Less Alcohol ~ JANUARY 2022 ~ One Day At A Time

It's nice to hear people getting honest with themselves....meaning starting to define what goals they want, what progress means to them. Introspection is important...meaning where you are and where you want to go...and being okay with the slow pace of success. How fast you get there is not critical. What is very important is just allowing yourself to go....and have no fear...in case you fall many times over just know it's human and we get really good at adapting and getting better.

sarah7591 wrote: »

[

Happy new year, all. My goal, broadly, has been to drink less and enjoy more. The way I have framed it, specifically, is still pretty challenging to me. 2 parts:

1) drinks on weekends- I think abstaining during the week has helped me enjoy more on weekends, like it is more of an occasion. It has become habit enough that it's not too challenging because I mostly don't even think about it. E.g. a vacuvin-ed bottle of wine on the kitchen counter left over from the weekend isn't bothersome. But come the weekend...

2) 2 drinks limit- I suck at this. I make the same old excuses to give myself "permission" go drink more-- I have calories for it, I'm not driving, kids aren't around... come on! These are terrible reasons to overconsume. After one drink I want another, but honestly, after 2 drinks I want another. And after 3 drinks sometimes too. Like the feeling at the end of the glass isn't variable. I'm playing with the idea of just trying a 1 drink limit for a while to see if I have more success -- and overall enjoyment-- with that. It can be a big or fancy drink, but just one. And no argument with myself after that. I don't know. Undecided.

Oh man, I totally hear you! It is so easy to justify drinking. You’re not alone- the struggle is real!

4 AF days done. Valentine's chocolates are out in the stores already. I wonder if I should start grocery delivery so the stores don't tempt me to buy junk on impulse. It would help keep me away from the wine too. I guess it will cost more but then again I'd buy less - and avoid temptation. Hmm...

@Womona I definitely hear you on the sleep issue! I am struggling with sleep still, but I think it was quite a bit better last night, and now day 5 AF is behind me. I am interested to see if cutting out alcohol helps with my joint issues as I am being tested for rheumatoid arthritis, and I have osteo in my hips, spine, and hands. TAE has been really eye opening for me, I didn't know about the dopamine and all the chemical cycles in our brains, now it all makes sense! Having lots of 'Aha' moments

@Xellercin Congratulations on two years AF!!! I will look up Allen Carr, I am receptive to a blunt approach as it gels well with my own approach to life, but I also understand that could be off putting for some. I am at the point now of wondering how I have drank almost daily for so many years without ever looking into what is really going on inside me. Feels like an awakening, almost like an epiphany (coincidence that I feel this on the 6th Jan? Maybe ) but I am nothing if not realistic. I know that I am 'riding the wave' right now, and it has limited milage. I'll milk what I can out of it while it lasts and try to lay solid groundwork for when it peters out.

Jan 1-5 AF

5!!! AF days in a row! I don't remember the last time I could say that!

I am definitely sleeping better which is translating to focusing better and more energy.

@Womona really great you enjoyed a nice glass of wine … then stopped! This is what I would really like to be able to do and using my AF time currently to work out how things might look going forward. My husband has been enjoying his red wine without it really bothering me. I switched from red (which I loved) to Prosecco because of the hangover I got with red. That meant I could drink MORE Prosecco!!
I intend to go back to red, sharing with my husband and limiting my glasses too. 🤞that plan will work.
Currently 6/6 AF

It’s so lovely to hear how everyone is getting on and doing so well 😊

^ thanks for the share

Just FYI, "alcoholic" has no medical definition, it's more of an AA term. In fact, "addiction" is even being phased out and no longer the appropriate medical term. It's now "substance use disorder," which is much broader and basically means you don't use a substance in a healthy way.

The definition of a substance problem is if it negatively affects your life and you still feel compelled to use it. That's it. By that definition, MANY "normal drinkers" have a problem.

I really hope this outdated and problematic notion of the "alcoholic" disappears, because for so many people the thought "well I'm not an alcoholic" is what holds them back from seeking any support in cutting back or quitting.

Congrats on taking back control over your own relationship with alcohol and your health.

Jan 1 AF
Jan 2 AF
Jan 3 AF
Jan 4 AF
Jan 5 AF
Jan 6 - 2 glasses of wine

sarah7591 wrote: »

Is TAE the same as The Naked Mind by Annie Grace?

