It is a year and a day since I last drank any alcohol.

[Deleted User]

I use MyFitnessPal to log my calorie intake and that has definitely helped change my behaviour! 8 cans of Punk at 1200 calories is just not worth it - and 8 cans is quite easy to do!!

A medium bike ride will blow off 1200 calories though so you can have your beer and eat it.

 

[CentralCommuter]

Amstel 66 at 3% and 66 calories is a good beer to have in the fridge. May not be the place for recommendations.

 

[Fintious]

I gave up following a heart attack just after my 50th birthday 18 months ago. Being in the RAF taught me how to drink and I kept it going for far too long. I don’t miss it in the slightest and feel so much fitter and alive I wish I’d had the willpower to stop years ago.

 

[NorthernSky]

Although having said I've not drunk alcohol for 14 years, I do drink some "alcohol free" beers occasionally and they can be 0.5% abv so not strictly true. I also sometimes put a couple of drops of Angostura bitters into a large glass of soda water. But I'm not counting those drinks. Too weak to be any problem.

In a mix up at a works do some years back I was given an orange juice with some spirits in it. After so many years TT it tasted foul. Maybe a mix of cat piss and petrol would be a good description. Spat it straight back into the glass.

I do like Brussels sprouts. As Rick Astley might say, I'm never gonna give them up...

i still drink alcohol free beers. ok some have a tiny amount in but i don't beat myself up about it. they are a great socialising tool if anything

 

[derrick]

It's two weeks since having any beers or spirits. Not trying to give up as I am a social drinker. Should be back on it in 8 weeks. I don't drink at home unless we have friends around. Still go outside with the neighbours for a drink. But it's a juice of some sort, that does not hit the spot. At least with beer you can sit there all night drinking it.

 

[Chap sur le velo]

Well done to all of you who have given it up. I have been a fairly heavy drinker for 22 years. I can go a week without it no problem, and I don't really get any physical cravings. For me I fear I'd lose my self-confidence if I couldn't drink at a party for example. Even a family BBQ, I enjoy it much more when I've had a few. Do any of you find that (the psychological side) to be true?

You raise an interesting question(s) that don't sit well with the drift of this thread.

You mention psychology and "heavy drinker" so there may be two questions to discuss? For myself I'd add habit.

I respond because what you say resonates with me. I once went 2.5 years

"Dry" and only started again on holidays. Since I've gone back to "full time" I have regularly questioned why. Yes I do enjoy social occasions more and enjoy the taste but as someone above said it's years since I saw the end of a box set series. During lockdown it's been a bottle of wine a day with no hangover or weight gain. (As discussed on another thread it may also be affecting my ablutions and possibly the drive to get more things done 'after the yardarm...)

're the heavy drinking my reading around the subject suggests that the danger sign to look out for us not that you never miss a day, but that once you start it becomes increasingly hard to stop. some people can easily skip days or weeks but once they have a sniff they're off. The odd night of "going large" isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if it happens more than you'd like you have the warning signals. Of course alcohol come with health warnings and only you know what heavy means. "Excess" can be dangerous on its own.

So the big questions for me are why do I do it and is it giving me the life I want. Need a plan but each evening for some reason I seem to put one off...

The timing of this thread is fortuitous as I have a 5 day course of antibiotics to start following 2 weeks of post lockdown celebrating birthdays. 5 days to come up with that plan and see if I Get more out of life with planned dry days.

 

[JhnBssll]

I've really come out of myself since I stopped. I had believed I 'needed' a drink inside me at social gatherings but I've slowly learned that it was confidence sober-me was lacking, not booze. I'm a real pain in the arse now I largely drank through habit; 3 or 4 pints a night through the week and 9 or 10 on a Friday and Saturday didn't seem too bad at the time but sounds terrible in retrospect In reality I guess I was bored, and meeting my mates at the pub every night seemed a reasonable excuse. I tried to keep up going every Friday for a few pints of diet coke but haven't been down for a few years now, it would be nice to start it up again and see some friendly faces but I'm worried I don't have anything in common with them anymore.

Once or twice a year I'll walk past a pub garden and there'll be someone sat outside in the sun with a pint and a fag and I'll get a tinge of jealousy but it doesnt last long

 

[Pale Rider]

I was lucky in that the reason I gave up alcohol was because I genuinely lost interest in it.

I had a plan to replace beer with whisky, but lost interest in that as well after a couple of months.

My only concern is my former hankering for booze could return as easily as it left.

But, the whisky interregnum aside, I've been more or less tee total for best part of 10 years so now.

I say more or less because I will still allow myself a drink, but I can't recall having one for many months.

 

[ColinJ]

Since going TT I've said goodbye to my more genial, sociable, alter ego. I'm far less affable now and probably grumpier and ruder than I was with a few drinks inside me.

I was never a cheerful drinker. I would be ok to start with, but soon the artificial chirpiness would leave me and after that I would become more and more morose. Somebody asked me once why I drank if it made me feel so depressed. I didn't have a good answer to that question, but it didn't put me off.

 

[All uphill]

Had a garden party on Sunday. 2 day hang over & feel so depressed. It’s evil stuff. It’s hard to stick to 2 or 3 when everyone’s knocking it back. I’m certain it’s only legal to stop boot legging.

That was why I stopped. I found it much easier to drink nothing than to just have one. I also learned quickly that drinking 8 cokes in an evening was seriously worse for me than eight wines or beers!

 

[cookiemonster]

I’m 7 years and 4 months without tea or coffee.

Is that possible!? 😱

 

[stephec]

Well done!

Three years for me. Don't miss it or the things that go with it (hangovers, pubs, big supermarket bills). Now I need to reduce my chocolate habit!

I can't imagine going back.

You do know that you can sometimes take things too far?

 

[All uphill]

You do know that you can sometimes take things too far?

Thanks, you are correct. I'm passing by Lidl tonight for supplies!

 

[yo vanilla]

Well done Pete!

 

[yo vanilla]

Sugar is really a hard one, especially since everything has sugar in it these days. Sugar = more carbs, which I attempt to watch.

This is true. IDK quite how it is in the UK, but in USA everything has added sugar. On top of that, normally about twice as much as necessary. And if not sugar, an artificial sweetner. In the most unlikely of things too... like lunchmeat? Really? I like to say 9/10 things at the grocery store are junk and I just don't buy them.