to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

I can relate to the impulse that all free time should involve getting drunk. I'm currently going through some difficult stuff, and drinking seems (and I emphasise the word "seems") to be a good way of dealing with things- or at least not having to deal with things immediately. That, and taking up smoking again.

Sorry not to have more helpful thoughts to contribute- but I see where you're coming from, for what that's worth.

Jim I spent a lot of years in a mindset where all free time meant drinking as much as possible, and I got to the point you are at, ie just wanting to stop for various reasons. You already know from what you wrote that it's going to involve significant lifestyle change - you'll need to force yourself to break out of your comfort zone and find new things to enjoy sober. In the end what made me successful was literally leaving the country and finding a new social circle who weren't as into drinking. Maybe not a practical solution for you, but certainly it took a very large shift in mindset which would have been difficult to achieve had I stayed in the same city with the same social activities. Good luck.

i feel ya, jim--feels like a waste of a weekend when you don't get good + loaded at least one night. otoh, as i've gotten older i've learned to appreciate things such as not getting hangovers and being able to wake up early on a saturday or sunday. i def drink more than most people i know but have gotten good at avoiding that point of oblivion.

ha, wrt leaving the country: i've thought about it (though not just for that reason)! seems to me living in santiago de chile it would be a lot easier not to be a drunkard than it is in glasgow.

im conflicted over my drinking too. when i go out, i really go out though, and my capacity for drink is a bit frightening and i drink like someone is about to take the drink away from me any second. on the one hand, im relatively harmless when pissed and i havent had people saying to me that its a problem and i shold stop. although one friend who has been dry for the last 5 years did suggest it to me. there was a stage in my late 20's where it was ridiculously out of control, pretty much drinking to the state of getting a blackout all the time. looking back on it now, i was definitely depressed and angry and was using drink to take the edge off of everything.

ive gradually cut things out (drinking spirits, drinking in the day) but i find it v. difficult socially and mentally to stay off the drink when im out. drink does so much of the hard work for you. i went back to college last year so im kinda enthused and want to do well there so ive straightened out (a bit). so the all day benders are a rarity. compared to a couple of years ago where i was working in a dead end job with nothing to look forward to but getting fucked up on the weekend. having said that 2 weeks ago, i drank all day sunday and dont remember getting home. it feels almost a cliche to point it out but throw yourself into new activities that dont involve drinking. i started doing some amateur drama and its a good way to meet people and it doesnt feel artificially generated like in the pub. i know what your saying about a lot of identity is tied up in being a big drinker and maybe you think youll be a boring bastard if you give up the drink but you know thats not really true either. try and give a month or so off the booze and clear your head.

it is a problem in my life

it has caused or exacerbated problems in my life

I rarely drink, only in social situations really

and I'm a proud lightweight, two or so drinks and I'm good - don't get the appeal of getting blackout drunk and then throwing up all day the next day

see, the trick is you don't throw up

echoing franny glass, the way i quit drinking and then transitioned to 1-2 drinks every other weekend or so was through major lifestyle changes, mainly a relationship w/ someone who doesn't drink very much. the reason i drank in the first place was because i'm naturally a bit depressive and had issues on top of that so i was escape-drinking. anyway bad combo, i worked on said "issues", and now i just... don't want to get drunk ever, i don't like how it feels, it's super-boring.

good relationships are awesome of course. hopefully you have one or two good friends you could reconnect with who are into other things. i think you have to be really honest with yourself about why you want to stop drinking and explore the reasons you do so much of it in the first place because what "activities" you want to do instead could rise out of that. the physical energy it takes to drink and get drunk, that devil-may-care gusto, was part of its appeal for me and now i run instead--i get that same expenditure of energy but it's a lot healthier needless to say. i was never much of a social drinker but going out to clubs had this excitement to it. if there was dancing involved, even better. and now i'm getting into mixing, trying to create that energy myself without the artifice of alcohol.

