with dinner. Drank water while cooking! I'm liking this habit of more control over the timing and how much I'm drinking is a good thing. DH held off drinking until I served dinner as well Baby Steps.

Cranbrook BC is a very sunny place.
Kind of hard to see my face in the balaclava. It wasn't cold out. +2C, around 35F. Glorious!
I did fall once, but the knee pads saved me : - )

@MissMay - I find mixing the jalapeño beer with another beer to be much more tasty ... I've not been to our local beer garden that will pour that combo in a while. But you are right ... easy to not over indulge when drinking the jalapeño beer!

Oh and you are so right ... no one else cares what's in your hand. Thanks for sharing that story!

@dawnbgethealthy Saw a segment on the news of a store/restaurant owner just this side of the Canadian border in Idaho who is holding on by a thread. He was counting his customers with roman numerals on a napkin. So sad. But I certainly think border closing is the right thing. You look so cute with your kneed pads and stick! Our pond has melted (I got blamed cuz I bought skates).

@Lilylady3k I think it was like the quote says, "...then the drink takes a drink." But you didn't keep going and let the drink take you (or you probably wouldn't have remembered!)

@CryingBlue Did your headaches start after trying to cut back? If so, I agree with MissMay. I know people react from caffeine withdrawal with headaches. Hope you start to feel better soon.

@Womona Yay for stopping at 1. I'm guessing it did mess with your sleep a little--at least I've noticed even one (unless it's early in the day) affects my sleep (remind me why we keep subjecting ourselves to this???)

I got support & accountability from an unexpected source this weekend: my husband.

I kind of roped him into doing dry January with me. There's just no way I could stop if he was still drinking. He's my worst trigger. We'd have a drink with dinner, then sit there talking until the bottle of wine was finished or worse, we'd open a 2nd & drink it too. I felt like my brain got re-wired to think that a serving was a bottle not a glass.

I'm a little jealous. He's still drinking his AF beer. There just isn't a good wine substitute. A cup of tea isn't that satisfying.

Anyway. . . on Saturday I was hinting around about a cheat day, going to the store to buy a bottle of wine over the long weekend. He said no. He gave me the push I needed to resist going to the store. I really thought he would have been all over that since he is only doing this for me.

January ends in 2 weeks. I can do this! Who knows maybe we can make it to the 1st weekend in February. We're going away for Valentine's Day, so that will involve drinking.

Maybe if we can manage 3-4 AF nights per week things will be more stable going forward. The goal is to eliminate weekday drinking, trying to limit it to Fri & Sat. We'll see how that goes.

I did bake & then ate almost 1/2 of the lemon bars I made.

@Lilylady3k Good for you for making those 5's & 6's into 1's & 2's. Doing that is how I kicked my soda habit. Now that I have 3-4 per week instead of day I consider myself a reformed success. Moderation can be achieved.

I am back. Did not go any place, been busy. Took on a new workout routine that is taking a lot of time. Logging in and preparing workout schedules to keep from getting bored.

I been trying extremely hard to manage a non alcohol day, to sqeeze it in some place, it has not happened yet. I think about it all the time, but can't execute it.

About a week ago I ran into an old classmate of mine. We got to talking and I told him I would grab us a 12 pk and he could come over and hang out with my GF and I.
So he meets me at my house about an hour later and I go to toss him a beer and he holds up a coffee cup for a convenience store he stopped at. WHAT? I asked, is that?
I don't drink on the week days he remarked. On the weekends I do, but not all crazy like in the past. I told him I was trying to get to that place and was not happening to quick.
He told me to work at it slow. Could not believe we were having that conversation in my garage. Nothing had/has changed in our relationship except he was having a coffee and me, my beers.

I suppose it will happen when I least expect it to.

Thanks for always having an open door in here.

Sounds like accountability and/or motivation is coming from unlikely places. Awesome. Or could it be that maybe the little voices were coming before now and then, but we weren't listening? Maybe a combo.

@SkinnyGirlCarrie Way to go! Irritation greatly increases desire for alcohol for me, so double congrats!

I agree there's no good wine sub. But I must share my new fav mocktail (I know at least one of you @MissMay would love this ;-)) Be open-minded even if you think you hate Kombucha. The fruit flavors really milden it (my made-up word of the day because I gotta find fun in little places). It tastes grown-up. I chug it like I would chug beer sometimes.

Tart Cherry KomBomb (approx 30 calories):
2/3 glass Tart Cherry Kombucha (I like Kevita--it's not too out there)
1/3 glass seltzer (or Fresca or diet 7-up or Sprite)
Lemon squeeze.

I really love straight Kombucha, but half the money I was saving from wine was going to it at $3/bottle, so this way one bottle lasts me twice as long.

mainelylisa wrote: »

@dawnbgethealthy Saw a segment on the news of a store/restaurant owner just this side of the Canadian border in Idaho who is holding on by a thread. He was counting his customers with roman numerals on a napkin. So sad. But I certainly think border closing is the right thing. You look so cute with your kneed pads and stick! Our pond has melted (I got blamed cuz I bought skates).

I hope that your pond freezes back up. Ours all melted too, but have now re-frozen.

Bonner's Ferry Idaho is likely feeling the lack of Canadians coming down.
Sometimes I would just go there for lunch to meet friends.
They don't get much else for traffic. Spokane and Coeur D'Alene are where even the locals from Bonner's Ferry go, so Bonner's I think really relied on Canadian dollars. They have a Casino there that allows smoking, and you can't smoke in Canadian Casinos, so that also is a big draw for Canadian Casino goers especially patrons from Creston BC which is only 15 or 20 minutes away.
I am also a smoker and enjoy being able to go to pubs and places where I don't have to go outside to light up while I am having a coffee or a drink. I go out there more than I do here. Or used to.
Definitely I am glad that the border is closed though, and I wish that our Provincial border to Alberta was also closed because they have so much Covid there. Our parking lots are full of Alberta plates even though they are under an "essential travel only" ban within that province.

I hope that the business in Idaho can hold on a little longer, maybe the new government will come up with some sort of plan to help.
Before long we can all get vaccinated. We will all have a new appreciation of things having gone through this.

I want to start making up words too!

Last night was AF so yeah! this is 10 out of 18 days for January. When I started at the first of the month I did not have a specific goal of AF days. Now I am actually getting excited to see how many days in a month I can rack up! This is such an empowering feeling.

OMG @SkinnyGirlCarrie -- I must have hit the done button 3x before my last post. At first I couldn't even figure out what I did wrong.

@CMB44512 invite that buddy over more often to drink coffee with you on weekdays. He may help / inspire you.

We invited a neighbor over for dinner last night. She usually shows up with a 1.5 l bottle of wine. I forewarned her that we were doing Dry January so she came empty handed. It was nice. I didn't even feel like drinking, which is a good thing.

Hang in there, everybody. One day at a time! We can do this.