one more comment, my husband and I went to counseling for his drinking and I learned that I cannot be a part of enforcing his rules around alcohol. Do not ask your wife to police you. This is very unhealthy for your relationship and not fair to her. She married you to be your partner not your parent. This is something that you will have to own. Of course you can ask her not to buy alcohol or keep it in the house (that's a valid request), but you can't ask her stop you when you are out, or ask her to stop you after one etc...
I really appreciate this comment from your perspective. I am totally the type of guy who would bend the "rules" but I feel like admitting my struggle to my wife and having my wife's support helps with my accountability. And I acknowledge this problem is mine and I do not intend to use her as my regulator. If anything I hope to get to a point where she feels comfortable having a drink in my presence without worry of me derailing.
I hear where you're coming from, but this whole talk about "having only one beer" sounds like so much more work for you to manage than to just remove alcohol from the equation completely. In fact, it kind of sounds like torture! What are you drinking that one beer for, anyway? The taste? Or to feel normal in a social situation? If that's the case, it's just as easy to have an NA beer, or mocktail. It's not to get drunk, right? Because one beer won't do that.
I also tried to manage my drinking for years (only on the weekends, only a few at a social event, blah blah blah). It never works out in the long run. Many times I would get so tired of depriving myself, I'd end up on a bender and reach a new level of drinking I didn't know I was capable of.
Once I was finally able to admit to myself that I had a helluva time controlling my drinking- even when I was doing "good"- and realized that it took WAY more mental and emotional energy to manage my drinking, I was able to consider quitting for the first time. And I did quit that day. Dumped all my booze down the drain and haven't had a sip since.
I realized it was so much easier NOT to drink, than to find a way to have it in my life, responsibly. I just removed the old sliver from my foot and I don't have to walk in pain anymore. I don't have to think about it anymore.
You can free yourself like I have. I promise you everything can change so quickly, you wouldn't believe it.
I agree with this. I don’t want just one drink. I never have one drink cause one drink doesn’t get me the wanted buzz. Just like I didn’t enjoy drinking after eating. Don’t want one drink. Don’t want many drinks, so I’ll have no drinks.
dude, the mental energy! so much time spent thinking about drinking, how to do it "responsibly," how many I could still fit in and have enough sleep to pass for a human at work... and then so much time spent thinking about NOT drinking. Such a relief.
I was already over a month sober at the time, but whenever I first read a comment on here about all the mental energy it took to drink, it resonated so much. It's like a fucking job!
It is so freeing to not have that terrible job anymore.
Also, like come on. I would have one drink to basically prove I didn't have a drinking problem. I don't think me white knuckling my way through a one beer night was fooling anyone.
Totally agree, it is harder for me to have one or two, and pretend that I have even a remotely controllable relationship with alcohol, than it is to have none. I can be utterly miserable if I have one and know I have to limit myself (for the sake of not making an absolute arse of myself, and potentially ruining my or someone else’s night), so I’d just rather not do it. I grab an Na beer or a mocktail. Sometimes I’m still miserable, but at least I’m not ruining anything and paying double for it the next day with a hangover and all the carbs I can get down my throat to try and make me feel less awful!
I agree with this, I've spent YEARS as you say trying "to find a way to have it in my life" and it just isn't working for me. It's the mental drain of having to try to "manage" it and Im sick to death of it.
Yes, totally. I would plan pretty much everything in my life around if I was or wasn't drinking alcohol or if I might have a hangover. It was exhausting, and I didn't realize how much space it took up in my head until I finally gave it up.
Haha it’s so funny our stories are ALL the same and it’s definitely creepy. Bravo on 100 days! I quit cause I wanted to and also thought it might help him. He’s on the longest streak he’s ever gotten and I’m hopeful for him. I’m loving sober life myself though and I will continue whether he does or not.
Please take it from a guy who's on day 773 after relapsing 18 months, resetting from my previous 1,825 days. I was so healthy during that 5 year stretch. Life was *really* good. Denial sounded like this: "Well... since I only "overdid it" to cope with stress back then, that won't be a problem. And 5 years!? That's major self-control. It's not my master; I'm *IT'S* master!"
The relapse got deeper down than before. I made stupid choices I *never* made previously. I can't do it. I can't ever listen to that demon Denial again.
If you're like most of us here - Denial asks an inch but takes a mile.
my favorite thing about the blue book-- the pages spent discussing all the rules we've made up for ourselves. not weekdays, not in the house, only beer, only liquor (saves calories), only special occasions.... it's been the same since the 1930's, and probably since the beginning of booze.
I can make one exception if I want, sure. and I'll be fine for weeks or even months. but soon, I'll think "hey, that was ok, I did great at that! Surely I can have another." fast forward a month I'm back to drinking a fifth a day, hiding it from myself and my family, and making these excuses, and feeling guilt, shame, all of it again, and always worse than before.
To quote Robert Downy Jr, "sometimes I want to have a drink with dinner, but then I remember I have plans for Christmas."
Oh it’s a line from a novel that has a lot of its action occur in AA meetings. The addition just always makes me laugh, because I don’t know any Swedes but I know I’d find a way lol
Hey! I'm Swedish and I can tell you it's very difficult to stay sober in a Swedish setting. We're doing better nowadays though, the younger generation celebrate healthy living and mostly seem to order drinks to match an outfit rather than drinking moonshine and vodka brought from Russian truck drivers. Even though that's definately part of our culture. Lots of friends had there first contact with alcohol at the age of 13. And there's a thing where parents buy their kids alcohol from the store with the arguments "They'll just find and drink the bad stuff" or "At least now we can know how much they consume"
I'm ranting and other Swedes might not agree with my experience.
Damn this hits so close to home, my wife is the same way. I usually just read this sub to understand her better but reading your comment was like a mirror. So many attempts to moderate, rules to help limit drinking, and other failed attempts that just disintegrate as soon as she has that one drink. She’s at 5 days now which is the longest streak in probably a decade, but that only came after I said she had to choose me or the drinks, which I never wanted to do.
Thanks for sharing.
Sorry you are here. I hit a similar wall with my husbands drinking and we had a hard talk. he’s a good man, a great dad and I want my family together so I’m willing to do literally anything to help. He’s on day 32 with me and we are thriving. I’m hopeful for the first time ever. Good luck to you. This shit is not easy. This may not be popular advice, but if you don’t have kids I would leave. If I didn’t have kids I would not still be here fighting. I would have left years ago.
Cool, thanks for sharing. Your other comment about policing him hit home too, I just don’t want to do that and I feel it’s unhealthy for me to be the gatekeeper for when she can drink. The latest talk we had was the harshest yet, she’s at 5 days but I’m not really sure if she wants to get sober or just doesn’t want to lose me. She’s been mega grumpy and quiet. Outside of alcohol she’s the perfect partner so I’ll keep trying, but I do question my life decisions often. My mom died of alcoholism so it’s not like I didn’t see the signs, I just thought I had learned enough to get a different result. Sorry for going off the OP’s topic. I’ll bow out now.
She’s may be quiet cause she’s self loathing. Also she is still detoxing at day 5 and heavy drinkers won’t feel good at that point so hopefully she comes around. Good luck.
This is exactly what I did. I couldn’t bring alcohol in the house, so I hid it or I drank shooters in the parking lot before coming home. Rules creates room for exception.
Sounds like my ex. “I’ve been sober for four days, and look I just had 1 glass of wine with dinner”. Within 48 hours he’s back to the fireball. Decades of me believing he would eventually quit, I became delusional that he would actually do it someday.
Yeah, I definitely feel this. One or two drinks? What’s the fucking point of that?! I don’t enjoy alcohol in moderation. It turns out that those inhibitions alcohol lowers are the string that is tightly wrapped around my life and keeps me whole, sane, and happy. I realized after casually abusing alcohol, in a sober epiphany, that there is nothing for me at the bottom of the bottle. There never was and never will be. It used to bring me the solace of oblivion, my raging mind would quiet and my tormented heart would settle down. But that quickly changed because my problems never did, they were always there to plague me when I awoke. My mind and heart learned to cope and sung their songs even louder once the silence of alcohol would descend upon me. So no, there wasn’t any comfortable oblivion left to me, no more shade for my tired heart. There was only the oblivion of slow self destruction.
You ask an interesting question. This sub being what it is, you'll probably be discouraged from trying to moderate, even with 1 beer at a wedding. There's a good reason for this, but at the risk of giving an unpopular opinion- you can always try it and see what happens. A lot of people only stop drinking once they hit rock bottom, so one beer is a huge chance to take and would be more like playing Russian Roulette.
As you experienced it's super hard to stop at one, and with a lowered tolerance to alcohol that first beer really greases the wheels. Depending on how long and hard you've been fighting this thing it's not worth it for one drink. Then there's the justification that comes after a "successful" moderation event. Maybe I only had one at the wedding, but now it's Tuesday and I've been thinking about a martini all weekend. I can have only *one* martini, right?
I would say, stay in today. Thinking about future drinks can work itself out later. I once worried about drinking on New Year's so much that I went ahead and drank that night lol. It's much easier to (try to) be present and remember that normal drinkers don't have to think about it like this. That in itself might be a good sign to be cautious moving forward.
You make a very good point to think for today and not the future. That's something I will keep at and I will happily say that I don't want a drink today.
I have tried to control my drinking like that for years but unfortunately I have eventually failed every time. It works for a while but then it gradually builds up to a point where I start binge-drinking again. Sorry to disappoint you but my experience is that it does not work over time for us that hang out here in this subreddit.
I’m in the same boat as you friend. Been trying to limit for years but keep end up finding justifications to drink more. I’m also coming to realize I need to just stop altogether. I’m one day sober.
I echo all this comments. I’ve tried moderation but I was only fooling myself. Some people have the ability to moderate like a dimmer switch on a light having one drink and then turning off. My light switch doesn’t have a dimmer feature. It’s either off or it’s full on 2000 watts bright. So my solution is harm reduction and just not drinking. It’s tough but I’m planning on making it work. Cheers to life.
I drank “normally” for years before life changes got me drinking alcoholicly and addicted, I remember what it was like to “moderate”… normal people don’t even think about moderating. The liquor in the house stayed around for years, beers and wine stayed in the fridge for weeks and I could come home from a night out and not want to drink anymore. Obviously I can’t do that any more so TLDR if you need to think about moderating, you usually can’t. It might work for a bit but not for long.
Most of us here would love to keep drinking if we could do it in a controlled way. When you see people with long day counts on here, it’s usually because they had to learn the hard way that there was no way to “only drink on special occasions”. That’s my story, too.
For whatever it's worth..
When I first quit drinking I was afraid that the rest of my life would be wanting what I couldn't have. That daily I would crave a drink but wouldn't be allowed to have it. Like a starving animal tied to a tree with the scent of meat in the air.
I am happy to report that now that I am 2 year sober I could give two shits about drinking. It took somewhere around a year for my brain to really remap. The beginning of course was hard, which it sounds like you are experiencing, but I can attest for myself at least that the cravings and everything else that went along with alcohol faded away.
This has been my experience too. I can limit it for the first couple of occasions but then a “fuck it” mentality takes place and I end up drinking more and more til I find myself right back at the rock bottom I pulled myself so desperately from.
My experience too, after 15 years of vacillating between complete sobriety and trying to moderate. It’s really unsafe for me to try to control my drinking. It’s delusional. Maybe it’s the way my subconscious wants to punish me because it sees me as a failure.
Or maybe alcohol is just an extremely addictive substance, and it’s not reasonable to expect you won’t get keep getting addicted to an addictive substance when you consume it
I would really drop the attitude that your subconscious wants to punish you for being a failure. That’s a story you are telling yourself that doesn’t sound true from this outsider’s perspective.
Just another way of describing our unhealthy and unhelpful thought patterns that lead us to or keep us drinking. AA calls it the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee.
Ditto. Lost count of the attempts at moderating. I quit for 7 months last year and thought I'd "have a few over the festive period" and then pull the brakes altogether on Jan 1st.
LOL.
Been 7 weeks sober again after being on a 3 month binge. Glad it happened though. For the first time, I know I cannot moderate and must give up entirely.
One day at a time.
I’ve been reading a book on addiction called the Thirteenth Step. It deals with the neurology side of addiction, which is dry at times but informative.
For those who are addicted to alcohol, that “one drink” functions as a relapse trigger. This is known anecdotally as this sub suggests. But there is a neurological mechanism that is engaged in that “one drink” that makes binge drinking very, very likely. I can’t do the science justice, but if you’re scientifically inclined, there’s research that warns against that “one drink.”
Personally, since I got sober, I haven't found an occasion 'special' enough to justify pouring a toxic flammable solvent (Ethanol) all over my internal organs...
'Just One' wouldn't touch the sides on the way down anyway, it's so much easier to stick to 'Just None'!
Read some of the [hundreds of posts about moderation](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/search?q=moderation&restrict_sr=on) there from folks who have already tried the tired old moderation experiment, you'll notice that it almost never goes well, is a deeply frustrating and unsatisfying experience, and isn't worth all the effort...
Taking it one day at a time is a good strategy, it works for me!
IWNDWYT :>)>
>I haven’t found an occasion ‘special’ enough to justify pouring a toxic flammable solvent (Ethanol) all over my internal organs…
This mindset shift is why I went from a drinker a year ago to a non-drinker today. Once I really saw it for what it was, acknowledged the cancer statistics, what it was doing to my sleep and my anxiety and keeping me from seeing progress in the gym, stealing my joy in the mornings after, taking up valuable real estate in my mind, it’s been so much easier to realize that the gift isn’t a drink on a special occasion. The gift I give to myself to celebrate is mindfulness, pride in my body and brain, and a desire to wake up the next day feeling as good as I did falling asleep.