anyway, i feel really good about changing wrt alcohol and if you really want to stop, you should do anything you can to let it happen, no matter how drastic. sounds like you've got to cut off some relationships and forge new ones, not easy but can be kind of refreshing tbh. good luck!

how do you avoid throwing up though

practice

god that sounded so self-helpy, sorry. in fewer words: it's worth changing if you don't like what's happening, and yes you can do it, etc. xp

re, brainwasher: dunno. alcohol doesn't make me puke, like ever. nor do i get hangovers unless i really do myself in. cigarettes seem to cause more morning after damage than booze.

or yeah, what she said

cigarettes seem to cause more morning after damage than booze.

smoke more.

i drink pretty rarely, except for the occasional glass of wine with dinner. it takes very little for me to get drunk.

We're going to have a guest in a bit here who is totally one of my besties but who also habitually drinks 12+ beers a night. I'm not really sure what to do. "G,night, pal...I know what you usually get up to so I'm sleeping with your car keys tonight." Or if this is even a problem at all? I mean it's clearly kind of a problem for him. It's really the elephant in the room.

lurk here, but i thought i'd weigh in as it's a problem i'm currently trying to address. like abbott's friend, i habitually drink somewhere between half to a full bottle of spirits (or the equivalent in anything else alcoholic) a night. when i don't, i don't sleep and suffer heavy anxiety/auditory hallucinations/nauseau etc. i've lost relationships, been jailed, dropped out of a phd program etc. etc.

maybe the best anecdote i heard about drinking was from a friend whose ma supervisor was a hardcore alcoholic and utter wasp. he passed out into in his dinner, his wife looked at him and then said to my friend 'alcoholism is so boring.'

it is boring, and so are the war stories, regardless of whether they're james frey's or fred exeley's. but i still love it, as much as i always have.

i recently went for an assessment at the local addiction/mental health centre and am going to be starting group therapy soon. the thing is, drinking is the crux of every single social relationship i have, whether with friends or family, so it's near impossible to imagine a life without it.

i guess all i'm saying, and which i'm sure you already know, is that it's good to address it, it can get bad.

I was a heavy drinker for 10 years, and quit drinking in 2002. Once you reach your late 20's the physical effects can really start to kick in. The way I did it was firstly to quit the crap job I had (needed to drink partly to relax after crappy days in the office, also many of my drinking pals were colleagues, and the place had a drinking culture), then secondly to move away from the city where I was living. These two steps had the effect that I was no longer surrounded by people who thought my behaviour was acceptable, so I had to sober up.

Stopped 8 years ago, because, basically, every question on every one of those questionnaires got a 'yes': waking up in hospital with my face bashed in and no memory of how (still), waking up in (very) strange peoples' beds, blackouts, missing work, fights - a black eye from my girlfriend on the day of my mother's funeral - so I stopped. Truthfully, it wasn't that difficult, and it's not that difficult hanging with drinkers: I never really get a thirst for it, and after a few drinks, they get so they forget you're not drinking and tell the story they first told you 5 minutes ago. Drinkers are basically self- centred and you're not conspicuous if you're not drinking because they're not paying attention really...

I get a bit panicked when people get really out of it: but drunks are really suggestible: implant a good idea -like 'go to bed', 'give me your car keys' and it will take over completely. Quite easy to manage usually.

Maybe the hardest thing is accepting that a lot of the things I used to blame on my drinking are actually me: I'm lazy, distractable, unproductive, sober as much as drunk. I've achieved some things that I probably wouldn't have managed if I was still a drinker, but I haven't written that great novel, or turned out to be any more intelligent or industrious. I'm also as prone to melancholy, but at least it doesn't result in a lost weekend and further consequences beyond feeling a bit shit.

You are secretly my twin, right? That last paragraph especially!

I used to LOVE drinking socially (really disliked - and still do - getting drunk at home, it makes me extremely depressed). The physical effects (late 20s, yeah) have recently made it pretty much no fun to drink. I don't get so giddy and have that much fun (possibly because my proper best friends are on the other side of the world so all my stupid jokes are met with polite smiles) and I really find it hard to sleep after drinking *anything*. So, happy to just have the one or two drinks on occasion.

