Alcohol, hints, tips, advice etc.

hampshireblue said:
Day 19 for me without. I was in the habit of a very large glass(1/2 a bottle) followed by a very large neat rum or 2. I rarely went a day without booze of some description but never to the extent of feeling rough or pissed. I really wanted to see how easy it was to not have any. The first few days were tough, but I'm fine now having a Peroni 0% or Heineken 0% despite me rarely drinking lager before. A virgin Mary is also a favourite. We're off on holiday soon, so I will drink then but I'm happy that I now know I'm not dependant!!
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Erdinger blue and Ghost Ship (0.05%) are decent options too.
 
Not sure this is the right thread but here goes.

When trying to lose weight calorie control quite rightly rules.
My question relates to water content of the body.
If we look at weight difference between certain dates it becomes calories used compared to calories consumed by food and drink so we gain or lose weight accordingly.

Surely this weight difference is a combo of metabolism and (since the body is about 70 percent water) water itself?
In other words when we say we have lost say 2 kgs is that actually 30 percent calorie control and 70 percent water?
 
Here are a couple of tips from me for drinking less. I have had a 4 cans or a bottle of wine a night habit for a number of years. At Christmas I was trying to remember when I last had a day without a drink and it was so far back (6 months maybe) that I couldn't remember. My Mrs has nagged me about it for years, going on about my health but I have steadfastly turned the other cheek.
After Christmas I seemed to get something in every newsfeed about functioning alcoholics. I read a couple of things and had to admit that I fitted the bill for every criteria, and started to think about it. One morning about 3 weeks ago my Eldest Daughter came up to me in the kitchen, put her arms round me and started sobbing, saying she was worried about how much I drank and she didn't want me to die before her kids had chance to know me. Talk about a wake-up call...so I put a plan in place, and in summary this is it.

I usually used to neck a couple of cans at 6pm because I was 'thirsty'. Now at 6pm I have a couple of cans of diet Coke, sounds daft but it somehow satisfies some urge.
Often I wouldn't eat early evening because I was too busy drinking. Now I make something nice to eat and make that the focus of my early evening instead.
Usually I would sit in the kitchen by myself drinking. I now make a point of witching a film with my kids instead which distracts me.
Often I would get invited out to things (no drink involved) a couple of nights a week and I wouldn't go because it got in the way of my boozing. Now I accept those invitations and go out.
There are other things I am doing too, but they are all about changing ingrained habits and doing something else instead.
So it is possible to change, early days for me but I genuinely want to do it and feel that I can. I have no intention of giving up completely, I just want to stick to a much lower limit.
Hope that helps someone.
 
bluebaja said:
Here are a couple of tips from me for drinking less. I have had a 4 cans or a bottle of wine a night habit for a number of years. At Christmas I was trying to remember when I last had a day without a drink and it was so far back (6 months maybe) that I couldn't remember. My Mrs has nagged me about it for years, going on about my health but I have steadfastly turned the other cheek.
After Christmas I seemed to get something in every newsfeed about functioning alcoholics. I read a couple of things and had to admit that I fitted the bill for every criteria, and started to think about it. One morning about 3 weeks ago my Eldest Daughter came up to me in the kitchen, put her arms round me and started sobbing, saying she was worried about how much I drank and she didn't want me to die before her kids had chance to know me. Talk about a wake-up call...so I put a plan in place, and in summary this is it.

I usually used to neck a couple of cans at 6pm because I was 'thirsty'. Now at 6pm I have a couple of cans of diet Coke, sounds daft but it somehow satisfies some urge.
Often I wouldn't eat early evening because I was too busy drinking. Now I make something nice to eat and make that the focus of my early evening instead.
Usually I would sit in the kitchen by myself drinking. I now make a point of witching a film with my kids instead which distracts me.
Often I would get invited out to things (no drink involved) a couple of nights a week and I wouldn't go because it got in the way of my boozing. Now I accept those invitations and go out.
There are other things I am doing too, but they are all about changing ingrained habits and doing something else instead.
So it is possible to change, early days for me but I genuinely want to do it and feel that I can. I have no intention of giving up completely, I just want to stick to a much lower limit.
Hope that helps someone.
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Fair play, and good luck.

It's all too easy for habitual drinking to tip over in to chemical dependence. But even if you aren't chemically dependent you are still doing serious damage to your body.

I once found myself in a 3 year cycle of drinking every day, some days to oblivion, and I drastically cut back. That was mid/late 90's. I'm now at the point were I rarely drink at all, and even then it's no more than 6-8 units, and that's pushing it. Last year I probably did no more than 50 units in the entire year.

What did it for me was that I was working with 3 functioning alcoholics (that I knew of), and one guy I knew was found dead in his flat whilst he was on sick leave - Been dead 2 weeks when his sister found him. I just knew at that point I had to sort it out.

I also did a brief spell with Surrey Ambulance Service as part of a work related course a few years later, and ended up attending a seriously ill alcoholic guy in Guilford town centre, and to this day I can still remember the smell. It's the only time I've ever met a living person who smelled of death.

Alcohol is a wicked drug...
 
bluebaja said:
Here are a couple of tips from me for drinking less. I have had a 4 cans or a bottle of wine a night habit for a number of years. At Christmas I was trying to remember when I last had a day without a drink and it was so far back (6 months maybe) that I couldn't remember. My Mrs has nagged me about it for years, going on about my health but I have steadfastly turned the other cheek.
After Christmas I seemed to get something in every newsfeed about functioning alcoholics. I read a couple of things and had to admit that I fitted the bill for every criteria, and started to think about it. One morning about 3 weeks ago my Eldest Daughter came up to me in the kitchen, put her arms round me and started sobbing, saying she was worried about how much I drank and she didn't want me to die before her kids had chance to know me. Talk about a wake-up call...so I put a plan in place, and in summary this is it.

