Giving up booze - almost entirely

[greenlake]

When...your head is that bit clearer it really does help to spur you on...

[vetran]

I find a really nice cup of tea and something to do with your hands helps.

[DannyF1966]

Richard Hammond - Should I worry about ... drinking

[DannyF1966]

I find a really nice cup of tea and something to do with your hands helps.

That's certainly one way to get banned from all the local boozers.

[SueEllen]

So how can I do this? How can I get over the need for a drink every evening? Won't life be ever so difficult, stressful and boring without it?

Take up a sport and be serious about it e.g. commit to doing competitions, recording your training. Then you will notice every time you drink your performance goes down.

Plus you should be more relaxed as well.

Edited to say: I actually drink more if I haven't committed to something e.g. a run or am injured, and I have family who have basically given up drinking due to the sports they do.

[vetran]

That's certainly one way to get banned from all the local boozers.

I think you are judging us as Bremainers not all of us play pocket pool.

[Fronttoback]

I drink too much. I know that. Not massively in binges, but regularly like a couple of pints and a couple of big shots (whiskey or rum or vodka + a mixer) every evening. It's my excuse for relaxation and it really helps to deal with the wife and kids and the general end-of-day de-stress, or as I see it anyway. It makes me feel relaxed, to forget about the S-H-I-T.

But of course it's just a distraction. The buzz is not real and so the continual need to do this is a barrier to moving on and a barrier to improving myself and my life.

I need to stop drinking. I want to stop drinking. But I don't know if I can do it because it's part of my routine and I'm used to having a drink every evening. And frankly I really enjoy it.

So how can I do this? How can I get over the need for a drink every evening? Won't life be ever so difficult, stressful and boring without it?

This quantity of alcohol is not excessive. If you can maintain these levels and maybe introduce a few 5km runs per week, it seems an ideal intake to me.

[DieScum]

I'm coming up to my one year anniversary of no drinking. I tended to binge to relax/numb the pain of everyday existence. Friday night would be a couple of bottles of wine and then a hangover the next day. During the week I'd sometimes drink a whole bottle in a night.

I decided to stop because the hangovers meant that I wasn't spending quality time with my young daughter the next day and, frankly, it was a stupid way of destressing.

I found it reasonably straight forward. I've moved away from the mates I grew up with. I live in Australia now so there's no catching up with an old friend over 10 pints.

If you're just drinking at home then you'll need to knuckle down for a month or so and then, hopefully, it's just a new routine after that.

The hardest part I've found are social occasions where everyone is drinking polite, respectable amounts and you're sitting there with a fizzy water looking like a berk.

Giving it up has certainly been positive. It's not some amazing nirvana but it's been good. Not sure if I will start drinking again ever actually. Having a couple of glasses is just boring for me and with a family now and not being 21 having a couple of bottles kills the next day. So I think I'd prefer to just have none.

[I just need to test it]

I was in a similar place to the OP. My drinking was routine rather than excessive. But by being routine it no longer felt like a treat to have a couple of beers.

So now I restrict my drinking to Fri/Sat/Sun evenings. I will drink as much as I want on those nights but curiously I rarely find I want more than one or two

[BrilloPad]

6 years now with little drinking. Alcohol is a depressant anyway. I rarely miss it.

Smoking I gave up 28 years ago and I still miss it. Evil stuff. Good luck!