THE hardest part of not drinking, even if it's something you've happily chosen, is fucking idiotic friends who cannot get over the fact that you want a soft drink when you're out. There are some that expend so much energy on trying to get you to have a drink that it becomes their mission. Get away from these people or make it clear that it'd be nice if they could respect that you want to take it easy for a bit.

It's going to sound like a lame excuse, but in my city there's really fuck all to do except go to bars or hang out (where there will be beers, obv).

I don't particularly like alcohol, especially as I get hangovers too easily these days. Good beer is nice, and maybe some scotch, but I'm not the kind of person who's going to have a beer with a meal or just for flavor, I never drink at home or alone. One or two drinks to loosen up is great, but I have a tendency to keep going because I drink everything very quickly (I'll run through three or four liters of water a day at work) and that translates to booze as well. I'm not comfortable being the guy ordering water by itself, for some reason, but I should learn to be.

One or two drinks to loosen up is great, but I have a tendency to keep going because I drink everything very quickly

same here. i'm not a big fan of beer, but i started drinking beer more as opposed to whisky or vodka because i tend to drink as a durational activity - quantity of liquid as opposed to quantity of alcohol.

Growing up as the son of a nearly lifelong alcoholic, I've always had an up-and-down relationship with alcohol. Because my dad was in a really bad place as a kid, I swore I would never drink alcohol ever. That lasted all through high school and 3/4s of the way through my first year of college. Then I gave in and became what I guess I'd call a "heavy social" drinker. Only drank when I went out with friends or to parties, but most weeks that was 3-4 nights a week. I never drank until I blacked out or lost complete control, but I did get heavily buzzed each time. That was pretty much my standard all through college and grad school, then tapered off after I got a real job and had less free time.

Now, I drink probably once every 2-3 weeks, and it has become rare that I even get "drunk". I would probably say I've been "heavily buzzed" or beyond maybe four times in the last full year. Even while unemployed. And I just cannot bring myself to drink alone, or when I'm just home relaxing with my wife (other than a glass of wine here and there with dinner). I'm guessing that part comes from watching my dad sit on the couch night after night after night, drinking until he passed out on the couch. I knew how unpleasant he was to be around, so I've probably built up this mental block about doing anything that might resemble that.

I drink a third of a bottle of wine a night -- it's part of the routine, like salad. Thanks to a combination of circumstances -- my ride and close friend moved away; aging liver -- I stick to two or three cocktails if I go out. Alcohol is just part of my life, and since I've been pretty expert at regulating it I can't imagine a day when it won't be.

i started drinking beer more as opposed to whisky or vodka because i tend to drink as a durational activity

I do like beer quite a bit, but I also think this is a big part of why I prefer it to the alternatives.

I've recently started on medication that I don't want to drink alcohol on (it's always recommended not to drink when on any medication but usually folk take that with a pinch of salt), and it's now been over 100 days since I had a drink. Not that I'm counting or anything, of course, but as a recent uni graduate, it's fair to say that I would go drinking two or three times a week, always getting somewhere between "a bit tipsy" and "fuck, that's tomorrow ruined." I'm not missing it because I feel better physically, mentally and emotionally - and apparently I'm looking good for it, losing weight and better skin - plus I'm saving a fair amount of money, but it is hard in some situations to maintain it. Like, on a night out with workmates who are all quite loud and heavy drinkers, I worry I'm seeming quiet and dull, but I've learned to throw myself into it more. What's really helped me is having close friends who don't mind going for dinner and a coffee instead of to the pub for an evening. I think when I come off the medication I'll probably go back to socially drinking, but never more than two or three in a night - at least, I say that now...

this is a great thread

i'm hung over at this very instant btw and it fucking sucks

huge hangover right now.

