Party and drinking in conflict with my diet

Mate, I'm Scottish, I'm like wasted 90% of the time :L

I just factor in the calories as I do with food, either work out to make the calories, or not eat as much to save calories!

Totally fine, as long as you prepare it. Eat low cal high protein filling foods during the day, and drink low cal drinks. I do the same. In fact everyday that I have calories left, I drink.

Ok, I'm not condoning getting excessively drunk or anything... but you will see runner's from all over the globe who are in amazing shape that will tell you the same thing... I run for beer!!!

It's true!

There's a lot of sugar in alcohol.

Unfortunately, if you want to lose weight, you have to cut the calories, including calories from alcohol.

If you're only having beer or wine a couple of times a week, that shouldn't be too hard to work into your calorie allowance. Yes, maybe it means switching to a (*shudder*) light beer and only having one or two, but it's definitely manageable.

As for getting wasted a couple of times a month, I would try to take note of what you're drinking. So many drinks are packed with sugar and carbs. So what I would do if just try to offset the damage. Get your drinks mixed with low-suger juices or diet sodas. Drink simple (like straight up vodka or whiskey or whatever you like) instead of cosmos, margaritas, etc. When I was dieting I would also alternate my drinks with just plain water or a diet soda or something like that. I didn't get as smashed, of course, but my diet didn't go completely off the rails either.

You can also try to get more exercise. If you're at a bar, try standing instead of sitting. If you're at a club, dance dance dance!

If I were you, I wouldn't try to quit all together. If you're totally giving up your social lifestyle and something that you enjoy, you won't stick with your dieting and excercise. Does it matter to you what you drink? I've switched to pretty much always getting vodka diet or vodka water. Yes, if it's a night at a club and I'm having a lot of drinks, that still adds up, but I'm also dancing the whole time! I agree with the others- make sure you count it into your calories just like anything else. This is just a personal preference, but if I'm literally going somewhere to have "a drink" I generally don't want to waste 150 calories on a beer when I could get a diet coke instead. I almost always go to happy hour with my co-workers on Fridays. If I'm not planning on going out that weekend, I don't mind using some of my calories on a few drinks with them. However, if I know I'm going out to a club or a party or something later that weekend, I want to save my drinking calories from that- so I'd rather just order a diet coke at happy hour. Yep, it definitely gets me a lot of ribbing from my coworkers (good thing I'm losing weight, because they've never known me to turn down a drink in the past and the first time I did it, they all immeaditly thought I was pregnant), but hey- I'm losing weight!

Alcohol slows your metabolic rate so I tend to stay away from drinking during meals. If I have a beer or other kind of adult beverage I make sure it's at the very end of that day, that I don't eat while/after, and I count the calories to my daily goals.

Dude I feel your pain.

I've been drinking at least every weekend for 6 or 7 years with no real big break. I'm abstaining from alcohol until halloween, which will be 3 weeks in total and it's the longest I remember going without a beer since I was 17. It actually feels really good, I might go longer than my original goal, and I still party with my friends at bars and houses but I just drink water. Sometimes at house parties I fake drinking by filling a beer bottle with water or putting a lime wedge in my cup to pull off a gin and tonic. It's actually a lot more fun than it probably sounds. And I feel really good about myself, and it's not only about the calories, I bet my liver is ecstatic. It sounds like you don't drink as much as I used to though, so I'm sure factoring it into your calorie count will work just fine.