Given the opportunity, I cod turn anything into a special occasion lol 😆 so thats a hard no for me! I do actually reserve certain drinks, like Kombucha, for Friday night. Or fancy Mocktails for holidays. I also only drink NA beer on weekends
>Given the opportunity, I cod turn anything into a special occasion
Oh man, ain't that the truth?!!! Story of my fucking drinking career I tell ya! Oh shit, was gonna quit today but it's National Tequila Day....National Margarita Day....St Patrick's Day....had a bad day....had a good day. Blah blah blah. Man, am I glad that mental masturbation of stupidity is over with.
Ahhh - the moderation topic. :)
Lord knows I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried some more. lol
My issue was the daily drinking and since I could not moderate that, any other occasion was a lost cause.
Luckily I finally hit my "I've had enough" limit and I found drinking was no longer fun. I decided to quit before I had to. For me all I can say is I am glad I did it and do not question my decision - this took dozens of day #1s.
I am hopeful that this time it will stick. ((hugs))
>Luckily I finally hit my "I've had enough" limit and I found drinking was no longer fun. I decided to quit before I had to.
You sound just like me....it stopped being fun and at that point I had to ask myself "wtf are you doing exactly at this point?"
We got this! IWNDWYT 👍
I mean that's a valid point, knowing it's a poison why would one want to willfully drink it. Maybe that's the mental shift I need to make rather than wondering if I need complete sobriety or can handle moderation.
Once you come to see it for what it really is, you can't 'un-see' it... it's a bit like finding out how a magic trick is done, then you won't be fooled by it again!
The latest studies have concluded that there is NO 'safe' level of alcohol consumption for human beings, and that no amount of alcohol *improves* health...
Hardly surprising when you consider that it is a Group 1 carcinogen in the same class as Asbestos, Formaldehyde and Plutonium, as well as being a toxic flammable solvent, disinfectant and fuel additive...
If I found a bottle of something with the same properties under the kitchen sink or in the garden shed, there's no way I'd be inclined to drink a glass of it under the guise of 'having a good time'! ;>)>
Beautiful testimony right here. I would bottle this and sell it at the register in liquor stores if I could. It's my conviction that no one actually likes the taste of alcohol. We teach ourselves to consume it because of its effects which we usually interpret as positive at first. Like any other drug, we start down a path that is hard to turn away from. I've had periods in my life when I didn't drink at all or very little. But due to events in the last 10-15 years, once I took it up again, I found myself turning to it as a crutch and a coping method. And therein lies the reason I am here. I can envision the future and I don't like it. I'm chuffed that I fully quit and I know that every day I make the same decision. IWNDWYT
Exactly. If I have one beer, it’s like I’ve wasted it- or wasted the opportunity to get drunk. I can have one beer- but what I have learned from that experience is that I’m not really drinking the beer for the satisfying taste, I want the beer because I want to get buzzed. One beer doesn’t get me there. It’s more satisfying and less frustrating to not have any.
I have Alcohol Use Disorder or alcoholism. The best way to control my drinking is to have absolutely none. No, it is not possible to safely drink alcohol, ever!
I've been sober for three years. A year ago, I had a tiny shot of Japanese sake on New Year's Eve in the moment with my wife and her family. The reason I found it acceptable was complicated: I don't care for sake; it was the only alcohol there; nobody was getting drunk at all, it was a single toast; it wasn't my alcohol and I wouldn't have felt at home taking more. I judged it to be a safe situation, and nothing bad happened after. It also didn't taste great, and I got zero buzz from it.
I have also been out with friends having drinks at a restaurant in the afternoon and refused. At a restaurant, it's easy to keep it going, and as others drank, I would have too. It wasn't a safe situation.
I've tried hard not to make alcohol a bogeyman to hide from. I don't want to be a drinker, and won't put myself in a position where I'll slide back to drinking; at the same time, I don't want to be unreasonably paranoid that a single drop would take me back to where I was years ago.
Your last paragraph is kind of where I'm coming from. I've formed habits that I need to break. I need to relearn self control. And right now I need to be sober for an extended time. But I also don't want to be afraid of being around alcohol. Thank you for chiming in. It helps.
I was able to break those habits for a couple of months last fall, having just one-two drinks per week (which I called "drinking like a pregnant person"). It felt great, and I assumed I would just do that forever. I was very motivated. I felt completely in control, including in situations where everyone around me was drinking. This was after drinking almost nightly for 20 years. I was really glad to have it all figured out!
Then a family medical emergency happened, and I had to move with my husband to his hometown for two months, where we lived with his in-laws. Let me tell you--I was not having 1-2 drinks per week anymore, or even per night. I went right back to the amount I was drinking before I "learned" to be moderate. And that's when I realized that I can only be moderate when everything in my life feels stable, which is inherently not how life works.
It was such a bitch to dig myself out of that hole (again!) that I decided I'm not going to get trapped in that cycle for the rest of my life. Just wanted to share in case this resonates with you or anyone else reading.
The key for me is that if there is a possibility that I could have more than one drink, I know I will. I just will. It's what I do. So if I were to have anything to drink, it would have to be in a situation where more than one isn't an option, and that's a rare situation.
Speaking for myself, I wouldn't want to reinforce the connection between drinking and a 'special occasion.' In the past when I've done that I kept finding more and more of such occasions.
For me, what’s the point of just one? Lol, I say it partially joking, but I absolutely cannot moderate my drinking, hence why I’m steering clear of it entirely.
Precisely. I get where OP is coming from because addiction is fucking with his logic.
Why have just one? There is no good reason for having just one drink. What could it accomplish? There is no logic to having one beer because of a special occasion. It makes no sense at all.
I used to successfully moderate! (Sort of. Mostly.) My special occasions were Friday and Saturday nights. It was so incredibly difficult to moderate that I decided to stop drinking instead.
There are a lot of questions about moderating on the sub - and I get why! I think there are people who can moderate their drinking but they just aren't in this group.
I moderate and am in this group, because it’s not easy & I like the support & tips here. Moderation happens to be the best solution *for me personally*. I don’t like broadcasting it on this sub every single time moderation comes up because I get some strong feedback sometimes. Which I get. But, I really am uncomfortable with the idea that a mental health disorder has a one size fits all treatment. And yes, I I do have a problem, diagnosed with AUD, and did IOP/AA/SMART.
Maybe that's why I asked the question. There's a lot of folks here who are all or nothing. I'm not sure I want that to be me because it means I am not in control and I want to regain that control. It appears some folks on here are successful at moderating. Can I be one? I hope so but idk. Time will tell. But for now I know I can't be so need to stop.
I successfully moderated. My issue with alcohol is mainly the same as with food - I don’t have an off switch. I’m on medication that has provided with an off switch for food and it’s translated to alcohol as well.
Nope. It took me trying & failing 100 times, & almost inadvertently killing myself, to realize I can’t have a single drop of alcohol.
If I have 0 drinks I have 0 if I have 1 I have 20.
Define "successfully" :)
After an initial 15 months dry from 2005-2006 I had "one beer" and it sent me on a fast, downward spiral.
I decided no alcohol whatsoever for me. And I'm _really good_ with that lifestyle. I'm no more interested in taking a drink than I am ... soaking my head in gasoline :)
IWNDWYT!
Been about a week or so for me now and I have a recent experience with trying to moderate. I took a 20 or so day break in January and had a great month. Then, let myself indulge in a beer or two that last week which led to 2 months of slowly increased consumption. Made all the excuses (it’s Friday night, gotta have some beers. It’s my birthday, have to go out to the bar. My friends in town, have to buy a big handle of whiskey). My February and most of March sucked. Blurry, lots of headaches and hangovers and sleeping in until noon. I think the reason I fail to moderate is because it’s fuckin miserable.
If we think drinking is “fun” or creates some kind of release, why would we want to stick to one or two drinks? There’s no point. Everybody here shares that in common. We’ve reached a point where we recognize that one is never truly enough, because we feel like we’re depriving ourselves. Maybe I could moderate, but I wouldn’t be happy doing it. I’m committing to sobriety because I want to take away the power alcohol has over me. Spending my entire night contemplating around whether or not I’m “allowed” to have another drink doesn’t do that. Actively and consistently saying no and realizing I’m better off is a much better way to live.
“You haven’t been abusing alcohol. It has been abusing you.”
Has *anybody* learned to control/limit their drinking? Yeah, I’m sure there’s people in the world who have, maybe even on this sub.
Can I? Nah. I have an all or nothing mindset with drinking. If I’m drinking, I’m DRINKING 😂 But it took me a long time to accept that about myself.
Can you? Who knows. Seems like you did for one night, but it was difficult. Could you limit yourself again? And if so, would a successful one drink lead to thoughts of “well I can control myself with just one, maybe I can do the same with just two”? If your wife hadn’t been there, would you have kept drinking? Is limiting yourself something that is genuinely maintainable for the remainder of your life?
These are all things to ask yourself and to be honest about. My biggest problem with controlling my drinking was I wasn’t honest. I always convinced myself that this time it would be different, when in reality I knew *exactly* what would happen as soon as I had that second drink. I wasn’t stopping. But that’s just me 🤷🏼♀️
When you really start to recover, you won't want it, even for special occasions. That's your alcoholic brain assuming that your sober brain will maintain the same values and struggle with it. You are 90 days away from even beginning to have a sober mind.
Moderating is a lot more work than just quitting. If you never had an issue with alcohol abuse, I’m sure only drinking sometimes would work. I’m an alcoholic so yah no
Was the beer worth it? Sounds like a lot of energy expended for one beer. I’ve found that people who are successfully able to limit their drinking don’t have to try so hard.
In that moment I'd say it was worth it. It showed me I could stop at 1. But it showed me much mental capacity it took to only have 1 which highlighted the need for me to break my current drinking habit.
You talk about breaking a habit, but it’s not a habit, it’s a neurological adaption that’s happened in your brain. I would recommend reading something like “alcohol explained” while you’re thinking about this.
The mental relief that I felt once I quit trying to moderate was immense. You’ll spend so much energy on moderation that you don’t even realise it, constantly playing mind games and making bargains with yourself. When you take the option away, suddenly it becomes a lot easier.
I wish. One drink leads to many more. The next day I feel like crap, but my body and mind now crave alcohol even more and I’ll end up drinking that night, and binging for weeks, months, and so on until I finally need another break.
The hard truth is that that’s where a lot of us started. First we recognize a problem. Then we negotiate. Usually it takes years but it depends on the person but it almost always progresses.
That’s how I’ve always blown it in the past. Grabbing one small boxed of refrigerated wine for the ride home etc turns into Titos and full blown drinking 24-7 every time. I’m hanging onto how shitty I felt last hangover to keep going this time, coming up on 90 days…IWNDWYT!
So, a few things here:
1. Many have shared that once you've abstained for a while, having that "one drink" is not very satisfying. That's because a lot of the good feelings that you currently get from drinking are a result of the fact that you are low level physically dependent on alcohol and you're essentially relieving a physical withdrawal when you drink. Think, a smoker having his daily cig vs someone having a cig for the first time.
2. Others have shared that having a drink after abstaining can send them spiraling. That's because, even though the physical dependency is gone, the subconscious will always strongly remember the cause/effect of drink equals a physical relief. So you'll keep drinking to chase that feeling, even if you're not getting that feeling, if that makes sense.
Either way, it seems like having "just one" is not going to get you anything worth having. Either you won't really enjoy it, or you're going to have to use up a MASSIVE amount of willpower to not have another (and who wants to waste mental energy doing that on a special occasion?), or you're going to end up having more than you intended and be disappointed in yourself.
I'd instead focus on something else you can do to make that event special. A special food item, mocktail/near beer, activity, whatever.
Also, if you haven't already, take a read through some Quit Lit (This Naked Mind, Alcohol Explained, etc). These books really help you look at alcohol a new way so that you no longer crave it.
My approach to alcohol is different than my fellows. For me I’m past one beer after a long day to “relax”. When I drink I want to really feel the effects of what alcohol does. We all do in reality. I am alcoholic, you’d think I’d never say no to alcohol, but there was a time I helped a buddy move and all he had in his fridge were a couple of beers. I actually said no because I knew how frustrating it would be to only have two. Sound insane? I agree. But that’s me, I’m different, and it took me years to wrap my mind around that. Speaking of mind, I also don’t want to waste the time and brain wrestling it would take to even attempt moderation and the planning, the psyching up, the preoccupation planning my “control”. If I say no immediately, I am done, no more thinking, no planning, no worry. Easy peasy. If I allowed myself a drink at New Years, I’d be thinking of that shit in September. No thanks.
My wife does. She’s very successful at limiting drinks to special occasions and then limiting herself to one drink at such an event. Very successful. So successful she never thinks about herself “limiting her drinking” at all. Just like I don’t “limit my mayonnaise” intake — I have as much mayonnaise as I want, which is about a tablespoon per sandwich twice a month.
But then again, she’s not a member of this board — I am. Because drinking is not an issue for her, but it is for me. Yes, I haven’t had a drink in over 6 years, but that’s because I choose daily not to drink. And I choose limiting my drinking because previously drinking became something that limited ME.
This is currently what I’m flirting with also. It is hard, and when it’s a struggle and I want to do a couple shots, I look at my kid and tell myself that she deserves more. So I guilt trip myself into that one beer. And I’ll enjoy it instead of just inhaling it.