i can't really tell if my relationship with booze is good or bad, i guess a little of both. i drink regularly but i don't drink spirits, i do tend to get drunk as an escape and i often decide "i'm getting drunk tonight" and do so. every weekend is a piss up. i stopped drinking for 18 months or so when i first had health probs (unrelated to drinking, just general stuff) a few years back, but in a way when i started again it was v attractive as drinking means i no longer notice those same health probs. i guess that's both good and bad, good in that it's prob good to have an escape from feeling physically not right, but bad cos it is using booze to escape something.

i think largely tho i feel i've been dealt a tricky hand by life with the health stuff and i know when i didn't drink or go out i wasn't coping with it at all, mentally speaking, so right now i can't feel too negative.

i guess overall i feel okay about my drinking but i know i haven't got a perfect relationship with it.

I'm honest enough to say my drinking is not useful at this point - it comes and goes, sometimes I'm fine, lately I'm doing half to one bottle of wine a night like 5 nights a week. I manage - I'm never in trouble, sick or skipping work, but I'm always tired and slightly hung over.

I blame cigarettes. I really do. I smoke when I drink and I drink when I smoke, so. yadda yadda.

I only drink a couple of beers every few weeks or so now, if my parents take me out to dinner or something. It's a long way from drinking a bottle of Jim Beam every day (which is where I was in 2007, when I started posting here). A lot of my drunks ended in blackouts and I often got next-day phone calls from friends yielding disturbing information ("Were you hitting on my girlfriend...again?".

Somewhere around that time, I read in an article that men drink the most in their late 20s and start tapering off around 30. I decided that maybe nature would take its course and I'd end up following the group.

Soon thereafter, I got into a relationship/family with someone who doesn't drink. I didn't stop drinking right away, but it tapered off over the course of a year or so. It helped that her parents are alcoholics and watching these boomers get loaded and act like Stevie Nicks or John Wayne was a clear-as-a-bell warning sign.

where my wife's from, people's social lives revolve around dinner. so alcohol is involved but it's spread out over several hours and supplemented by lots of food. people don't really do that in london so much - have people over for dinner - which is pretty hard for her, since that used to be her main way of getting together with people. instead, people go to the pub here. which she's gotten into a little bit, though with a kid it's not very convenient. and it's expensive.

my social life definitely used to revolve around alcohol (among other things) but i don't drink much any more, mainly because i left the country and became a dad. but when i get together with people now, drinking is still a big part of things. but it's usually moderate. i can't remember the last time i got whanging, stumbling drunk. years and years ago. i've never had the problems mentioned by people on this thread, thank god. it's incredible to read some of this stuff.

jim i have some glaswegian friends and i think some of them are in a similar situation to you.

My social life almost entirely revolves around the pub, but the days of enormous drunken benders appear to be behind me. Slightly conflicted about this.

lately, too much. My friends are all graduate students and lately more than ever are making the most of that, with some manner of partying (usually nightclub, sometimes house) probably three times a week, and the odd pub visit for any reason that can be found. It's taking its toll on my wallet, my once svelte figure (okay I'm still hella skinny, but the developing belly displeases me and I'd like to nip it in the bud), my general health (I spend an awful lot of my time feeling not quite right, even when I've had a couple of days away from the booze), and my ideas of being a productive human being despite being unemployed. Far too easy to let days disappear into nights of watching TV / ILXing / partying again. I'm only awake and out and about now because I had to sign on this morning - had that peculiar thing where you wake up feeling oddly fine and realise that it's because you're actually still drunk, and now I'm in the midst of an even more peculiar thing where it's segueing into a hangover...

The thing that stopped me boozing like a champ was working in a pub, specifically, while working watching a previously spry wee dude go from irn-bru drinker to dead in the space of six months, the last month of which he was (a) barred, (b) stinking like shitey puke, (c) incomprehensible and (d) very, very fighty. Watching alcohol kill someone really takes the thrill away from getting drunk.

Also, haemorrhoids.

Last time I drank alcohol was about four years ago. So uh not at all. lol I know why: I am a terrible drinker. I immediately go for the drunk stupor.:-(

watching these boomers get loaded and act like Stevie Nicks or John Wayne was a clear-as-a-bell warning sign.