I usually used to neck a couple of cans at 6pm because I was 'thirsty'. Now at 6pm I have a couple of cans of diet Coke, sounds daft but it somehow satisfies some urge.
Often I wouldn't eat early evening because I was too busy drinking. Now I make something nice to eat and make that the focus of my early evening instead.
Usually I would sit in the kitchen by myself drinking. I now make a point of witching a film with my kids instead which distracts me.
Often I would get invited out to things (no drink involved) a couple of nights a week and I wouldn't go because it got in the way of my boozing. Now I accept those invitations and go out.
There are other things I am doing too, but they are all about changing ingrained habits and doing something else instead.
So it is possible to change, early days for me but I genuinely want to do it and feel that I can. I have no intention of giving up completely, I just want to stick to a much lower limit.
Hope that helps someone.
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Moving story and I’m sure you’ll have success on your journey, there is no better motivation than your own kids/ Grand kids.
 
bluebaja said:
Here are a couple of tips from me for drinking less. I have had a 4 cans or a bottle of wine a night habit for a number of years. At Christmas I was trying to remember when I last had a day without a drink and it was so far back (6 months maybe) that I couldn't remember. My Mrs has nagged me about it for years, going on about my health but I have steadfastly turned the other cheek.
After Christmas I seemed to get something in every newsfeed about functioning alcoholics. I read a couple of things and had to admit that I fitted the bill for every criteria, and started to think about it. One morning about 3 weeks ago my Eldest Daughter came up to me in the kitchen, put her arms round me and started sobbing, saying she was worried about how much I drank and she didn't want me to die before her kids had chance to know me. Talk about a wake-up call...so I put a plan in place, and in summary this is it.

I usually used to neck a couple of cans at 6pm because I was 'thirsty'. Now at 6pm I have a couple of cans of diet Coke, sounds daft but it somehow satisfies some urge.
Often I wouldn't eat early evening because I was too busy drinking. Now I make something nice to eat and make that the focus of my early evening instead.
Usually I would sit in the kitchen by myself drinking. I now make a point of witching a film with my kids instead which distracts me.
Often I would get invited out to things (no drink involved) a couple of nights a week and I wouldn't go because it got in the way of my boozing. Now I accept those invitations and go out.
There are other things I am doing too, but they are all about changing ingrained habits and doing something else instead.
So it is possible to change, early days for me but I genuinely want to do it and feel that I can. I have no intention of giving up completely, I just want to stick to a much lower limit.
Hope that helps someone.
Click to expand...
Changing routines is something I did when I quit10 years ago ,tried to do completely the opposite to what I did ,one big one that was really beneficial was when drinking never went to bed till the early hours ,which just compounded issues ,
Now being dry I don't fight tiredness anymore and don't care less if it 8 9pm when I go to bed ,the knock on from that is I'm up early around 5am refreshed batteries recharged and days jobs powered through no distractions before anyone's up
 
I’m not giving up and probably only had around 25/30 drink free days last year. I would drink about 6/7 units a night generally so not huge but still too much. I’ve set myself a goal of 150 drink free days for the year and done 14 in Jan so far (Only started on the 8th so only drank on 3 days since then and less then 10 units in total. Found it relatively easy so far when I thought I wouldn’t. Been drinking a flavoured tonic at night and that does the job. Hopefully will stick at it.
 
I posted in here 21 days ago regarding my relationship with alcohol and that it had to change, and change it has. 10 pints in the last two weeks (that includes two City home games where 8/10 pints is the norm over the day/night) and definitely feeling better for it. I was never going to stop all together, I don't really want to, but not having it as a focal point of has certainly got me heading in the right direction. Some great tales of change on here, keep it up.
 
Day 24 of Dry Jan and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, saved a bastard fortune too.

I’ve gone hardcore and mixed it in with doing intermittent fasting, 18/6 rather than 16/8, cut back on carbs and also doing gym, spin, footy or running every day.

Feel great, lost loads of weight, I’d been drinking far too much last year so it’s certainly helped to break that cycle and I intend keeping most of this going through Feb with a “dryish” month.

I just drink loads of water to get through the evenings and been bingeing tv series with the missus which has kept her happy too.
 
Zubrman said:
Really good reading all these recent posters adding to the regulars on here. It feels like an ever-growing community of healthier drinking BMooners.

For whatever your reasons, here's wishing you all the strong will to achieve your goals. You'll get all the encouragement you need on here.
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Will be interesting to hear if any doing Dry January will extend their personal challenge further
 
Indaparkside said:
I have cut right down since being diagnosed with cirrhosis, gone from probably 40 pints a week to 10 the big test is 4 days in Leipzig etc when your away with city also dropped a jeans size which helps other issues
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Well done, sorry to hear that news, but great start. Can cirrhosis be reversed by stopping drinking?
 
Indaparkside said:
I have cut right down since being diagnosed with cirrhosis, gone from probably 40 pints a week to 10 the big test is 4 days in Leipzig etc when your away with city also dropped a jeans size which helps other issues
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How you afford to drink that much some effort that. Even 10 pints a week adds up. The sooner you realise going out and enjoying yourself doesn't have to involve getting pissed the better it changes everything.
 
Scottyboi said:
How you afford to drink that much some effort that. Even 10 pints a week adds up. The sooner you realise going out and enjoying yourself doesn't have to involve getting pissed the better it changes everything.
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£650-700 a month and around 10,000 calories (around 5 days worth of food for an average male).

Scary when you see it written down like that.
 
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