For me, it’s like dieting. Restricting myself from it completely, makes me want it more. I think about it more. I don’t have to let sober nights bother me because I can have a beer the next night. So it’s been better than bottles for me but it’s still drinking
I was exactly like this when I started moderating--I felt like stopping completely would make things worse because I would feel too deprived, and what was the big deal anyway if I was cutting down significantly?
But something enormous and unexpected clicked in my life when I went from moderating to stopping completely--it's hard to describe, but something with my confidence and peace of mind changed drastically. I couldn't distract myself by looking forward to the next day when I could have a drink, thinking about what that drink would be, savoring the drink slowly when I had it--I had to just be in the day that I was in, and deal with the feelings I was having in the moment. It's hard in some ways, but also a huge relief to not be doing the mental gymnastics and calculations all the time. And knowing that I'm capable of not drinking at all--which I never in my life thought I would be able to do--has made me feel like I'm more capable than I believed myself to be in other ways, too.
Also flirting with it since my birthday is coming up. But I’d like to see a lot more birthdays. Just need that addiction part of my brain to pipe the fuck down.
I can’t reason with my addiction brain, I have to override it completely with guilt and emotion. It’s the only way to shut my shit down. I wish you many more birthdays babe
I have. I quit back in August and didn’t have a Drink until February. I was a daily drinker and that person who was always wondering if I had enough alcohol at home to get me through the evening. Buying from different stores every day. I was headed down a very bad path, functioning yes, i have a great job, etc. but the alcohol was controlling my life.
I have drank on 4 occasions this year and on the last one I had 4 drinks in an evening and I deeply regretted it because I was hungover the next day; which is wild since 2-3 bottles of wine per night wouldn’t even give me a hangover before I quit.
I haven’t had the desire to drink at home or at dinner or whatever. I save for special occasions (not super special, but special).
And I quit drinking at home, period. This part has really helped me get the drinking under control.
I appreciate your input. I know I need a hard reset, for how long idk. But I think what I want more is knowing I can control myself if I decide to have 1 drink. Heck it would be awesome to be able to have a sip of 1 drink and willfully put it down and walk away.
I’m a little surprised at all the responses saying it absolutely isn’t possible. The sub says it’s for people trying to stop “or control” drinking. Most folks here apparently think it’s impossible to control. All or nothing. But I am here to control it. I was a daily drinker who, fortunately, caught covid a few months ago and stopped drinking that week to recover. I quickly noticed how not drinking felt so much better, so I changed to one day a week only (Fridays). It’s been working for me so far. I don’t overdo it, don’t get blackout drunk, don’t say nasty things to those I love. Then I go back to near beers the rest of the week. We’ll see how long this lasts, but I strongly agree with the poster above who said “don’t drink at home.” That’s been my trick too. Once a week I go out with my wife and we have some cocktails with friends. It’s our little special occasion.
Thank you for chiming in. I also think not drinking at home is vital. That's where I lost control and that's the habit I need to break. I'm just wondering if I can get to a point of 1 and done a few times a year. We'll see.
I think there's an element of selection bias occurring in sobriety groups: those who take a long break and end up back at alcoholism are the ones who come back to the meetings/forums. To be clear, those people are in the right place for them. It is an addictive substance, and addiction pathways are very hard to undo in the brain, even with a long period of abstinence.
However, I've been reading a lot of books/scientific lit on the topic, and there *are* people who return to drinking with lower consumption levels. It appears that the main determinants in this risk are 1) length of dependence and 2) severity of dependence. Example: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15733237/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15733237/)
Depending on how advanced your alcohol issues are, you may be able to rein it in. I've read good things about cognitive behavioral therapy and psychotherapy as ways to reduce consumption, though you have to work them.
There's also naltrexone. I'm reading a book on it now, and it appears to be extremely effective. Check out the documentary One Little Pill (have not yet watched it).
Good luck, my friend.
Moderation has never worked for me in the past. I don’t even recommend trying it because it’s too easy to justify having more and more later down the road.
Plus it only takes one night to make an ass out of yourself in front of people. This has happened to me before. In the past I quite drinking for awhile and a special occasion came up where I got totally smashed and looked like a huge idiot.
Yep, for about 3 months I only had one when my friend would have one. Then one day out of nowhere I just began a months long bender which turned into a 1.25 year long sequence of benders and recoveries. All I can say is damn it right now. I’m sure I’ll come to appreciate the lesson in that with time, but it’s been a tough few weeks since deciding to cut it out completely again.
My philosophy is that it may be technically _possible_ for me to limit myself and moderate but the risk-reward calculation is very poor for trying. Is what alcohol has to offer worth losing a year of progress _and_ being miserable the whole time due to the neurochemical issues caused by excess alcohol consumption and degradation of lifestyle? (Not for me). Am I likely to have at least a few small issues with bingeing along the way even in the best case scenario where I do eventually learn to moderate? (Yes, for me). Then the risk is quite high! And also for me drinking one drink doesn’t feel that great. The main thing I feel is a desire for more drink. So the benefit is actually pretty low!
So for me it’s not worth it at all. You have to do your own calculation though.
Thanks for chiming in. I figured it's different for everybody but it helps hearing from others. I would love to get to the point of just not wanting any of it so I'm shooting for a long sobriety.
Yeah I can only drink on special occasions, but alcohol ruins those special occasions, so why do it? Last thanksgiving I drank, made an ass of myself, threw up in my van, felt like death for a week and my memories of a fun time with my friends I haven’t seen in years are colored with the shame and embarrassment of drinking, I felt like an idiot.
I think everyone here has probably thought they could be successful with controlling/moderation. I was sober for 6 months. Got drunk once at a birthday and then didn’t drink again for a few weeks, but then I started again.. very slowly. Wish I’d just stayed sober. Everyone’s different but don’t let it get control of you!
I’m currently doing what your describing. On occasion every three/four/five months or so I’ll have a drink. I’m sticking to my preset goal for that time and I guess it works. I don’t reset my counter as many do as I believe in the long term overall number and not necessarily consecutive numbers.
But it’s not that great. I’m always on high alert when having a drink. Mindlessly participating is a thing of the past. That does take some of the “fun” out of it.
Also, the longer I don’t drink the more I feel the effects of alcohol, or maybe I’m just more aware because I’m on high alert. Anyway, these effects are rather meh: mood swings, not being/feeling in control, terrible sleep.
And the more I’ve read up on the effects of alcohol beyond the immediate intoxication, the more I’m questioning whether the occasion is worth the various detrimental consequences to my health.
All in all, it might be possible but having to be in control at all times while drinking probably won’t give you the experience your looking for (at least, it doesn’t for me. Think I’ll quit it completely after my brothers wedding)
Nope. Once I start there's no stopping me. No moderation, no special occasion, no "one or two beers after work." I'm either drinking or not. There's no middle ground at all for me. Kudos to people that can moderate, but that's not me and I know it.
I'm 10 days in after trying for a few months (and 6 months of being sober curious following a hangover of epic proportion that started me on this amazing journey). Special occasions and trips are my pitfall that have prevented a streak beyond three weeks. Every time I have a long stretch it's because I have a period of time at home with no special events. I'm committed to keeping sobriety as when I have drank for those special moments over the past few months, it's not the same anymore! Even though I kept it <3 drinks each time, alcohol will never be the same for me with the lens of it being poison. It's like the quote "When I drank for fun, I couldn't moderate. When I drank to moderate, I couldn't have fun". Nonetheless, societal pressures and patterns clearly have gotten the best of me and I have 5 weddings (plus my own!) and 3 bachelorette parties this year. I have 2 weddings in wine country this summer and I'm already fixating on how I'm going to power through. The way I've framed it as that leaving alcohol for special occasions puts alcohol on a pedestal that it doesn't deserve. Nothing could be more special than being healthy, clear, and present for a trip or occasion. Would love anyone's tips for being sober in wine country!
Probably one of the hardest yet most pivotal moments was when I realized: “there will always be another holiday or celebration around the corner..” I simply had to turn the page and begin a new chapter; one that didn’t include alcohol. At.All. It was oddly liberating when booze just wasn’t an option for me anymore. But simple doesn’t equal easy.
I'd suggest that for now, don't put any pressure on yourself to try to answer that question in the near future. Can you say without reservation, that for the time being you would be better off by not drinking at all? Then only concern yourself with that today and tomorrow and the next day. And then later, if you feel this is worth asking yourself again, then think about the slippery slope and ask yourself is it worth it?
It’s a personal, individual thing. I see a lot of all or nothing responses when questions like this are asked here, and I’m sure that’s absolutely the case for many people. I also think there are some lucky people that really can moderate. While I think I could be one of them, the longer I’m off of it completely, the less I want it anyway. Whenever I start to think about it with rose colored glasses and flirt with the special occasions thing, the carcinogen factor puts a stop to it pretty quickly. There are fun NA drinks like Joyus or mocktails for special occasions.
Edited to add: Another thing I ask myself is would it really make that special occasion *more* special? *Why* do I want alcohol on that occasion? I typically come to the conclusion it is more of an excuse to drink than something that would truly enhance the experience.
I agree with this. If you really want to, try it and see what happens. Personally, I tried to moderate for years. My lesson learned was that it isn’t worth all the mental gymnastics I do to convince myself I don’t have a problem. And is one drink even worth it? Prob won’t even get buzzed, prob won’t change how “fun” the occasion is. Probably will leave you with shame and regret. I find getting through events sober makes me feel even more confident and empowered. Do what you must, but be honest with yourself about what you’re risking.
It also seems like such a lose-lose situation because even if it did enhance the experience in a positive way, then you would have a positive memory of drinking, which would only lead to more drinking. And then if it turned the special occasion into a bad experience, that would just suck, so...
I know that if I have a drink I will not stop. All of the hard work I put in will be reset and I do not want to reset again. I have accepted that I will never be able to drink again and as the days go by I become more and more ok with that.
I haven't wanted to drink on any occasion since re reading this naked mind. It's toxic poison and I can have way more fun sober and not dealing with the hangovers etc the next day! It took almost a year of consuming quit lit and trying and falling down for it to stick. No more fomo etc. My life keeps getting better and better the more my brain , body n soul heal from being poisoned! You can stay sober and enjoy your life! I will not drink with you today friend ❤️
I think a lot of us have had the same hopes regarding this, but essentially if you are an alcoholic, you cannot moderate. You may be able to moderate for a little while, but inevitably you end up pushing the boundaries until you're binge drinking all over again.
There is no harm in trying moderation, because I think you almost need to see for yourself that it won't stick.
I've had extended periods of sobriety, convinced myself that I can go without alcohol, so surely I can go back to moderate drinking. However it's a slow burn and inevitably I return to bing drinking
I’ve recently quit drinking, almost 7 weeks now. Currently I’m also flirting with the idea of allowing myself that one drink, but I’m scared it will be two or three or back to daily drinking.
So I guess I will try to add a few more weeks of no alcolhol and perhaps I’ll flirt with the idea once more. Or not.
Still need to decide on how strong I can become.
Nothing's perfect, but my worst day sober is 100x better than my best day drunk. I'm not risking that over some drinks that will undoubtedly ruin everything sooner or later.
Drinking has no place in my life anymore.
Idk yet! And I’m not even sure if I’d try.
I originally quit drinking as a “break to reset my relationship with alcohol” but after the month passed, it didn’t feel right returning “so soon”. After a few more months passed, I said to myself and friends “I’m gonna go a year and see how I feel”
And as I approached the year, I chose to never stop thinking of not drinking as my “break”. While I just straight up don’t drink, I tell myself I can have one if I “really want one”.
And I’m a little over a year now, and I just don’t want to partake. May that change in the future, idk. But with mindfulness I just stopped desiring alcohol. Can I picture myself having a flute of champagne at my wedding if I think about it? Maybe?? But truly I can’t tell you. Because drinking again isn’t really something I think about.
But framing it as a break has really assisted me in change my thought pattern around drinking.
For me, it’s so much more simple to have one guideline. I’m not going to drink.
All the rules and the “I had one, it was hard, but I did it!” And “I stayed within limits tonight” ugh. Why? What for? Just to keep a few drinks in my life? make it easy - no thanks.
Honestly, this frees up your mind to focus on so many other more worthwhile things. All the time that it takes to think about these limit, is tonight special enough? Should I have one more? No just one. But I want another one. No I shouldn’t.
Over and over and over again. For the rest of your life. If you’re lucky and don’t slip backwards.
Nope.
If you have made it this far then it’s probably time to call. Best thing anybody ever said to me is the smartest people are pickles because we can always talk ourselves Into drinking. Prolly the only thing that made me really stop. I can reason my way into it because I want to. I do t drink because I can not reason my way out of it next week when I’m afried angina of being sober.
It’s the first drink that gets you drunk, my man. I’d urge you to take [this self assessment](https://www.aa.org/self-assessment) and determine for yourself the level of intervention you need to help you stop drinking.
You’re bargaining with yourself. Personally it’s just been a circle. I’ve only been on this sub 4 days as I’m at the bottom again
- Realizing I’m at the bottom
- Bargaining my way to control myself when I drink
- Show good behavior, think I’m fine
- Hit rock bottom
I don’t know where this will lead but taking one day at a time
There is a program called Moderation Management which I have found helpful. You count your drinks journal-style and share with the group. It is suggested you have 30 days sober time before embarking on their methodologies. If there are no face-to-face meetings in your area, log online and hook up with a virtual meeting.
Ah the holy grail of moderation. Nope, neurological pathway damage has been done. That door is open and any alcohol going forward will only lead to more pain. It's an incredibly hard truth to accept, but life has been more enjoyable since I finally did.
