Giving up the sause

Mr Dog

Need a break from the creature. Have tried to cut down but to no avail, I just open a bottle of wine after work then end up finishing it. I'm fully aware of the health issues.
I even tried a jar with 'wine or wheels' written on it as an incentive to save the cash I would otherwise spend on New Zealand's finest.
Anyone any tips on staying on The Wagon? 8)

explosifpete

get a calender and give your self a tick everytime you have a day off.
Then try to get three ticks, then four and so on this way you get a sense of attachment.

Mr Dog

Cheers Pete, no pun intended I have included this concept in a my training diary but never thought of making my abstinence public for friends and family to see.

blackpoolkev

Try reading "The easyway to control alcohol" by Allen Carr.The best £5 I ever spent.

prawny

Just don't go down the booze isle for a start, not having the opportunity is half the battle. I packed in the booze at the end of August, made me feel like shit so I stopped drinking, its still tempting because I like the taste but I just remember how crappy I feel after just a couple of drinks and that sorts me out. Trying to do the same with crappy food at the min, finding that really hard.

prawny

Just don't go down the booze isle for a start, not having the opportunity is half the battle. I packed in the booze at the end of August, made me feel like shit so I stopped drinking, its still tempting because I like the taste but I just remember how crappy I feel after just a couple of drinks and that sorts me out. Trying to do the same with crappy food at the min, finding that really hard.

SBezza

Get a job where you are on 24 hour call, and you have to drive, good incentive not to drink.

Just think of all the bike bling you can buy with the money saved from not drinking

Duffer65

prawny wrote:

Just don't go down the booze isle for a start, not having the opportunity is half the battle. I packed in the booze at the end of August, made me feel like shoot so I stopped drinking, its still tempting because I like the taste but I just remember how crappy I feel after just a couple of drinks and that sorts me out. Trying to do the same with crappy food at the min, finding that really hard.

+1 In recent years I've suffered bad hangovers from the smallest amount of booze. Feeling like this often de-motivates me from going out for my morning ride, so I decided to quit drinking. But it is difficult, and I often feel tempted...and on occasion give in and always regret it the next day. Don't know what happened as I used to be able to drink a lot more and not feel as sh*ite as I do now after only a couple of bottles of beer.

Just think about how much better you'll feel on the bike if you haven't had any booze.

StageWinner

What is sause?

Stewie Griffin

StageWinner wrote:

What is sause?

Its French for Sauce, stupid :P

Rigga

I would say you need to fill your time with other things as its normally down to boredom and routine. For me it was the little one coming along, all of a sudden i was being woken up at 3am, 5am etc and realised i just can't do this with a hangover! So i stopped drinking in the house and feel so much better for it, now 2yrs down the line it never even enters my head to have a drink in the house.

squeeler

I'm on a no drinking in the house health drive at the moment. I've no intention of stopping boozing but definitely trying cutting down. It's a quite easy target to aim for, just don't buy booze, if it's not available you wont be as tempted to have it.

The problem is I'm more likely to go out to the pub, but on balance I think this is better than being sat in front of TV with a 4 pack of strong continental lager or a bottle of wine.

Good luck.

BrianTrousers

Try cutting down a bit to start with rather than the whole cold turkey thing. I gave up for two weeks recently (big wow!) but even that I found incredibly difficult to deal with psychologically more than anything else.

Just the thought that you can have a drink if you want to but choose not to is a better solution than actively forcing yourself not to drink. It's a subtle difference and perhaps it's just me.

This sounds like I drink a lot but in fact I was only ever drinking a couple of beers during the week and maybe a bottle of wine over the weekend. Because I'm probably not doing my health a great deal of harm with that amount, I gave up on giving up completely.

+1 on the fact that if it's not there you can't drink it. The craving will only last a few minutes and then disappear.

Bozman

The point about being oncall 24hrs, I used to do that every other week and the dry week used to kill me, I'd end up wanting to drink because i couldn't and then on the weeks I could drink I probably wouldn't.
In the end I used to play the gamble, I'd go out for a beer get home and put the mobile in the microwave.

raymc

Might sound a bit daft, but find a nice soft drink you like the taste of and keep a supply on hand.

For me, Stopped the wine consumption by buying in some Fiery Ginger Beer chilled in the fridge- found it helped to ween me off wine. I like the taste and psychologically I found it helped with any self-denial issues.

Also, as someone else has already said, find a good reason why YOU want to stop. Like others I don't like feeling Sh*t in the morning so easy for me.

Ps never was a heavy drinker more a habit drinker so once the habit changed it was easy to start the new habit, if that makes any sense!

Always find with things such as this, it's better to not be too hard on yourself- setting distant goals etc. Set youself small incremental achievable targets and you'll quickly surprise yourself.

Good Luck

Mark Bom

If you have a smart phone download an app called Alcodroid.

Whenever you have a drink you log it onto the app and keeps a tally of your consumption. I've used it for about four months and my alcohol intake has dropped every month.

hulla the hulla

Speaking from personal experience - agree on changing habits and finding other activities that keep you occupied and mean you can't drink. Give that a couple of months and no doubt you'll not want to drink after that.

Our weekly grocery shop is now about £30 less (for both of us, we still drink a little but maybe one glass of vino with dinner maybe once or twice a week and then the bottle stop goes in or we use the rest for cooking) and we save the money and go on nicer holidays. You could easily save for a new bike every year at that level.

I also lost weight, perform better at work so have had various promotions and pay rises, and never (well nearly) feel like hammered crap in the morning.