Drinking problem

Only you know you. I was in the same boat a couple of years ago. One beer was too many and 12 weren’t enough. Binge drinking is the only kind of drinking I knew.

I cut just out just about all alcohol a couple of years ago because I started eating healthier to lose weight. That helped with motivation. I enjoy waking up sober now, even if it’s 6 am on a Sunday morning.

I still drink occasionally, but I feel it a lot more now and don’t particularly care for how I feel afterwards.

Try cutting back to just the weekends. I’ve found it helpful with binge drinking to set hours boundaries on the weekend too, like I’m not going to drink before 3 PM or after 10 PM.

Today is my 11th birthday. 11 years without a beer. I went to a treatment place, met some wonderful people in recovery, have becomes friends with a lot of them. MD’s, PhD’s, etc. All with educations and degrees in substance abuse and alcoholism. I’ve had a sponsor the whole time, plugged into a huge recovery community, have heard tons of speakers and tapes, and have attended many conventions.

Now that we have that out of the way.. the facts..

If you’ve ever had to ask if you’re an alcoholic or not, you are one.
Do you ever ask yourself if you’re a bird? Of course not, that’s ridiculous. You don’t ask yourself something you 100% know you’re not.

You can drink a few times a month and be an alcoholic. As a society we think an “alcoholic” has to meet certain criteria. The truth is, the threshold is much lower. I will post a questionnaire below from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Take the survey to give you some evidence… if you need anymore evidence. I didn’t. I knew I didn’t have an off switch and that normal people could stop when they wanted to. I wasn’t a normal drinker. I even went a period of time without beer to prove to myself I could do it. All that did was fuel my denial that I wasn’t an alcoholic. It was a free ride to drink without guilt. So I thought.

When I started to think about giving it up I had a lot of questions. Would life be fun without alcohol? How would I go to crawfish boils, weddings, the beach, vacations, tailgates without alcohol?? It seemed absurd to me. No way was I giving it up completely. But I trusted those that told me life would be more fun without it. I thought… impossible!!! Those events weren’t happening anytime soon so I decided to give it a shot anyway. They were happy and their lives were great. I wanted that. I stopped drinking just 24 hours at a time. Day by day. Next thing I knew I had a week.. two weeks.. and so on.

They were right. All those events I listed above are FREAKIN LIGHTYEARS BETTER without booze. Oh my goodness I wish I could put it in accurate words for you. You just have to trust those of us that have gone before you. Give up the booze. You have a wonderful and happy life waiting for you that I can’t even begin to describe. It’s incredible. My only regret is that I didn’t stop years or decades sooner.

Nowadays anyone who’s ever tasted a beer before is considered an alcoholic.

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But I like to drink everyday.

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I don’t want to stop drinking.

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I really don’t want to get “sober”

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I’m not some kind of hardcore alcoholic

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You're an alcoholic.

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You're an alcoholic.

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Yep. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

2.5 years sober here and it was the best decision of my life.

I'm not going to assess OP's situation off this one post, but generally when people close to you express to that you that you have a drinking problem, you tend to have a drinking problem.

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Switch to whiskey neat. You won’t be chugging that.

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until you do. wouldn't be my strategy.

as others have said. try cutting back to only weekends. You dont need to drink ever. its a want. if you find you cant, then yes, you may need to have a hard look at yourself.

Start drinking NA beer when you crave one. You will naturally limit yourself because they don’t taste that good and going for a second or third just doesn’t make much sense. The first sip does taste like beer though, and they are generally a little better for you calorie wise. Lacroix has the same effect for me.

Also, you are on the right board to ask this, when I take my fitness most seriously, especially working out in the evenings, it’s easier to skip the beer because one or two will cancel the calories you just burned. When you see yourself making progress from a fitness perspective you can see that alcohol may be the difference between looking not bad to looking good.

I haven’t had a drink in over a month, and I’d love to have one. I don’t really feel that much better not drinking, maybe because I drink often but not a whole lot. So I know where you are coming from in being able to stop for a long period but cravings don’t go away. More of a habitual addiction than a chemical one, but an addiction nonetheless.

I find that you just need to discipline yourself, like only drinking on the weekends and only starting after 5pm. Or even still allow a drink on weekdays, but only after 8pm. Literally just limiting the amount of time you have to consume is helpful for me.

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I guess my question is what do I do? Do I completely give it up? Or do I just cut back a lot? Go from drinking every night of the week to just the weekends?

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I was in a similar situation. I didn't even drink all that often. When I did, I was getting drunk. Not buzzed.......DRUNK. I recall switching from drinking beer while watching the game to whiskey, because I sipped whiskey and maybe had two reasonable pours in a 4 hour time span. Wasn't getting wasted. I realize that sounds dumb, but that's only becuase it was dumb. I built up a taste for whiskey and a few pours led to more and here I am shite-faced on a Tuesday. May not drink again for a week. May not drink again for a month if I really did something stupid while drunk. But eventually I'd get over whatever embarassment or the wife and I buried the fight it caused. And there I am again, over-drinking at a wedding or something.

The only way for me was to just quit. I didn't need AA (although I have been). I wasn't an alcoholic in the sense of being addicted. I just can't control myself on it and had to cut it out of my life. I'm 16 months without touching the stuff. It's just not a necessary thing for me anymore. I've cut off the option of "well if I just have a few I can have a good time and not have an issue".

I don't know your situation and can't tell you what to do. If people notice and bring it up to you, it may be a time for real reflection. I can just say that life does exist without drinking.

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But think about being dry for 2 months and waking up on a Saturday morning, heading to Baton Rouge, getting to a tailgate and not drinking when you want to drink. Not going to happen, buddy. You only have so much willpower

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Because tailgating isn’t a fun activity unless you drink

It’s standing around