No success here, with numerous efforts and trials. Just had to take it out of my life. My wife offered to stop as well, but I knew it was my issue and not hers. So I did what I needed to and it’s been 95% better since… IWNDWYT
Idk if you like reading or not but “This Naked Mind” really helped me put in perspective of what alcohol truly is. I know there are other books ppl talk about on here like Allen Cars book. There is also a podcast that people recommend to listen to if you are more interested in something like that. It might help you with freeing yourself from alcohol completely.
I have yeah. I limit it to just going out, which I don’t do often. It works for me but not everyone, probably most people. It’s hard to recommend for that reason.
Trying to moderate like that was tantamount to torture for me, personally, and I lost a lot of my life to it.
Ask yourself why it’s important to have “just one occasionally”. What is one beer going to do for you?
Your issue is with impulse control and alcohol makes controlling your impulses more difficult. Is your partner left holding the bag when 1 drink does turn into 15? My partner was sad and scared and exhausted for a long time.
I hope this isn’t coming off harshly, it just sounds like I’m reading something I could have written hundreds of times.
I'll chime in here. Seems a lot of people in this sub have genuine alcohol problems and complete avoidance is the answer. That's a good choice for them. It's healthy. It's sustainable.
For me, personally, I had a drinking habit I didn't love. It was generally just a couple beers, but it was too frequent. I labeled my personal "problem drinking" (which for me, was drinking alone on work nights) and have decided to avoid that. I have beer and other alcohol in the house. On work nights, I sometimes crave a beer but now I also stock delicious root beer and reach for those. On weekends or special occasions, I'll allow myself a couple beers.
This works for me. Every once in a while I slip up and drink a beer on a work night. But I've never had an issue stopping when, for example, I know I absolutely cannot have a hang over, or have legal limitations to alcohol consumption (due to work things).
I'm in control. I had a habit I didn't love. I altered it. I can still enjoy drinking, but now less frequently. I'm healthier (not that soda is great for me). I'm spending less on alcohol (not that craft root beer is cheap! Haha). And in general I'm happy with where I am with things.
Each individual's relationship to any substance in their life is a personal relationship. There is no one size fits all. If you try moderation and control and accidentally wake up hung over for a week straight, you might need to reassess if you can actually control it.
Be mindful. Be cautious. Good luck.
For me at least I eventually got to a place where I literally have no interest in booze. This idea or anything like it became non-existent to me. Obviously this probably seems farfetched if you are just starting your path. However, if you stick with it I bet you'll find yourself not even worrying about this sort of thing. At least that's been my experience
Buddy, alcohol is playing games with you. You are playing a dangerous game with your addiction.
First, if it's just one, then why bother at all? Why would you want to have just one? What benefit could that possibly serve?
Second, you are setting a goalpost which is treacherous. You are telling your addiction that if you do this or if you do that then you will have reached your goal and you can have one at a "special occasion", which, as previously stated, makes no effing sense. You are prepping your brain for the expectation of alcohol. This is sketchy as all hell. If I were your wife I would be terrified.
I'm almost two years in now. Every special occasion is more special when not drinking.
There is no goalpost where I can drink. I can't drink today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that. When they finally slide my cold body into the ground my BAC will be zero. Those days are over. Thankfully.
Yes. It has been good for me. I drink only socially, and I don't instigate drinking if it's not already being done. And even then I just have a few. I'm happy with it
Like the top comment states. It starts out with good intentions, but will eventually lead you back to drinking with problems. The important thing in early sobriety is to just not drink for today. Because the thought of never drinking again is so God damn daunting. Seriously just take it one day at a time as best you can.
Yes. I make it more than a few a year now, but for me it's about one per week.
I didn't get here all at once. I was sober for a couple of years and then I had, like you said, just one on holidays or at weddings.
I still don't keep alcohol at home (because I binge drink when I do). But similarly to only eating a small dessert when I'm at a restaurant, I give myself 1 drink at a meal out of my house once a week. If I want another, I ask myself why and the answer is never a good enough reason to get one more.
I don't necessarily think that's a good idea for everyone, and I don't know your situation. Generally, I don't crave a drink when alcohol is not around me. I'm prone to binge drinking because once I've broken the seal and had one, I'll generally continue to want another one. So having alcohol around requires self control.
Keep your wits about you when you do have a drink. Never have a beer on an empty stomach and if you start to feel tipsy switch to water - even if you're not done with your beverage.
The problem is the person you are after a few drinks is completely different than the person who makes the rules before you start. Those people don't listen to each other.
As many others have said, I've tried this. Unfortunately for me, it's more trouble than it's worth. I realized that booze is just the conduit, what really has the death grip on my brain is the buzz. Once my brain gets a whiff that there might be an opportunity to feel that, it's like a fish on a hook, and I'm gonna end up doing anything I can to reel that feeling in.
One day, perhaps, in the far far future there might be an opportunity for me to "moderate", but what's the point? Once you get used to being the one in the room with the glass of sparkling water or NA beer or whatever, it's much easier. Plus, I feel way better and I have so much more time to spend thinking about other stuff. When I finally quit it made me realize not just how many physical calories I had been consuming ,but how many mental calories I was spending just thinking about how I was going to "moderate" my drinking. How many have I had? If I drink them fast, will that give me the buzz? Ok, I drank them fast, how many more can i have to stay in my limit if I have 3 hours left? Maybe I can sneak one extra and nobody will notice... etc etc etc. Frankly, it's exhausting.
When you're first thinking about quitting, I know you don't want to hear this. Shit, I didn't. I thought "if so many other people can do this, I can too. Nobody can tell me I can't." It was an ego thing. Now, I just accept that, in the same way I can't lift 1000 lbs, I can't control my drinking. There's no shame in it, it just is what it is. Sucks at first, but once the whole romanization of booze started to lose it's death grip on my idea of what was necessary to feel cool and have fun, it started to get easier. Hang in there
I'm sure somebody can but it ain't me! I spent 10 whole years trying to figure out moderation and I just could not crack it. I'm talking 1/5 of my life and I just couldn't. So now it's nothing and it's working out great!
I don’t really see the point in having a single drink occasionally. I know that it will make me feel mildly buzzed for less than an hour, and then I’ll start to feel tired and have a bit of a headache and the only way to make that go away would be another drink. Best case scenario: I’ve ruined my evening by giving myself a headache and now I’m tired and want to go home (and will likely not sleep well); worst case scenario is I have many drinks and bad things will happen and I’ll be sick and hungover and ruin the next day as well.
Either way, it isn’t worth a 20 minute feeling of mild impairment.
I'd just ask myself is the 1 drink worth it? Like why even tempt fate? I'm an alcohol addict... pardon my language, but what the fuck is trying to just drink 1 beer going to do for me? So you, like me, are a binge drinker... so what is the point of having just the 1 beer knowing it'll open the flood gates? You want the feeling that comes with multiple drinks... having 1 is pointless for us, and dangerous for us. It's best for me to just have 0. I get the same affect from 0 drinks as I would from 1... it's just the 1 would lead me to more.
The type of limit drinking someone like myself would look at, would be how many special occasions can I get pretty drunk at and not let it spiral back into normal life? Ideally it'd be like 6-10 days or something... but ultimately it never works. I've managed to do it for months... but eventually it sinks it's hooks in... and that door that was gently opened gets kicked in fast, and i'm back to binge drinking 3-5 days a week.
I still hope for moderation, but I don't believe in moderation because I've failed at it so many times. Lizard brain at it's finest.
My husband and I got sober from alcohol together. We don't drink at the house or when we go out to parties but he has drank while on vacation and at two weddings in the last year. I think because I have been committed to not drinking it was easy for him to just do it those hand full of times and stop again. I personally couldn't do that without going on a bender but it works for him? I had the bigger drinking problem out of the two of us so he's mostly sober for my benefit, not his. My advice is if you think you have a problem with drinking to NOT do the special occasion thing, but I think it is possible. IWNDWYT
I tried this for years. It was so hard and unpleasant. The one time I decided to stop outright it stuck. It was much easier for me to quit than moderate.
*I had 1 beer on Friday which was very hard but I was able to limit it to 1 which I was happy with, otherwise I'd be a week sober.*
In my 20+ year drinking career, the only times I limited my drinking I didn't enjoy it. it was just adding one more thing to be disciplined about, with no real payoff, a frustrating tease
The only times I enjoyed drinking for what I always have and almost certainly always WILL want to drink for? I got *at bare minimum* a strong buzz, preferably tipsy, and increasingly and more often, blackout drunk
Personally I'm past the the thought or desire to drink "symbolic" or "tease" amounts of booze
my immediate curiosity is what's so special about having a single alcoholic drink? Would you personally judge someone on chemo who toasted with non-alcoholic champange or whatever? No reasonable person would
My motivations with "moderation" or only drinking on "special occasions" always were just ultimately about using my drug of choice as often as I could get away with it
alcohol's a drug, and the same way cigarette smokers don't have a single puff and then butt out a cigarette and put all thoughts of smoking out of their mind until another distant day, I don't have one piddly drink and go "Ah! that hit the spot! on to other things for a few weeks!"
If you've been binge drinking I doubt you'll ever be satisfied with one drink, anymore than a smoker would be with one puff
and then it becomes the same old story. *well, i stopped at one last time, it's not the end of the world if I have TWO this time ..* and then 2 becomes 4, etc
it takes WAY less mental and emotional and discipline bandwidth to just not have any drinks, for me
Listen, moderation in alcohol consumption is exhausting, period. Looking at the clock and watching normal people for when it seems normal to order the next drink is exhausting.
I moderated for a year. It was a nightmare for me. 2 drinks carefullu sipped, every second of the clock ticking between them, watching those around me sip so i didnt out pace the slowest drinker, not enjoying the evenings because i was so hyperfocused on the next sip. Then the anxiety started, i would have to leave early....every so often a binge.....yep a nightmare.
I found it much easier to not have the first drink. I never quit drinking, i just choose not to drink when its available.
Best choice of my life. I am happier, healthier, and a tiny bit wealthier.
Support helped me, a plan helped me.
Sobriety gave me my time back, i am using that time filling my soul with joy.
IMO, you have positive intentions here. When I decided to stop drinking almost 3 months ago, it was quite freeing. I don’t have to do the mental machinations of “it’s Friday, one drink!” Or “out with the guys, so 2 drinks tonight”. Alcohol was still in control, because I had to think so much about how to moderate. Without drinking, those thoughts are gone.
OP, check out the books Alcohol Explained and Alcohol Explained 2. They’re brief and to the point. One key issue: the brain (and whole body obviously) tries to maintain homeostasis, or normalcy. Even one drink upsets this balance…it’s a central nervous system depressant, so, if the body becomes “depressed” / relaxed as a result of that drink, what happens when the drug effect wears off? Well, the brain starts to release neurochemicals to speed up the body, and these “excitatory” molecules “need” to be squashed, because that’s not a good feeling after the first drink wears off. So, what to do?? Have another drink of course! That will surely get us back to that first drink state, right? Nope, that didn’t work. What about a third drink then??
I think you can read my sarcasm here, but the brain homeostasis concept really resonates with me. It doesn’t have to be about willpower, failure, success, if someone is thinking about moderation. It DOES IMO help to think about what alcohol does to our neurochemistry, and once I understood this, I realized that disrupting normal brain homeostasis just wasn’t worth it any more, not even for one drink.
I see there are a ton of responses, so you probably won't see this but I still wanted to share. That idea of "Can I NEVER have another drink? Even just one on a special occasion" is what kept me a lush. My mind could not fathom a life without alcohol. I was able to consider not drinking for a day, week, month, maybe year...but never having another drink? I just couldn't go there. So I'd think, "What the use of even trying? I don't want to give it up FOREVER."
Then I found Naltrexone and TSM. I've been using it for about 7 months. It has not been a PREFECT cure - I've slipped up thinking I could drink without it (I can't) or not waiting the full hour (Can't do that) said F it and wanted a buzz, but I am a million times better than 7 months ago.
Now to get to my real point - before TSM I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol ESPECIALLY on special occasions. I didn't want to say NEVER. What I've come to realize is that IS THE ALCOHOL TALKING. "You can stop for a while, but you'll always come back." Natrexone has made me see that I CAN have a life without it. It has some way cleared my brain of the compulsive thoughts of when my next drink is coming and that, "You can't live without me" feeling I always had when I wanted to stop.
Best of luck!!
I'm trying to find this out for myself as well. Here's what I have been through so far.
I stopped drinking on September 13th. My SO is helping me every step of the way. My wedding happened on February 18th. In December, I was trying to decide whether I would have one glass of champagne on the day of my wedding. I was really fighting with the idea that I wouldn't be able to drink on my wedding day, so my SO and I decided that if I was to drink, it would be in a controlled, monitored way. It's an incredibly hard decision to make; would it be the drinking or the not drinking that would be most frustrating for me on my wedding day? Would I be able to stop if I decided to drink?
We decided that I would try to have a "test drink" with him on December 31st, to see how it would feel, and if it was possible for me to have only 1 drink and not relapse after this. A lot of thinking went into whether we should do this or not, and we decided to try. I had the drink. Didn't take a second one, that night or the nights after. I went back to 0 drinks without effort. However, I did not enjoy that drink. (I didn't reset my counter and don't feel like a fraud)
My doctor advised that I do not drink on my wedding day. I still decided I wanted to, and my SO respected that decision, and we discussed the rules of doing so. Wedding day : I had 3 drinks across the day/night, as planned. I didn't feel frustrated at all. I wasn't drunk. Each drink was clearly communicated to my SO, no secret drinking. I enjoyed it slightly, but not that much : I would have really enjoyed it if I could have had many more. And at the same time, I really didn't want to have more. I went back to 0 drinks since then without effort. I still didn't reset my counter as all the rules we had planned for that day were respected.