It took me longer than I want to admit that TAE stands for “The Alcohol Experiment@🙄

It was “wine night” at work, so had a glass with my awesome co-workers. Quick dinner and off to bed for me. We have one more glass left in the open bottle at home, but I’m saving that for the weekend. Just didn’t want a second tonight.

@cowgirlslikeus86 welcome, and thank you for sharing your story. It’s always a shock and a kick in the gut when an ex moves on to someone else, even if your normal thought about them is “don’t let the door hit you on the *kitten* on your way out.” But great job using it as a time to reflect, and move on.

mom2kateRH wrote: »

It's so easy to find excuses to drink (and to overeat!). I was thinking the other day of how stressful the past 2 years have been for those of us who work in healthcare, so of course I over indulged! But, then I realized, life has been stressful for everyone, not just healthcare workers. And life is always stressful. So, realize that, accept it, and find better coping mechanisms! (That's what I'm telling myself, to be clear. Not trying to lecture anyone!) If I make a conscious choice to have a glass of wine with dinner (as was mentioned by another wise poster above), that's fine and acceptable. But if I'm drinking just to drink because I'm stressed, and I don't even think about it,that's not good.

Ahh, and sleep really is better

For me, my most stressful years were the two years before the pandemic. I'm also a healthcare professional and was working under horrific, and unlivable conditions at the time, and that's the drinking that prompted me to quit.

Now that I've quit though, I can see clearly that the drinking made the stress much, much worse.

The brain actually *enhances* the experience of stress to get you to drink more.

I'll never forget when I finally was able to detect this happening. I had been sober for a few months, and was quit certain I didn't want to drink ever again.

My horrible work conditions were over, so that stress was gone. And I had a long, frustrating day that was very intense while it was happening, but was a stress that I could just walk away from.

However, even though the stress was intense and extremely frustrating, but nothing serious, by the end of the day, I was in my car, amped as hell with agitation, and started telling myself that I NEEDED some wine that night. This was an exceptional day, and exceptional stress, I could NOT bear it, and I absolutely NEEDED wine to cope with what I had gone through.

Except...my day had been a total joke compared to what I had faced the entire year before. Sure I dealt with something extremely frustrating, and had been at it for hours. But I only did it to help out my mom. There was nothing on the line for me personally beyond dealing with someone else's intense stress while they drove me up the wall.

I had been drinking the year before to cope with very serious stresses that legitimately put my safety in danger. I spent the entirety of 2019 scared utterly shitless, that's why I felt I needed to drink.

This silly nonsense I was stressed by that particular day was NOTHING compared to what I had already faced down for two years.

That's when it hit me that my own brain was gaslighting me to get me to drink. My own brain was exaggerating my feeling that I couldn't cope with the day's stress so that I would open a bottle of wine and feed the specific part of my brain that still wanted alcohol even though I didn't.

After observing this happen repeatedly, I started seeing more clearly why I drank through 2018 and 2019 and felt like I needed to.

I also saw clearly how my daily wine habit actually made my experience of all of that stress so much worse because my brain was purposefully making all of my stress feel more unmanageable.

I've dealt with some seriously ugly stresses since I became sober, and it turns out I'm actually spectacularly able to manage stress. Even the kind that scares the crap out of me.

I almost never get that overwhelmed feeling I did when I was drinking. I still feel the stress, it's still incredibly uncomfortable, but it never feels like I can't cope with it.

So I thought the wine was helping me, but it turns out that intense stress is WAY EASIER to deal with without it. Like, shockingly easier to deal with.

To put in in perspective, I recently found out that I need both of my legs broken in a process of 6 surgeries with a recovery that will be at least 2 years, during which time I will barely be able to function. There's also a solid chance that the surgery leaves me with permanent pain.

I can handle that now with time to process the feelings, some really good therapy, and a diligent mindfulness habit. It's TERRIFYING, but at no point have I felt like I can't handle it.

Two years ago? I could barely handle a spat with my mom without feeling a consuming need to numb with wine.

It still upsets me that wine never actually helped me through anything. I look back on the decade that I leaned on alcohol thinking it was supporting me, and I can see clear as day that those years would have been so much easier, and so much less stressful had I not done that.

I'm just so grateful I quit before I ended up looking back on more than one decade with that regret.