Giving up alcohol for 3 months...

[Jane Smart]

Gave it up over 10 years ago having seen what this drug can do to others. Vile muck dressed up and marketed as necessary to have fun! It's a bit like smoking used to be, sadly you still get people who think you are odd for choosing a healthy lifestyle.

Yes I have found that to be true

 

[hackbike 666]

Hope it goes well FF - why not extend it if you get used to it?

That is very true.Im surprised at myself.Broke a habit really.

Drinking tea and Diet Coke now.

 

[WindyRob]

last year my NY resolution was to abstain from alcohol for 1 day every week 1 week every month and one month in the year. It went really well for the period up to May; April was my month off. I was alarmed to work out that it was over a third of the year that i couldn't drink (142 days!).

I think the real downfall for me was i was working shift and couldn't drink before a morning duty so i started messing with the days i wouldn't drink rather than stick to the discipline.

Good luck to you both it'll make a huge difference to your wallets and waists!

Windy

 

[just jim]

I'm going to give this a try too - my other half is going to join me for mutual support through the Friday Night pain barrier. It'll be the first time going without since I started drinking as a teenager. What a thought.

So here goes.

 

[Noodley]

well done, just jim. I was going to have my last drink tonight but have decided that I have to stop now. So that's me for the next 3 months....

 

[upsidedown]

I'm going to give it a go too, starting tonight.
Gave up smoking last year, if i crack the drink this year not sure what else i can give up next.

Good luck everyone !!

 

[just jim]

Thanks Noodley, and good luck upsidedown. It was a happy co-incidence this thread and my own thoughts about drinkin', so it's good to hear about everyone's intentions. This thread might become useful to give wall-climbing reports along the way. I officially start stopping tommorrow.

 

[rh100]

That is very true.Im surprised at myself.Broke a habit really.

Drinking tea and Diet Coke now.

Keep it up hackbike

I'm on tea and coke too - can't bring myself to drink the diet stuff though. Although I do keep a bottle of sugar free robinsons orange squash at work and home though.

 

[Kestevan]

I'm also off the booze till after I finish the Cheshire Cat at the end of March. I'm planning on having a pint after thats over - or more likely a large Scotch... depends how cold it is

 

[tdr1nka]

Gave it up over 10 years ago having seen what this drug can do to others. Vile muck dressed up and marketed as necessary to have fun! It's a bit like smoking used to be, sadly you still get people who think you are odd for choosing a healthy lifestyle.

IMO by far the hardest thing I find about not drinking is occasionally having to deal with people who are drinking and in turn find issue with my not.

It might sound ridiculous but it does happen and it tends to be the least likely people too.


It was daunting in the early years of my not drinking having led a life and a career for fifteen years that revolved around social drinking.
There was a lot of tiresome explaining and moments of feeling like I was potentially becoming the dullest person on earth.
I realised some years later, in actuality someone sober is simply of little interest to those who are intent on drinking and just wanting to be in the company of other drinkers.

Here are a few points to remember as a new 'non drinker' in social drinking environments.

A: A person on their way to getting drunk, relaxed and in a place full of drink, suddenly presented with a very sober person, is often caught off guard.

He or she can become defensive (generally about their own drinking) as readily as they might show too much interest in your 'resolve' and ‘what brilliant will power you must have’ that they then bore you both to death wanting to discuss it.
Nothing is more boring than being at a party and having to explain, over again, why you’re choosing not to drink. Never try to explain anything of your choice or reasoning to a drunk person, you are wasting your breath and turn you really might as well be drunk yourself.


B: Not drinking can be viewed as not accepting hospitality or a social situation.

I turned down a glass of wine at a meal once and the host, who I’d only met that night, reacted as if I were a petulant teenager who had settled down to a family roast beef dinner only to declare I was, from that moment on, becoming a vegan.
‘But I don’t know what else we have to drink?’ She said sharply,
‘We didn’t get anything in for you.’

C: Drunk people can get very suspicious as to why you ‘won't’ drink.
This will be because even some very lovely and sensible ‘insensible’ people really can’t cope with the possibility of anyone having, or being any, ‘fun’ without drink and in their confusion cannot help but make assumptions as to why you don’t or how you can?

You see the thoughts flash across their minds in any combination of the following phrases;
‘Why doesn’t he drink?
What the hell is wrong with him?
Oh God! Is he a reformed alcoholic?
How do I ask? Do I ask?
Please don’t tell me your life story!
Is he going to go ’all weird’ because I offered him a drink?
Am I feeling sympathy or nothing?
How on earth can anyone not want beer on a Friday night?
Poor lad.
Oh Jeez, Please don’t let him be some keep fit happy clappy temperance man!
Am I talking to the most boring person in the world and if so, what is he doing at my party?’

Obviously these things don’t happen all that often but be on the lookout as it can be unsettling for everyone concerned when it does.

I get round this by pretty much limiting social situations and friendships based around drinking these days and I still have friends (fewer, but better) to show for it so the outlook is not at all bad.

What I can vouch for is waking up in my own head every morning, remembering the previous day in gory detail while not having to find the extra effort a hangover demands makes it all the more worthwhile.

I don’t miss the drink but sometimes I do miss the company it keeps.

 

[tdr1nka]

I didn't find anything disrepesectful in your post. CoG, you old soak.

 

[dragon72]

I stopped drinking last May and have found that my quality of life has improved phenominally.

However as a single person, I'm finding meeting women pretty difficult, since it usually starts with "Let's go for a drink".

So we meet up, she has a glass of booze, I have a glass of tonic or whatever and I can see all of tdr1nka's Part C Questions going through her brain!

 

[tdr1nka]

Ask her out for a coffee instead.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Thanks Noodley, and good luck upsidedown. It was a happy co-incidence this thread and my own thoughts about drinkin', so it's good to hear about everyone's intentions. This thread might become useful to give wall-climbing reports along the way. I officially start stopping tommorrow.

Hey just jim, upsidedown, kesteven and Noodley - GOOD LUCK!
I think mutual support's going to play a big factor here if any one of us is going to succeed. MV over at yacf is also giving it a go.
It will be interesting to see what benefits we derive (and waht we crave on April the first!).
We've got our Birthdays to survive alcohol-free, so that's a challenge.

I'm going to start a thread on interesting drinks for non-drinkers. Next Friday we have a fairly heavy wine-consuming duo coming round and I can't drink coke all evening, though have had a couple of straight Tonics with lemon which were nice enough.

So far, nearly 48 hours alcohol-free, been weird as a weekend and MIL's been here and we've done a lot of cooking and consuming together. It is much like quitting ciggs, there is a large amount that seems physiological and half habit. I always grab a glass or red when I start cooking, or when I return from dropping her home in London (as I just have), usually I'd drop the keys and grab a glass. Not drinking for even 48 hrs has made me realise already how much red-wine punctuated my home time.
I slept desperately badly last night, but I'm not bleming that on a lack of a nightcap... yet!

Gonna start a regular weigh-in as well.

So, fellow absteemers, I'm proud you've joined-in and wish you well!

Cheers!

 

[hackbike 666]

I slept desperately badly last night, but I'm not bleming that on a lack of a nightcap... yet!

My sleep has only started improving recently.Im going back to some sort of normality at last.It was 11 Dec 2008 when I called a halt to my drinking.I was quite ill last Christmas and didn't drink at Christmas for the first time in many years...same as this year.

I have only drank once at home in that time (new years eve).I haven't visited an English pub here in well over three years (except for a funeral) and only drink when im on holiday abroad.It's working well.Nex holiday abroad is possibly March if I have the money.