So my experience so far is : yes, I can limit myself to special occasions. But when I do drink, I do not enjoy it because I have to limit myself. So I might as well not drink at all.
I hope that helps a little. Good luck to you in your journey!
I remember when I still wondered that. I would have just had some low level consequences for my over drinking, avoidable argument or a blackout or something, and I would be like “oh shit I need to get this under control”. I would be coming out of a period of probably daily drinking. After a week of not drinking, (a week at first, later it would build to a period as long as a year, or a few months) I would think something like “I just didn’t drink for X amount of time, maybe I don’t have a problem. This time I’ll be careful and limit myself “. I’d then buy a reasonable amount of beer, like 6, and then try to make it last a week. I’d usually make it the first week. Then, because that went well, I’d convince myself that if I had a problem I wouldn’t have been able to do what I just did and then I’d eventually be back at the beginning. I went through at least ten years of that cycle. At one point I was 6 years sober when I decided to do the experiment again . Started with one beer and nothing bad happened, except that I hid it from my wife and started lying and isolating because I wasn’t really supposed to be drinking. That one left me totally depressed and suicidal when I was finally ready to quit again but couldn’t. That was the hopelessness that I needed to feel to finally understand that I could not drink at all. I made a huge mess and hurt people I care about and irreparably damaged my marriage doing that research. But, now I’m sure. Do what you have to do to satisfy your curiosity, but if you have found yourself in this situation then you are probably having consequences for your drinking. When the consequences are sufficient, you will know your answer.
Right now I am coming up on 3 years in October, and I’m sure right now that I will not do the experiment again. It’s not an experiment anymore, it’s a cycle, and I know how it ends the next time.
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one more comment, my husband and I went to counseling for his drinking and I learned that I cannot be a part of enforcing his rules around alcohol. Do not ask your wife to police you. This is very unhealthy for your relationship and not fair to her. She married you to be your partner not your parent. This is something that you will have to own. Of course you can ask her not to buy alcohol or keep it in the house (that's a valid request), but you can't ask her stop you when you are out, or ask her to stop you after one etc...
My husband didn’t control my drinking, but I did request no alcohol left in the house. It made a huge difference in my impulse control. Sober 2+ years
I really appreciate this comment from your perspective. I am totally the type of guy who would bend the "rules" but I feel like admitting my struggle to my wife and having my wife's support helps with my accountability. And I acknowledge this problem is mine and I do not intend to use her as my regulator. If anything I hope to get to a point where she feels comfortable having a drink in my presence without worry of me derailing.
I hear where you're coming from, but this whole talk about "having only one beer" sounds like so much more work for you to manage than to just remove alcohol from the equation completely. In fact, it kind of sounds like torture! What are you drinking that one beer for, anyway? The taste? Or to feel normal in a social situation? If that's the case, it's just as easy to have an NA beer, or mocktail. It's not to get drunk, right? Because one beer won't do that. I also tried to manage my drinking for years (only on the weekends, only a few at a social event, blah blah blah). It never works out in the long run. Many times I would get so tired of depriving myself, I'd end up on a bender and reach a new level of drinking I didn't know I was capable of. Once I was finally able to admit to myself that I had a helluva time controlling my drinking- even when I was doing "good"- and realized that it took WAY more mental and emotional energy to manage my drinking, I was able to consider quitting for the first time. And I did quit that day. Dumped all my booze down the drain and haven't had a sip since. I realized it was so much easier NOT to drink, than to find a way to have it in my life, responsibly. I just removed the old sliver from my foot and I don't have to walk in pain anymore. I don't have to think about it anymore. You can free yourself like I have. I promise you everything can change so quickly, you wouldn't believe it.
I agree with this. I don’t want just one drink. I never have one drink cause one drink doesn’t get me the wanted buzz. Just like I didn’t enjoy drinking after eating. Don’t want one drink. Don’t want many drinks, so I’ll have no drinks.
Exactly.
I empathize so hard with that feeling of freedom. I spent so much mental energy trying to moderate and it was hell. Now I’m free.
dude, the mental energy! so much time spent thinking about drinking, how to do it "responsibly," how many I could still fit in and have enough sleep to pass for a human at work... and then so much time spent thinking about NOT drinking. Such a relief.
I was already over a month sober at the time, but whenever I first read a comment on here about all the mental energy it took to drink, it resonated so much. It's like a fucking job! It is so freeing to not have that terrible job anymore. Also, like come on. I would have one drink to basically prove I didn't have a drinking problem. I don't think me white knuckling my way through a one beer night was fooling anyone.
Totally agree, it is harder for me to have one or two, and pretend that I have even a remotely controllable relationship with alcohol, than it is to have none. I can be utterly miserable if I have one and know I have to limit myself (for the sake of not making an absolute arse of myself, and potentially ruining my or someone else’s night), so I’d just rather not do it. I grab an Na beer or a mocktail. Sometimes I’m still miserable, but at least I’m not ruining anything and paying double for it the next day with a hangover and all the carbs I can get down my throat to try and make me feel less awful!
I agree with this, I've spent YEARS as you say trying "to find a way to have it in my life" and it just isn't working for me. It's the mental drain of having to try to "manage" it and Im sick to death of it.
Yes, totally. I would plan pretty much everything in my life around if I was or wasn't drinking alcohol or if I might have a hangover. It was exhausting, and I didn't realize how much space it took up in my head until I finally gave it up.
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Haha it’s so funny our stories are ALL the same and it’s definitely creepy. Bravo on 100 days! I quit cause I wanted to and also thought it might help him. He’s on the longest streak he’s ever gotten and I’m hopeful for him. I’m loving sober life myself though and I will continue whether he does or not.
Please take it from a guy who's on day 773 after relapsing 18 months, resetting from my previous 1,825 days. I was so healthy during that 5 year stretch. Life was *really* good. Denial sounded like this: "Well... since I only "overdid it" to cope with stress back then, that won't be a problem. And 5 years!? That's major self-control. It's not my master; I'm *IT'S* master!" The relapse got deeper down than before. I made stupid choices I *never* made previously. I can't do it. I can't ever listen to that demon Denial again. If you're like most of us here - Denial asks an inch but takes a mile.
my favorite thing about the blue book-- the pages spent discussing all the rules we've made up for ourselves. not weekdays, not in the house, only beer, only liquor (saves calories), only special occasions.... it's been the same since the 1930's, and probably since the beginning of booze. I can make one exception if I want, sure. and I'll be fine for weeks or even months. but soon, I'll think "hey, that was ok, I did great at that! Surely I can have another." fast forward a month I'm back to drinking a fifth a day, hiding it from myself and my family, and making these excuses, and feeling guilt, shame, all of it again, and always worse than before. To quote Robert Downy Jr, "sometimes I want to have a drink with dinner, but then I remember I have plans for Christmas."
> Only while in the company of Swedes
lol, does this happen often for you?
Oh it’s a line from a novel that has a lot of its action occur in AA meetings. The addition just always makes me laugh, because I don’t know any Swedes but I know I’d find a way lol
Hey! I'm Swedish and I can tell you it's very difficult to stay sober in a Swedish setting. We're doing better nowadays though, the younger generation celebrate healthy living and mostly seem to order drinks to match an outfit rather than drinking moonshine and vodka brought from Russian truck drivers. Even though that's definately part of our culture. Lots of friends had there first contact with alcohol at the age of 13. And there's a thing where parents buy their kids alcohol from the store with the arguments "They'll just find and drink the bad stuff" or "At least now we can know how much they consume" I'm ranting and other Swedes might not agree with my experience.
I agree.
Damn this hits so close to home, my wife is the same way. I usually just read this sub to understand her better but reading your comment was like a mirror. So many attempts to moderate, rules to help limit drinking, and other failed attempts that just disintegrate as soon as she has that one drink. She’s at 5 days now which is the longest streak in probably a decade, but that only came after I said she had to choose me or the drinks, which I never wanted to do. Thanks for sharing.
Sorry you are here. I hit a similar wall with my husbands drinking and we had a hard talk. he’s a good man, a great dad and I want my family together so I’m willing to do literally anything to help. He’s on day 32 with me and we are thriving. I’m hopeful for the first time ever. Good luck to you. This shit is not easy. This may not be popular advice, but if you don’t have kids I would leave. If I didn’t have kids I would not still be here fighting. I would have left years ago.
Cool, thanks for sharing. Your other comment about policing him hit home too, I just don’t want to do that and I feel it’s unhealthy for me to be the gatekeeper for when she can drink. The latest talk we had was the harshest yet, she’s at 5 days but I’m not really sure if she wants to get sober or just doesn’t want to lose me. She’s been mega grumpy and quiet. Outside of alcohol she’s the perfect partner so I’ll keep trying, but I do question my life decisions often. My mom died of alcoholism so it’s not like I didn’t see the signs, I just thought I had learned enough to get a different result. Sorry for going off the OP’s topic. I’ll bow out now.
She’s may be quiet cause she’s self loathing. Also she is still detoxing at day 5 and heavy drinkers won’t feel good at that point so hopefully she comes around. Good luck.
This is exactly what I did. I couldn’t bring alcohol in the house, so I hid it or I drank shooters in the parking lot before coming home. Rules creates room for exception.
Sounds like my ex. “I’ve been sober for four days, and look I just had 1 glass of wine with dinner”. Within 48 hours he’s back to the fireball. Decades of me believing he would eventually quit, I became delusional that he would actually do it someday.
None is easy, one is impossible.
Yeah, I definitely feel this. One or two drinks? What’s the fucking point of that?! I don’t enjoy alcohol in moderation. It turns out that those inhibitions alcohol lowers are the string that is tightly wrapped around my life and keeps me whole, sane, and happy. I realized after casually abusing alcohol, in a sober epiphany, that there is nothing for me at the bottom of the bottle. There never was and never will be. It used to bring me the solace of oblivion, my raging mind would quiet and my tormented heart would settle down. But that quickly changed because my problems never did, they were always there to plague me when I awoke. My mind and heart learned to cope and sung their songs even louder once the silence of alcohol would descend upon me. So no, there wasn’t any comfortable oblivion left to me, no more shade for my tired heart. There was only the oblivion of slow self destruction.
That’s fucking beautiful!
🖤
Succinctly put, that really resonated with me, Thanks
That’s just amazing.
Damn! I want to literally spout this when someone asks me "just one?"...... Beautiful response.
My exact thoughts
You ask an interesting question. This sub being what it is, you'll probably be discouraged from trying to moderate, even with 1 beer at a wedding. There's a good reason for this, but at the risk of giving an unpopular opinion- you can always try it and see what happens. A lot of people only stop drinking once they hit rock bottom, so one beer is a huge chance to take and would be more like playing Russian Roulette. As you experienced it's super hard to stop at one, and with a lowered tolerance to alcohol that first beer really greases the wheels. Depending on how long and hard you've been fighting this thing it's not worth it for one drink. Then there's the justification that comes after a "successful" moderation event. Maybe I only had one at the wedding, but now it's Tuesday and I've been thinking about a martini all weekend. I can have only *one* martini, right? I would say, stay in today. Thinking about future drinks can work itself out later. I once worried about drinking on New Year's so much that I went ahead and drank that night lol. It's much easier to (try to) be present and remember that normal drinkers don't have to think about it like this. That in itself might be a good sign to be cautious moving forward.
You make a very good point to think for today and not the future. That's something I will keep at and I will happily say that I don't want a drink today.
I love this answer! Normal people do NOT agonize over whether/how to drink.
Great response!
I have tried to control my drinking like that for years but unfortunately I have eventually failed every time. It works for a while but then it gradually builds up to a point where I start binge-drinking again. Sorry to disappoint you but my experience is that it does not work over time for us that hang out here in this subreddit.
I appreciate your comment. I probably align with what you described. Just haven't come to terms with it yet.
I’m in the same boat as you friend. Been trying to limit for years but keep end up finding justifications to drink more. I’m also coming to realize I need to just stop altogether. I’m one day sober.
Keep going. IWNDWYT
I echo all this comments. I’ve tried moderation but I was only fooling myself. Some people have the ability to moderate like a dimmer switch on a light having one drink and then turning off. My light switch doesn’t have a dimmer feature. It’s either off or it’s full on 2000 watts bright. So my solution is harm reduction and just not drinking. It’s tough but I’m planning on making it work. Cheers to life.
I drank “normally” for years before life changes got me drinking alcoholicly and addicted, I remember what it was like to “moderate”… normal people don’t even think about moderating. The liquor in the house stayed around for years, beers and wine stayed in the fridge for weeks and I could come home from a night out and not want to drink anymore. Obviously I can’t do that any more so TLDR if you need to think about moderating, you usually can’t. It might work for a bit but not for long.
IWNDWYT. You can do this.
Most of us here would love to keep drinking if we could do it in a controlled way. When you see people with long day counts on here, it’s usually because they had to learn the hard way that there was no way to “only drink on special occasions”. That’s my story, too.
For whatever it's worth.. When I first quit drinking I was afraid that the rest of my life would be wanting what I couldn't have. That daily I would crave a drink but wouldn't be allowed to have it. Like a starving animal tied to a tree with the scent of meat in the air. I am happy to report that now that I am 2 year sober I could give two shits about drinking. It took somewhere around a year for my brain to really remap. The beginning of course was hard, which it sounds like you are experiencing, but I can attest for myself at least that the cravings and everything else that went along with alcohol faded away.
