LESS Alcohol ~ SEPTEMBER 2024 ~ One Day at A Time

8 A
5 AF

Better than most months.
My goal is to be 50/50 by Sept. 30th.

Had the rest of the low calorie KJ Chardonnay last night - (bottle lasted 3 nights) and a half glass of regular.

This time, I didn’t say to myself well I drank today so I might as well have ALL the wine and open another bottle (taken and relating from @Alatariel75).

I have had a two more A days than I planned this week but I have stopped at my personal limit. Have some catching up to do this weekend.

Current:
AF days - 4
A days - 5
LA - 4 (under 8 oz. wine or 8% alcohol)

@SurferGirl1982 I appreciate your honest posts and self reflections. It really is so meaningful to me and many others.

I KNOW I need to quit for good. But I make rules and bargains with myself. I can't tell you how many bottles I have poured out.

I admire those who can moderate. My brain loves to trick me and say "how about we have a glass of wine and then that's it." Sometimes I can stop at a few and sometimes I binge. Once I get some traction with AF days, I am so happy with myself. And then I have one sip and I'm back to drinking. It is such hard work to be sober and I pray that one day I will put in the hard work needed.

Popping by tonight to log my AF day. This morning I decided I wanted to be wine free tonight and was successful without any cravings.

I am planning on no sugar or wine for tomorrow as well.

I’m also counting down days to our vacation next week. Another reason for me to cut back this week on all the things!

Current:
AF days - 5
A days - 5
LA - 4 (under 8 oz. wine or 8% alcohol)

@SurferGirl1982 when you said: "My personal best for AF is four months. And I definitely prefer AF over daily drinking. Once I get a few days AF it really isn't that hard. Until my mind says to me, "You've been doing so well! You deserve a drink!". I've experienced exactly what you said and then some. At the 30 day mark, the wine devil in my head wakes up after being quiet so long and starts to tell me I deserve a day off (not a drink, a whole day). If I make it past the 30 day "milestone" and 60 day "milestone", he pops back in to say the same. This scenario is very normal and typical. We need to arm ourselves with support to keep our resolve and commitment to our goals and don't listen to that bad wine devil. Thanks for reminding me of this.

No drinks last night and I am past the 2 week milestone, no wine devils emerged but I did have a dream I drank a large glass of white wine and I woke up queasy, so odd!

Last week was busier than usual, was good about keeping to my 10 oz limit until Thursday, and then the flood gates opened - so woke up at 4 am Friday am, in my typical post bing hangxiety attach. I am so disappointed in myself. then i spend the next day giving myself all the negative self- talk. After reading the other posts, I was suprised that other folks also are dealing with the negative self talk. It’s crazy how it’s just there, and seems so automatic and it takes effort to flip the script.

I really want to, but dont want to, do a string of AF days. Someone mentioned about a 24hour AF trial- I really like that idea - it’s just a different way to think about it. I am going to try AF from 4 pm Mon- 4 PM Tue this week.

Positive vibes to all for a great week this week.

chicbuc wrote: »

RubyRed and Surfergirl, I'm like you both as well. Moderation doesn't work for me. My moderation is 1 bottle of wine instead of 2...I don't think that counts If there's wine in the house, I'll drink it. If I don't have enough to get through the night, I'll DoorDash some (Why don't I just go to bed?)

Last night was a casino night. What did I do? Bought a bottle of wine in case I wanted more when we got home. There's half a bottle left that I am going to poor down the drain. Otherwise I'll buy another bottle to go with it and continue the cycle for the week.

I am beginning to love the way it feels to sleep without wine, so I'm hoping that motivates me to do that more often. Hang in there! We can beat this beast! I am definitely planning AF tonight and hopefully the whole week!

AF = 4
A = 10

I do that too. When I go out for a happy hour after work, I will plan ahead and make sure a bottle of wine is in the fridge waiting for me.
I am so much more productive on evenings that I don't drink. When I start with a glass after work, then I'm a slug.
I even cook dinner so that I can drink a glass or two while I'm cooking. My longest streak is 9 months, but I do recall I had to isolate myself from my drinking buddies and stay home. But during those 9 months, I taught myself how to build a web page and learned new things and had hobbies. I regret I didn't continue after those 9 months. I use an app called NOMO. I can even reread my old journal entries from 6 years ago when I was sober for a few months. I've been trying to quit for about 10 years now. Maybe this is our year!!!