Even to a long time non-drinker that sounds a bit glam...

Further to 'My Booze Hell' as detailed above, I've never subscribed to the disease model of alcoholism - I was doing the drinking, not some malignant, alien, thing called 'alcoholism'. Even on the basic physical level, giving up smoking is a lot harder.

watching these boomers get loaded and act like Stevie Nicks or John Wayne was a clear-as-a-bell warning sign.

Even to a long time non-drinker that sounds a bit glam...
funny, i was thinking just the opposite. seeing older people who you respect (or should respect) make asses of themselves is deeply embarrassing (have lots of experience with family doing this) and very much nagl

i've never been a heavy drinker or a pub goer or a barfly, but i do enjoy 1-2 drinks daily and i would feel bereft if someone took this away from me. it's not really part of my social life, but it's seriously part of my personal winding-down ritual.

really though i don't even like getting drunk like DRUNK DRUNK. it's embarrassing.

okay so I see that two other people just quoted it but still: watching these boomers get loaded and act like Stevie Nicks or John Wayne !!!

that being said, a friend of mine is having a birthday party tonite with free booze and I haven't gone out in a long time so in a little over 12 hours I will probably be getting loaded and acting like lou reed

much of my life revolved around drinking up until about two years ago when i became a dad. It was worse when trying for a baby simply because we tried for so long. My drinking got out of control...i'd go to bars with friends and drive home...not good. When i had my son it just stopped really. I rarely have the desire for a drink now and usually these days when i have 4 im shitfaced. see the arguing thread. I will have the occasional beer and there will be occasions where i will have more than one, but no more driving. Once a year all my male friends and i play in a golf tournament in upstate new york and camp out for the weekend...thats the one time a year now we all act as fools.

Even to a long time non-drinker that sounds a bit glam...

It sounds a bit glam, but the reality is "acting like Stevie Nicks" = falling down the stairs and "acting like John Wayne" = yelling at your grandson over a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

Like, I'm sure they imagined themselves to be much more glamorous than they were in their particular situations...

Would love to see a drinker act like this Stevie Nicks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izgsz5uxuGA

Maybe the hardest thing is accepting that a lot of the things I used to blame on my drinking are actually me: I'm lazy, distractable, unproductive, sober as much as drunk.

this is so otm. however, i also use this to make an argument to myself that there isn't any reason to stop drinking, since other things are the problem.

i've recently cut down a bit due to sleep problems. new system for nights i'm alone is the one drink i just have to have when i get home from work, then two after 10. this is down from ~half bottle of gin every night over the summer, on top of whatever else while at the bar, club, etc. my positive reinforcement is that it's whiskey season and this is the only way i can afford to drink decent stuff anyway.

few things that are hard for me, beyond the usual escapism stuff: i really really LOVE the taste of alcohol, and i really like myself more when i'm drunk, but maybe the hardest, relating back to sonofstan's point above, is that i have romanticized the idea of being a drunk so much. like, maybe i could accomplish the things i want to accomplish and live the life i want live sober, but it would just be so much cooler and better if i did it drunk. realizing this is probably impossible is kind of a let down; thinking i probably can't do it sober drives me back to drinking.

"Maybe the hardest thing is accepting that a lot of the things I used to blame on my drinking are actually me: I'm lazy, distractable, unproductive, sober as much as drunk."

I quit recently for 3months and altho the above def was true there was also no doubt that i was just slightly less lazy, less distractable, and more productive but it wasn't like going from 0-10, more like 0-3. this bothered me because you figure "hey im giving up this awesome thing that is affecting me negatively, things are gonna be RAD from now on", but in reality the alcohol was only the first step towards this idealized life that you had envisioned for yourself.

I haven't been drunk in a year. That, having spent the majority of the aughts in rehabs, detox, halfway houses, and homeless. I never thought I would/could quit and then finally this time-to-grow-up/tired-of-this-shit impulse emerged and has kept me in good stead so far this year.