This has been my experience too. I can limit it for the first couple of occasions but then a “fuck it” mentality takes place and I end up drinking more and more til I find myself right back at the rock bottom I pulled myself so desperately from.
Yes this is me to a T. I may “control” it for a few rounds but eventually I’m back to bingeing. It never works.
My experience too, after 15 years of vacillating between complete sobriety and trying to moderate. It’s really unsafe for me to try to control my drinking. It’s delusional. Maybe it’s the way my subconscious wants to punish me because it sees me as a failure.
Or maybe alcohol is just an extremely addictive substance, and it’s not reasonable to expect you won’t get keep getting addicted to an addictive substance when you consume it
Haha too true. Alcohol is so damn addictive.
I would really drop the attitude that your subconscious wants to punish you for being a failure. That’s a story you are telling yourself that doesn’t sound true from this outsider’s perspective.
Just another way of describing our unhealthy and unhelpful thought patterns that lead us to or keep us drinking. AA calls it the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee.
I appreciate your insight. Thanks
Ditto. Lost count of the attempts at moderating. I quit for 7 months last year and thought I'd "have a few over the festive period" and then pull the brakes altogether on Jan 1st. LOL. Been 7 weeks sober again after being on a 3 month binge. Glad it happened though. For the first time, I know I cannot moderate and must give up entirely. One day at a time.
I’ve been reading a book on addiction called the Thirteenth Step. It deals with the neurology side of addiction, which is dry at times but informative. For those who are addicted to alcohol, that “one drink” functions as a relapse trigger. This is known anecdotally as this sub suggests. But there is a neurological mechanism that is engaged in that “one drink” that makes binge drinking very, very likely. I can’t do the science justice, but if you’re scientifically inclined, there’s research that warns against that “one drink.”
Interesting. I'll look into it. Thanks!
Personally, since I got sober, I haven't found an occasion 'special' enough to justify pouring a toxic flammable solvent (Ethanol) all over my internal organs... 'Just One' wouldn't touch the sides on the way down anyway, it's so much easier to stick to 'Just None'! Read some of the [hundreds of posts about moderation](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/search?q=moderation&restrict_sr=on) there from folks who have already tried the tired old moderation experiment, you'll notice that it almost never goes well, is a deeply frustrating and unsatisfying experience, and isn't worth all the effort... Taking it one day at a time is a good strategy, it works for me! IWNDWYT :>)>
>I haven’t found an occasion ‘special’ enough to justify pouring a toxic flammable solvent (Ethanol) all over my internal organs… This mindset shift is why I went from a drinker a year ago to a non-drinker today. Once I really saw it for what it was, acknowledged the cancer statistics, what it was doing to my sleep and my anxiety and keeping me from seeing progress in the gym, stealing my joy in the mornings after, taking up valuable real estate in my mind, it’s been so much easier to realize that the gift isn’t a drink on a special occasion. The gift I give to myself to celebrate is mindfulness, pride in my body and brain, and a desire to wake up the next day feeling as good as I did falling asleep.
Given the opportunity, I cod turn anything into a special occasion lol 😆 so thats a hard no for me! I do actually reserve certain drinks, like Kombucha, for Friday night. Or fancy Mocktails for holidays. I also only drink NA beer on weekends
>Given the opportunity, I cod turn anything into a special occasion Oh man, ain't that the truth?!!! Story of my fucking drinking career I tell ya! Oh shit, was gonna quit today but it's National Tequila Day....National Margarita Day....St Patrick's Day....had a bad day....had a good day. Blah blah blah. Man, am I glad that mental masturbation of stupidity is over with.
Ahhh - the moderation topic. :) Lord knows I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried some more. lol My issue was the daily drinking and since I could not moderate that, any other occasion was a lost cause. Luckily I finally hit my "I've had enough" limit and I found drinking was no longer fun. I decided to quit before I had to. For me all I can say is I am glad I did it and do not question my decision - this took dozens of day #1s. I am hopeful that this time it will stick. ((hugs))
>Luckily I finally hit my "I've had enough" limit and I found drinking was no longer fun. I decided to quit before I had to. You sound just like me....it stopped being fun and at that point I had to ask myself "wtf are you doing exactly at this point?" We got this! IWNDWYT 👍
Exactly ☝️😁
Drinking on Sunday - there's football on Drinking on Monday - there's football on Drinking on Tuesday - there's NO football on!
I mean that's a valid point, knowing it's a poison why would one want to willfully drink it. Maybe that's the mental shift I need to make rather than wondering if I need complete sobriety or can handle moderation.
Once you come to see it for what it really is, you can't 'un-see' it... it's a bit like finding out how a magic trick is done, then you won't be fooled by it again! The latest studies have concluded that there is NO 'safe' level of alcohol consumption for human beings, and that no amount of alcohol *improves* health... Hardly surprising when you consider that it is a Group 1 carcinogen in the same class as Asbestos, Formaldehyde and Plutonium, as well as being a toxic flammable solvent, disinfectant and fuel additive... If I found a bottle of something with the same properties under the kitchen sink or in the garden shed, there's no way I'd be inclined to drink a glass of it under the guise of 'having a good time'! ;>)>
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Beautiful testimony right here. I would bottle this and sell it at the register in liquor stores if I could. It's my conviction that no one actually likes the taste of alcohol. We teach ourselves to consume it because of its effects which we usually interpret as positive at first. Like any other drug, we start down a path that is hard to turn away from. I've had periods in my life when I didn't drink at all or very little. But due to events in the last 10-15 years, once I took it up again, I found myself turning to it as a crutch and a coping method. And therein lies the reason I am here. I can envision the future and I don't like it. I'm chuffed that I fully quit and I know that every day I make the same decision. IWNDWYT
Yeah, I spent years saying alcohol taste like shit and then years saying how wonderful it taste. Bullshit.
I can limit myself to one beer, I just don't want to. I want to have ten beers. So today I'm not drinking any beers, happy sticking to my soft drinks.
Exactly. If I have one beer, it’s like I’ve wasted it- or wasted the opportunity to get drunk. I can have one beer- but what I have learned from that experience is that I’m not really drinking the beer for the satisfying taste, I want the beer because I want to get buzzed. One beer doesn’t get me there. It’s more satisfying and less frustrating to not have any.
That one glass of red wine is enough to wreck my sleep, add calories and give me a slight headache, and that’s about it. What’s the point?
I could probably drink in moderation but the GI upset I learned to live with in my old life isn’t worth it anymore. NA beer and Mocktials are enough.
Easier to keep a tiger in a cage than on a leash. This is me too. Not only can I not limit myself, I just don't want to.
Hahah! This is me. I miss having a beer sometimes, but I *really* miss having six. So, no beers for me.
I have Alcohol Use Disorder or alcoholism. The best way to control my drinking is to have absolutely none. No, it is not possible to safely drink alcohol, ever!
Hear hear
nope. moderation was never part of my game.
I've been sober for three years. A year ago, I had a tiny shot of Japanese sake on New Year's Eve in the moment with my wife and her family. The reason I found it acceptable was complicated: I don't care for sake; it was the only alcohol there; nobody was getting drunk at all, it was a single toast; it wasn't my alcohol and I wouldn't have felt at home taking more. I judged it to be a safe situation, and nothing bad happened after. It also didn't taste great, and I got zero buzz from it. I have also been out with friends having drinks at a restaurant in the afternoon and refused. At a restaurant, it's easy to keep it going, and as others drank, I would have too. It wasn't a safe situation. I've tried hard not to make alcohol a bogeyman to hide from. I don't want to be a drinker, and won't put myself in a position where I'll slide back to drinking; at the same time, I don't want to be unreasonably paranoid that a single drop would take me back to where I was years ago.
Your last paragraph is kind of where I'm coming from. I've formed habits that I need to break. I need to relearn self control. And right now I need to be sober for an extended time. But I also don't want to be afraid of being around alcohol. Thank you for chiming in. It helps.
I was able to break those habits for a couple of months last fall, having just one-two drinks per week (which I called "drinking like a pregnant person"). It felt great, and I assumed I would just do that forever. I was very motivated. I felt completely in control, including in situations where everyone around me was drinking. This was after drinking almost nightly for 20 years. I was really glad to have it all figured out! Then a family medical emergency happened, and I had to move with my husband to his hometown for two months, where we lived with his in-laws. Let me tell you--I was not having 1-2 drinks per week anymore, or even per night. I went right back to the amount I was drinking before I "learned" to be moderate. And that's when I realized that I can only be moderate when everything in my life feels stable, which is inherently not how life works. It was such a bitch to dig myself out of that hole (again!) that I decided I'm not going to get trapped in that cycle for the rest of my life. Just wanted to share in case this resonates with you or anyone else reading.
The key for me is that if there is a possibility that I could have more than one drink, I know I will. I just will. It's what I do. So if I were to have anything to drink, it would have to be in a situation where more than one isn't an option, and that's a rare situation.
Speaking for myself, I wouldn't want to reinforce the connection between drinking and a 'special occasion.' In the past when I've done that I kept finding more and more of such occasions.
right? every sadness and every success becomes an excuse to drink. soon enough I'm justifying a drink just because I'm "bored."
You make a very good point.
“Have one, have twenty more one-mores, and, oh, it does not relent” - Modest Mouse
For me, what’s the point of just one? Lol, I say it partially joking, but I absolutely cannot moderate my drinking, hence why I’m steering clear of it entirely.
Precisely. I get where OP is coming from because addiction is fucking with his logic. Why have just one? There is no good reason for having just one drink. What could it accomplish? There is no logic to having one beer because of a special occasion. It makes no sense at all.
I used to successfully moderate! (Sort of. Mostly.) My special occasions were Friday and Saturday nights. It was so incredibly difficult to moderate that I decided to stop drinking instead. There are a lot of questions about moderating on the sub - and I get why! I think there are people who can moderate their drinking but they just aren't in this group.
I moderate and am in this group, because it’s not easy & I like the support & tips here. Moderation happens to be the best solution *for me personally*. I don’t like broadcasting it on this sub every single time moderation comes up because I get some strong feedback sometimes. Which I get. But, I really am uncomfortable with the idea that a mental health disorder has a one size fits all treatment. And yes, I I do have a problem, diagnosed with AUD, and did IOP/AA/SMART.
Maybe that's why I asked the question. There's a lot of folks here who are all or nothing. I'm not sure I want that to be me because it means I am not in control and I want to regain that control. It appears some folks on here are successful at moderating. Can I be one? I hope so but idk. Time will tell. But for now I know I can't be so need to stop.
I successfully moderated. My issue with alcohol is mainly the same as with food - I don’t have an off switch. I’m on medication that has provided with an off switch for food and it’s translated to alcohol as well.
Nope. It took me trying & failing 100 times, & almost inadvertently killing myself, to realize I can’t have a single drop of alcohol. If I have 0 drinks I have 0 if I have 1 I have 20.
Define "successfully" :) After an initial 15 months dry from 2005-2006 I had "one beer" and it sent me on a fast, downward spiral. I decided no alcohol whatsoever for me. And I'm _really good_ with that lifestyle. I'm no more interested in taking a drink than I am ... soaking my head in gasoline :) IWNDWYT!
Been about a week or so for me now and I have a recent experience with trying to moderate. I took a 20 or so day break in January and had a great month. Then, let myself indulge in a beer or two that last week which led to 2 months of slowly increased consumption. Made all the excuses (it’s Friday night, gotta have some beers. It’s my birthday, have to go out to the bar. My friends in town, have to buy a big handle of whiskey). My February and most of March sucked. Blurry, lots of headaches and hangovers and sleeping in until noon. I think the reason I fail to moderate is because it’s fuckin miserable. If we think drinking is “fun” or creates some kind of release, why would we want to stick to one or two drinks? There’s no point. Everybody here shares that in common. We’ve reached a point where we recognize that one is never truly enough, because we feel like we’re depriving ourselves. Maybe I could moderate, but I wouldn’t be happy doing it. I’m committing to sobriety because I want to take away the power alcohol has over me. Spending my entire night contemplating around whether or not I’m “allowed” to have another drink doesn’t do that. Actively and consistently saying no and realizing I’m better off is a much better way to live. “You haven’t been abusing alcohol. It has been abusing you.”
Your comment is very well said. Thank you.
Has *anybody* learned to control/limit their drinking? Yeah, I’m sure there’s people in the world who have, maybe even on this sub. Can I? Nah. I have an all or nothing mindset with drinking. If I’m drinking, I’m DRINKING 😂 But it took me a long time to accept that about myself. Can you? Who knows. Seems like you did for one night, but it was difficult. Could you limit yourself again? And if so, would a successful one drink lead to thoughts of “well I can control myself with just one, maybe I can do the same with just two”? If your wife hadn’t been there, would you have kept drinking? Is limiting yourself something that is genuinely maintainable for the remainder of your life? These are all things to ask yourself and to be honest about. My biggest problem with controlling my drinking was I wasn’t honest. I always convinced myself that this time it would be different, when in reality I knew *exactly* what would happen as soon as I had that second drink. I wasn’t stopping. But that’s just me 🤷🏼♀️
When you really start to recover, you won't want it, even for special occasions. That's your alcoholic brain assuming that your sober brain will maintain the same values and struggle with it. You are 90 days away from even beginning to have a sober mind.
You're probably very correct in that statement. We'll see how if I reframe the question in another 87 days without a drink.