I caved and started drinking my wine that I didn't pour out at around noon when I sat down to watch football...and DoorDashed another bottle. Then I woke up in the middle of the night because I don't sleep as well when I drink and like @Michelle9912 started with the negative self talk. Lather, rinse, repeat.

@SurferGirl1982 I'm with you for the next 5 days...M-F...let's do this!
@RubyRed427 Keep on keeping on. If you did it once, you can do it again!
@NonnieDoiron You're doing so well! Hope things settle down and you get a break!
@Michieb125 I'm enjoying the honest conversations as well. It helps us all know we're not alone and we're not crazy. You can this today. We can all do this...just for today.

AF = 4
A = 11

September:
AF=6
A=9

I really need to find a new way to celebrate things!
We've been converting our garage into a bedroom suite for my BIL (he's getting dementia and can no longer live alone). We're doing the painting ourselves to save some $$ and I've been celebrating every milestone: Friday was walls done wine, Saturday was doors done prosecco and Sunday was trim done wine.
Fortunately all I have left now is some touch-up work, not enough work to warrant a celebration, LOL.
Rainy here today, tonight is tea night.

10 AF
6 A

Hello all and hope you are having a good Monday!

I decided to have some alcohol on Saturday evening while unwinding with my husband from a long day. We are both youth soccer coaches and it was the first game day of the fall season. We were all driving all over the place and wrangling 3rd through 6th graders. I had one cider which was leftover from a camping trip back in August. I was feeling proud because in the old days there was no such thing as me ever having anything leftover in a 6 pack for that long!

After the cider I wanted another, but there weren't any. So I poured a glass of wine. It was gross! I really don't like wine anymore which I find so interesting. I actually have started to believe it's a scam, that we are told it's so good and fancy and "fine" and people with expensive taste like it, and it tricks us into thinking its actually good. Go a year or so without drinking it, and it just tastes like sour fruit. And I liked good wine too. I was in several wine clubs and used to visit wineries all the time, swirling and sniffing and crap! Lol.

Anyway, I poured the wine out and made myself a margarita with Cointreau and some nice silver tequila that my mother in law had brought back from Mexico last year.

After that I wanted more still, which is always my problem and why I am here on this page. But I'm proud to say I recognized how terrible I'd feel if I indulged that, so I switched to sparkling water. I kind of wish I didn't use an alcohol day on a random Sat evening with nothing going on... but oh well.

So far this month I've had
12/16 days AF.

Take care everyone.

I just booked a week off in November - Tuesday was already a public holiday, the Wednesday I was going to take off anyway because I'll be glued to the TV and not wanting to work anyway, and the Friday I had to leave to lunch to get to an event 5 hours away - it made sense to just take the week and have a break.

My first thought was "I hope I'm still AF by then" because last time I took a staycation, I wasted it by drinking every day, being hungover all the time, and don't absolutely nothing on the list of things I wanted to do.

It does emphasise to me that as "easy" as I'm finding AF right now (and it's only easy because I have a repulsion to alcohol at the moment because of the effect someone else's intake is having on my life), I'm not confident in this as my normal and it still seems tenuous.

AF 13
A 3

Current monthly total:
10 A
6 AF

Hello my LA friends

One more AF day under my belt.

AF - 5
A - 11

A quick story for you all. Went to a festival with my wife and 2 friends on Saturday. I had too much wine and beer. Had a bad experience with a young lad hitting on my drunk wife on the dance floor. It could have escalated badly but I used my head this time instead of my fists.

Woke up Sunday severely hung over with a massive headach and the shakes and super pissed off at the whole situation and myself for drinking too much.

So, my takeaway from this is alcohol leads to no good in my life.

At this point I am completely turned off from Alcohol and never want to feel that way again!

cheers