Has anyone else’s drinking habit improved when you stopped trying to “permanently” quit?

I just remind myself that when I crave drinking that I will not let the “drink” control me. It’s the other way around.

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Has anyone else’s drinking habit improved when you stopped trying to “permanently” quit?

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Yes

Yes, I can still drink but only if I can afford to be completely useless the next day for recovery. I might have a bunch for my birthday but these hangovers suck.

Never started (Frankly, it was way easier than what most of you cats go through and you have my sympathy.)

Depends on what age you are.. if you are 20s/early 30s it’s probably best to take the approach you are describing, it’s difficult to abstain entirely or be a teetotaler when you are young (though it is possible ).. as for me i am mid 40s and for the last 15 yrs or so, most years i can usually count on one hand the number of times in a calendar year that i have a drink- not get drunk, but have a drink or two… sometimes i have a stretch of several months or even a year or two where i dont have a single sip of beer/alcohol/anything… for me it’s easy to be sober, all i have to do is think about the next day and how totally crappy i will feel, even after only a few drinks.. getting older sucks, but in that way it’s actually kind of a good thing, makes it easy to quit drinking or at least drink way less than i did when younger .

I've struggled with alcohol throughout my life but it has never effected my work. Maybe I'm getting older but we had an end of the season cookout at the camp last weekend where typically a few guys, including myself, would be completely shitfaced by the end of the night. This cookout started at noon on Saturday. I told myself that I would mix in at least 3 waters throughout the day. Kept my word, drank and had a great time but felt so much better the next day by not getting tore up. My Sunday wasn't wasted.

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about every third or fourth night involved me drinking in excess.

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Amateur.

If whatever you're doing to keep your drinking under control works for you, do it. If it stops working, do something else.

Best of luck.. I could not do what you are trying. I stopped cold Turkey. Been sober for over 3 years. You can do it if you put your mind to it.

I have, and don't usually bring it up in 'sobriety' threads because I don't want to come across as advocating continued drinking, or offering potentially dangerous advice to someone who really needs to put the bottle down.

But I do feel it's possible to evolve (for lack of a better word) into a light or social drinker after long periods of abuse. For, instance, as a pretty serious alcoholic, in my late 20s, I well remember how it became harder and harder to find friends to go out with, as they started families and moved into the adult stage of their lives. These were mostly army buddies that I drank obscene amounts of booze with every night for years (someone once posted here that military drinking is to college drinking what college drinking is to HS drinking, and having done all three, I agree). Some, like myself, continued to drink heavily, but some just kind of chilled out, and became sober responsible adults, who still drink socially, or might even have a beer or three after mowing the lawn.

I drank heavily into my mid-30's, with a couple rehab stints, before a health scare spurred a sudden intense interest in nutrition and exercise, and as I leaned into those changes, I just started to slowly drink less, and, less often, as the desire just diminished and I began to fill my time with other things.

The problem is, that it isn't a method, or something you can teach, or train yourself to do. It just has to happen naturally, which makes discussion of the concept almost taboo, as even the idea that it's possible, is of no use to someone suffering from alcoholism, whose plight, and the betterment of, is usually the focus of discussions around the topic.