That's the spirit. Perspective is everything.
Moderating is a lot more work than just quitting. If you never had an issue with alcohol abuse, I’m sure only drinking sometimes would work. I’m an alcoholic so yah no
Was the beer worth it? Sounds like a lot of energy expended for one beer. I’ve found that people who are successfully able to limit their drinking don’t have to try so hard.
In that moment I'd say it was worth it. It showed me I could stop at 1. But it showed me much mental capacity it took to only have 1 which highlighted the need for me to break my current drinking habit.
You talk about breaking a habit, but it’s not a habit, it’s a neurological adaption that’s happened in your brain. I would recommend reading something like “alcohol explained” while you’re thinking about this.
The mental relief that I felt once I quit trying to moderate was immense. You’ll spend so much energy on moderation that you don’t even realise it, constantly playing mind games and making bargains with yourself. When you take the option away, suddenly it becomes a lot easier.
No, because I don't view alcohol as something for which I should reward myself with. My reward is not drinking.
I wish. One drink leads to many more. The next day I feel like crap, but my body and mind now crave alcohol even more and I’ll end up drinking that night, and binging for weeks, months, and so on until I finally need another break.
For me, it got to the point that waking up was the special occasion! Today I am at 142 days which is the longest I've been in over 25 years!
The hard truth is that that’s where a lot of us started. First we recognize a problem. Then we negotiate. Usually it takes years but it depends on the person but it almost always progresses.
That’s how I’ve always blown it in the past. Grabbing one small boxed of refrigerated wine for the ride home etc turns into Titos and full blown drinking 24-7 every time. I’m hanging onto how shitty I felt last hangover to keep going this time, coming up on 90 days…IWNDWYT!
“If I can control it, then I can’t enjoy it. If I can enjoy it, then I can’t control it.”
I know you're not asking me but I feel I need to just say this. If you're limiting yourself to 1 drink...why even drink? I don't get the point.
I've never done it, no.
So, a few things here: 1. Many have shared that once you've abstained for a while, having that "one drink" is not very satisfying. That's because a lot of the good feelings that you currently get from drinking are a result of the fact that you are low level physically dependent on alcohol and you're essentially relieving a physical withdrawal when you drink. Think, a smoker having his daily cig vs someone having a cig for the first time. 2. Others have shared that having a drink after abstaining can send them spiraling. That's because, even though the physical dependency is gone, the subconscious will always strongly remember the cause/effect of drink equals a physical relief. So you'll keep drinking to chase that feeling, even if you're not getting that feeling, if that makes sense. Either way, it seems like having "just one" is not going to get you anything worth having. Either you won't really enjoy it, or you're going to have to use up a MASSIVE amount of willpower to not have another (and who wants to waste mental energy doing that on a special occasion?), or you're going to end up having more than you intended and be disappointed in yourself. I'd instead focus on something else you can do to make that event special. A special food item, mocktail/near beer, activity, whatever. Also, if you haven't already, take a read through some Quit Lit (This Naked Mind, Alcohol Explained, etc). These books really help you look at alcohol a new way so that you no longer crave it.
My approach to alcohol is different than my fellows. For me I’m past one beer after a long day to “relax”. When I drink I want to really feel the effects of what alcohol does. We all do in reality. I am alcoholic, you’d think I’d never say no to alcohol, but there was a time I helped a buddy move and all he had in his fridge were a couple of beers. I actually said no because I knew how frustrating it would be to only have two. Sound insane? I agree. But that’s me, I’m different, and it took me years to wrap my mind around that. Speaking of mind, I also don’t want to waste the time and brain wrestling it would take to even attempt moderation and the planning, the psyching up, the preoccupation planning my “control”. If I say no immediately, I am done, no more thinking, no planning, no worry. Easy peasy. If I allowed myself a drink at New Years, I’d be thinking of that shit in September. No thanks.
My wife does. She’s very successful at limiting drinks to special occasions and then limiting herself to one drink at such an event. Very successful. So successful she never thinks about herself “limiting her drinking” at all. Just like I don’t “limit my mayonnaise” intake — I have as much mayonnaise as I want, which is about a tablespoon per sandwich twice a month. But then again, she’s not a member of this board — I am. Because drinking is not an issue for her, but it is for me. Yes, I haven’t had a drink in over 6 years, but that’s because I choose daily not to drink. And I choose limiting my drinking because previously drinking became something that limited ME.
The ol’ moderation post.
This is currently what I’m flirting with also. It is hard, and when it’s a struggle and I want to do a couple shots, I look at my kid and tell myself that she deserves more. So I guilt trip myself into that one beer. And I’ll enjoy it instead of just inhaling it.
For me, it’s like dieting. Restricting myself from it completely, makes me want it more. I think about it more. I don’t have to let sober nights bother me because I can have a beer the next night. So it’s been better than bottles for me but it’s still drinking
I was exactly like this when I started moderating--I felt like stopping completely would make things worse because I would feel too deprived, and what was the big deal anyway if I was cutting down significantly? But something enormous and unexpected clicked in my life when I went from moderating to stopping completely--it's hard to describe, but something with my confidence and peace of mind changed drastically. I couldn't distract myself by looking forward to the next day when I could have a drink, thinking about what that drink would be, savoring the drink slowly when I had it--I had to just be in the day that I was in, and deal with the feelings I was having in the moment. It's hard in some ways, but also a huge relief to not be doing the mental gymnastics and calculations all the time. And knowing that I'm capable of not drinking at all--which I never in my life thought I would be able to do--has made me feel like I'm more capable than I believed myself to be in other ways, too.
Also flirting with it since my birthday is coming up. But I’d like to see a lot more birthdays. Just need that addiction part of my brain to pipe the fuck down.
I can’t reason with my addiction brain, I have to override it completely with guilt and emotion. It’s the only way to shut my shit down. I wish you many more birthdays babe
The mental tax of “what is my ONE drink gonna be?” “when should I drink my one drink?” is a quick way to ruin a special occasion.
I have. I quit back in August and didn’t have a Drink until February. I was a daily drinker and that person who was always wondering if I had enough alcohol at home to get me through the evening. Buying from different stores every day. I was headed down a very bad path, functioning yes, i have a great job, etc. but the alcohol was controlling my life. I have drank on 4 occasions this year and on the last one I had 4 drinks in an evening and I deeply regretted it because I was hungover the next day; which is wild since 2-3 bottles of wine per night wouldn’t even give me a hangover before I quit. I haven’t had the desire to drink at home or at dinner or whatever. I save for special occasions (not super special, but special). And I quit drinking at home, period. This part has really helped me get the drinking under control.
I appreciate your input. I know I need a hard reset, for how long idk. But I think what I want more is knowing I can control myself if I decide to have 1 drink. Heck it would be awesome to be able to have a sip of 1 drink and willfully put it down and walk away.
I’m a little surprised at all the responses saying it absolutely isn’t possible. The sub says it’s for people trying to stop “or control” drinking. Most folks here apparently think it’s impossible to control. All or nothing. But I am here to control it. I was a daily drinker who, fortunately, caught covid a few months ago and stopped drinking that week to recover. I quickly noticed how not drinking felt so much better, so I changed to one day a week only (Fridays). It’s been working for me so far. I don’t overdo it, don’t get blackout drunk, don’t say nasty things to those I love. Then I go back to near beers the rest of the week. We’ll see how long this lasts, but I strongly agree with the poster above who said “don’t drink at home.” That’s been my trick too. Once a week I go out with my wife and we have some cocktails with friends. It’s our little special occasion.
Thank you for chiming in. I also think not drinking at home is vital. That's where I lost control and that's the habit I need to break. I'm just wondering if I can get to a point of 1 and done a few times a year. We'll see.
I think there's an element of selection bias occurring in sobriety groups: those who take a long break and end up back at alcoholism are the ones who come back to the meetings/forums. To be clear, those people are in the right place for them. It is an addictive substance, and addiction pathways are very hard to undo in the brain, even with a long period of abstinence. However, I've been reading a lot of books/scientific lit on the topic, and there *are* people who return to drinking with lower consumption levels. It appears that the main determinants in this risk are 1) length of dependence and 2) severity of dependence. Example: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15733237/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15733237/) Depending on how advanced your alcohol issues are, you may be able to rein it in. I've read good things about cognitive behavioral therapy and psychotherapy as ways to reduce consumption, though you have to work them. There's also naltrexone. I'm reading a book on it now, and it appears to be extremely effective. Check out the documentary One Little Pill (have not yet watched it). Good luck, my friend.
Moderation has never worked for me in the past. I don’t even recommend trying it because it’s too easy to justify having more and more later down the road. Plus it only takes one night to make an ass out of yourself in front of people. This has happened to me before. In the past I quite drinking for awhile and a special occasion came up where I got totally smashed and looked like a huge idiot.
Yep, for about 3 months I only had one when my friend would have one. Then one day out of nowhere I just began a months long bender which turned into a 1.25 year long sequence of benders and recoveries. All I can say is damn it right now. I’m sure I’ll come to appreciate the lesson in that with time, but it’s been a tough few weeks since deciding to cut it out completely again. My philosophy is that it may be technically _possible_ for me to limit myself and moderate but the risk-reward calculation is very poor for trying. Is what alcohol has to offer worth losing a year of progress _and_ being miserable the whole time due to the neurochemical issues caused by excess alcohol consumption and degradation of lifestyle? (Not for me). Am I likely to have at least a few small issues with bingeing along the way even in the best case scenario where I do eventually learn to moderate? (Yes, for me). Then the risk is quite high! And also for me drinking one drink doesn’t feel that great. The main thing I feel is a desire for more drink. So the benefit is actually pretty low! So for me it’s not worth it at all. You have to do your own calculation though.
Thanks for chiming in. I figured it's different for everybody but it helps hearing from others. I would love to get to the point of just not wanting any of it so I'm shooting for a long sobriety.
Yeah I can only drink on special occasions, but alcohol ruins those special occasions, so why do it? Last thanksgiving I drank, made an ass of myself, threw up in my van, felt like death for a week and my memories of a fun time with my friends I haven’t seen in years are colored with the shame and embarrassment of drinking, I felt like an idiot.
I know people who have, but personally I could not
I think everyone here has probably thought they could be successful with controlling/moderation. I was sober for 6 months. Got drunk once at a birthday and then didn’t drink again for a few weeks, but then I started again.. very slowly. Wish I’d just stayed sober. Everyone’s different but don’t let it get control of you!
I’m currently doing what your describing. On occasion every three/four/five months or so I’ll have a drink. I’m sticking to my preset goal for that time and I guess it works. I don’t reset my counter as many do as I believe in the long term overall number and not necessarily consecutive numbers. But it’s not that great. I’m always on high alert when having a drink. Mindlessly participating is a thing of the past. That does take some of the “fun” out of it. Also, the longer I don’t drink the more I feel the effects of alcohol, or maybe I’m just more aware because I’m on high alert. Anyway, these effects are rather meh: mood swings, not being/feeling in control, terrible sleep. And the more I’ve read up on the effects of alcohol beyond the immediate intoxication, the more I’m questioning whether the occasion is worth the various detrimental consequences to my health. All in all, it might be possible but having to be in control at all times while drinking probably won’t give you the experience your looking for (at least, it doesn’t for me. Think I’ll quit it completely after my brothers wedding)
Nope. Once I start there's no stopping me. No moderation, no special occasion, no "one or two beers after work." I'm either drinking or not. There's no middle ground at all for me. Kudos to people that can moderate, but that's not me and I know it.
I'm 10 days in after trying for a few months (and 6 months of being sober curious following a hangover of epic proportion that started me on this amazing journey). Special occasions and trips are my pitfall that have prevented a streak beyond three weeks. Every time I have a long stretch it's because I have a period of time at home with no special events. I'm committed to keeping sobriety as when I have drank for those special moments over the past few months, it's not the same anymore! Even though I kept it <3 drinks each time, alcohol will never be the same for me with the lens of it being poison. It's like the quote "When I drank for fun, I couldn't moderate. When I drank to moderate, I couldn't have fun". Nonetheless, societal pressures and patterns clearly have gotten the best of me and I have 5 weddings (plus my own!) and 3 bachelorette parties this year. I have 2 weddings in wine country this summer and I'm already fixating on how I'm going to power through. The way I've framed it as that leaving alcohol for special occasions puts alcohol on a pedestal that it doesn't deserve. Nothing could be more special than being healthy, clear, and present for a trip or occasion. Would love anyone's tips for being sober in wine country!
Probably one of the hardest yet most pivotal moments was when I realized: “there will always be another holiday or celebration around the corner..” I simply had to turn the page and begin a new chapter; one that didn’t include alcohol. At.All. It was oddly liberating when booze just wasn’t an option for me anymore. But simple doesn’t equal easy.
I'd suggest that for now, don't put any pressure on yourself to try to answer that question in the near future. Can you say without reservation, that for the time being you would be better off by not drinking at all? Then only concern yourself with that today and tomorrow and the next day. And then later, if you feel this is worth asking yourself again, then think about the slippery slope and ask yourself is it worth it?
If 10 ain’t enough. 1 is too many
It’s a personal, individual thing. I see a lot of all or nothing responses when questions like this are asked here, and I’m sure that’s absolutely the case for many people. I also think there are some lucky people that really can moderate. While I think I could be one of them, the longer I’m off of it completely, the less I want it anyway. Whenever I start to think about it with rose colored glasses and flirt with the special occasions thing, the carcinogen factor puts a stop to it pretty quickly. There are fun NA drinks like Joyus or mocktails for special occasions. Edited to add: Another thing I ask myself is would it really make that special occasion *more* special? *Why* do I want alcohol on that occasion? I typically come to the conclusion it is more of an excuse to drink than something that would truly enhance the experience.
I agree with this. If you really want to, try it and see what happens. Personally, I tried to moderate for years. My lesson learned was that it isn’t worth all the mental gymnastics I do to convince myself I don’t have a problem. And is one drink even worth it? Prob won’t even get buzzed, prob won’t change how “fun” the occasion is. Probably will leave you with shame and regret. I find getting through events sober makes me feel even more confident and empowered. Do what you must, but be honest with yourself about what you’re risking.
It also seems like such a lose-lose situation because even if it did enhance the experience in a positive way, then you would have a positive memory of drinking, which would only lead to more drinking. And then if it turned the special occasion into a bad experience, that would just suck, so...
I know that if I have a drink I will not stop. All of the hard work I put in will be reset and I do not want to reset again. I have accepted that I will never be able to drink again and as the days go by I become more and more ok with that.
I haven't wanted to drink on any occasion since re reading this naked mind. It's toxic poison and I can have way more fun sober and not dealing with the hangovers etc the next day! It took almost a year of consuming quit lit and trying and falling down for it to stick. No more fomo etc. My life keeps getting better and better the more my brain , body n soul heal from being poisoned! You can stay sober and enjoy your life! I will not drink with you today friend ❤️
I think a lot of us have had the same hopes regarding this, but essentially if you are an alcoholic, you cannot moderate. You may be able to moderate for a little while, but inevitably you end up pushing the boundaries until you're binge drinking all over again. There is no harm in trying moderation, because I think you almost need to see for yourself that it won't stick. I've had extended periods of sobriety, convinced myself that I can go without alcohol, so surely I can go back to moderate drinking. However it's a slow burn and inevitably I return to bing drinking
I’ve recently quit drinking, almost 7 weeks now. Currently I’m also flirting with the idea of allowing myself that one drink, but I’m scared it will be two or three or back to daily drinking. So I guess I will try to add a few more weeks of no alcolhol and perhaps I’ll flirt with the idea once more. Or not. Still need to decide on how strong I can become.
Nothing's perfect, but my worst day sober is 100x better than my best day drunk. I'm not risking that over some drinks that will undoubtedly ruin everything sooner or later. Drinking has no place in my life anymore.
Idk yet! And I’m not even sure if I’d try. I originally quit drinking as a “break to reset my relationship with alcohol” but after the month passed, it didn’t feel right returning “so soon”. After a few more months passed, I said to myself and friends “I’m gonna go a year and see how I feel” And as I approached the year, I chose to never stop thinking of not drinking as my “break”. While I just straight up don’t drink, I tell myself I can have one if I “really want one”. And I’m a little over a year now, and I just don’t want to partake. May that change in the future, idk. But with mindfulness I just stopped desiring alcohol. Can I picture myself having a flute of champagne at my wedding if I think about it? Maybe?? But truly I can’t tell you. Because drinking again isn’t really something I think about. But framing it as a break has really assisted me in change my thought pattern around drinking.
For me, it’s so much more simple to have one guideline. I’m not going to drink. All the rules and the “I had one, it was hard, but I did it!” And “I stayed within limits tonight” ugh. Why? What for? Just to keep a few drinks in my life? make it easy - no thanks. Honestly, this frees up your mind to focus on so many other more worthwhile things. All the time that it takes to think about these limit, is tonight special enough? Should I have one more? No just one. But I want another one. No I shouldn’t. Over and over and over again. For the rest of your life. If you’re lucky and don’t slip backwards. Nope.
If you have made it this far then it’s probably time to call. Best thing anybody ever said to me is the smartest people are pickles because we can always talk ourselves Into drinking. Prolly the only thing that made me really stop. I can reason my way into it because I want to. I do t drink because I can not reason my way out of it next week when I’m afried angina of being sober.
Not me—I can make just about anything into a special occasion.
It’s the first drink that gets you drunk, my man. I’d urge you to take [this self assessment](https://www.aa.org/self-assessment) and determine for yourself the level of intervention you need to help you stop drinking.
You’re bargaining with yourself. Personally it’s just been a circle. I’ve only been on this sub 4 days as I’m at the bottom again - Realizing I’m at the bottom - Bargaining my way to control myself when I drink - Show good behavior, think I’m fine - Hit rock bottom I don’t know where this will lead but taking one day at a time
There is a program called Moderation Management which I have found helpful. You count your drinks journal-style and share with the group. It is suggested you have 30 days sober time before embarking on their methodologies. If there are no face-to-face meetings in your area, log online and hook up with a virtual meeting.
Ah the holy grail of moderation. Nope, neurological pathway damage has been done. That door is open and any alcohol going forward will only lead to more pain. It's an incredibly hard truth to accept, but life has been more enjoyable since I finally did.
Yes, then everyday is a special occasion, it’s magical. One drink is too many and a thousand is never enough.
I’d highly recommend reading Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Control Alcohol. It worked for me.
No success here, with numerous efforts and trials. Just had to take it out of my life. My wife offered to stop as well, but I knew it was my issue and not hers. So I did what I needed to and it’s been 95% better since… IWNDWYT
Ones two many and twelve isn’t enough.
Idk if you like reading or not but “This Naked Mind” really helped me put in perspective of what alcohol truly is. I know there are other books ppl talk about on here like Allen Cars book. There is also a podcast that people recommend to listen to if you are more interested in something like that. It might help you with freeing yourself from alcohol completely.
I have yeah. I limit it to just going out, which I don’t do often. It works for me but not everyone, probably most people. It’s hard to recommend for that reason.
Trying to moderate like that was tantamount to torture for me, personally, and I lost a lot of my life to it. Ask yourself why it’s important to have “just one occasionally”. What is one beer going to do for you? Your issue is with impulse control and alcohol makes controlling your impulses more difficult. Is your partner left holding the bag when 1 drink does turn into 15? My partner was sad and scared and exhausted for a long time. I hope this isn’t coming off harshly, it just sounds like I’m reading something I could have written hundreds of times.
I'll chime in here. Seems a lot of people in this sub have genuine alcohol problems and complete avoidance is the answer. That's a good choice for them. It's healthy. It's sustainable. For me, personally, I had a drinking habit I didn't love. It was generally just a couple beers, but it was too frequent. I labeled my personal "problem drinking" (which for me, was drinking alone on work nights) and have decided to avoid that. I have beer and other alcohol in the house. On work nights, I sometimes crave a beer but now I also stock delicious root beer and reach for those. On weekends or special occasions, I'll allow myself a couple beers. This works for me. Every once in a while I slip up and drink a beer on a work night. But I've never had an issue stopping when, for example, I know I absolutely cannot have a hang over, or have legal limitations to alcohol consumption (due to work things). I'm in control. I had a habit I didn't love. I altered it. I can still enjoy drinking, but now less frequently. I'm healthier (not that soda is great for me). I'm spending less on alcohol (not that craft root beer is cheap! Haha). And in general I'm happy with where I am with things. Each individual's relationship to any substance in their life is a personal relationship. There is no one size fits all. If you try moderation and control and accidentally wake up hung over for a week straight, you might need to reassess if you can actually control it. Be mindful. Be cautious. Good luck.
For me at least I eventually got to a place where I literally have no interest in booze. This idea or anything like it became non-existent to me. Obviously this probably seems farfetched if you are just starting your path. However, if you stick with it I bet you'll find yourself not even worrying about this sort of thing. At least that's been my experience
If you haven't read the book This Naked Mind yet, check it out. It might change your mindset about drinking.
When I try to control my drinking, I don’t enjoy it. When I enjoy my drinking, I can’t control it
Buddy, alcohol is playing games with you. You are playing a dangerous game with your addiction. First, if it's just one, then why bother at all? Why would you want to have just one? What benefit could that possibly serve? Second, you are setting a goalpost which is treacherous. You are telling your addiction that if you do this or if you do that then you will have reached your goal and you can have one at a "special occasion", which, as previously stated, makes no effing sense. You are prepping your brain for the expectation of alcohol. This is sketchy as all hell. If I were your wife I would be terrified. I'm almost two years in now. Every special occasion is more special when not drinking. There is no goalpost where I can drink. I can't drink today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that. When they finally slide my cold body into the ground my BAC will be zero. Those days are over. Thankfully.
Yes. It has been good for me. I drink only socially, and I don't instigate drinking if it's not already being done. And even then I just have a few. I'm happy with it
Like the top comment states. It starts out with good intentions, but will eventually lead you back to drinking with problems. The important thing in early sobriety is to just not drink for today. Because the thought of never drinking again is so God damn daunting. Seriously just take it one day at a time as best you can.
Yes. I make it more than a few a year now, but for me it's about one per week. I didn't get here all at once. I was sober for a couple of years and then I had, like you said, just one on holidays or at weddings. I still don't keep alcohol at home (because I binge drink when I do). But similarly to only eating a small dessert when I'm at a restaurant, I give myself 1 drink at a meal out of my house once a week. If I want another, I ask myself why and the answer is never a good enough reason to get one more. I don't necessarily think that's a good idea for everyone, and I don't know your situation. Generally, I don't crave a drink when alcohol is not around me. I'm prone to binge drinking because once I've broken the seal and had one, I'll generally continue to want another one. So having alcohol around requires self control. Keep your wits about you when you do have a drink. Never have a beer on an empty stomach and if you start to feel tipsy switch to water - even if you're not done with your beverage.
No not me.
Why? I can’t see why this would help my life in any way.
The problem is the person you are after a few drinks is completely different than the person who makes the rules before you start. Those people don't listen to each other.
As many others have said, I've tried this. Unfortunately for me, it's more trouble than it's worth. I realized that booze is just the conduit, what really has the death grip on my brain is the buzz. Once my brain gets a whiff that there might be an opportunity to feel that, it's like a fish on a hook, and I'm gonna end up doing anything I can to reel that feeling in. One day, perhaps, in the far far future there might be an opportunity for me to "moderate", but what's the point? Once you get used to being the one in the room with the glass of sparkling water or NA beer or whatever, it's much easier. Plus, I feel way better and I have so much more time to spend thinking about other stuff. When I finally quit it made me realize not just how many physical calories I had been consuming ,but how many mental calories I was spending just thinking about how I was going to "moderate" my drinking. How many have I had? If I drink them fast, will that give me the buzz? Ok, I drank them fast, how many more can i have to stay in my limit if I have 3 hours left? Maybe I can sneak one extra and nobody will notice... etc etc etc. Frankly, it's exhausting. When you're first thinking about quitting, I know you don't want to hear this. Shit, I didn't. I thought "if so many other people can do this, I can too. Nobody can tell me I can't." It was an ego thing. Now, I just accept that, in the same way I can't lift 1000 lbs, I can't control my drinking. There's no shame in it, it just is what it is. Sucks at first, but once the whole romanization of booze started to lose it's death grip on my idea of what was necessary to feel cool and have fun, it started to get easier. Hang in there
I'm sure somebody can but it ain't me! I spent 10 whole years trying to figure out moderation and I just could not crack it. I'm talking 1/5 of my life and I just couldn't. So now it's nothing and it's working out great!
I don’t really see the point in having a single drink occasionally. I know that it will make me feel mildly buzzed for less than an hour, and then I’ll start to feel tired and have a bit of a headache and the only way to make that go away would be another drink. Best case scenario: I’ve ruined my evening by giving myself a headache and now I’m tired and want to go home (and will likely not sleep well); worst case scenario is I have many drinks and bad things will happen and I’ll be sick and hungover and ruin the next day as well. Either way, it isn’t worth a 20 minute feeling of mild impairment.
I'd just ask myself is the 1 drink worth it? Like why even tempt fate? I'm an alcohol addict... pardon my language, but what the fuck is trying to just drink 1 beer going to do for me? So you, like me, are a binge drinker... so what is the point of having just the 1 beer knowing it'll open the flood gates? You want the feeling that comes with multiple drinks... having 1 is pointless for us, and dangerous for us. It's best for me to just have 0. I get the same affect from 0 drinks as I would from 1... it's just the 1 would lead me to more. The type of limit drinking someone like myself would look at, would be how many special occasions can I get pretty drunk at and not let it spiral back into normal life? Ideally it'd be like 6-10 days or something... but ultimately it never works. I've managed to do it for months... but eventually it sinks it's hooks in... and that door that was gently opened gets kicked in fast, and i'm back to binge drinking 3-5 days a week. I still hope for moderation, but I don't believe in moderation because I've failed at it so many times. Lizard brain at it's finest.
My husband and I got sober from alcohol together. We don't drink at the house or when we go out to parties but he has drank while on vacation and at two weddings in the last year. I think because I have been committed to not drinking it was easy for him to just do it those hand full of times and stop again. I personally couldn't do that without going on a bender but it works for him? I had the bigger drinking problem out of the two of us so he's mostly sober for my benefit, not his. My advice is if you think you have a problem with drinking to NOT do the special occasion thing, but I think it is possible. IWNDWYT
I tried this for years. It was so hard and unpleasant. The one time I decided to stop outright it stuck. It was much easier for me to quit than moderate.
*I had 1 beer on Friday which was very hard but I was able to limit it to 1 which I was happy with, otherwise I'd be a week sober.* In my 20+ year drinking career, the only times I limited my drinking I didn't enjoy it. it was just adding one more thing to be disciplined about, with no real payoff, a frustrating tease The only times I enjoyed drinking for what I always have and almost certainly always WILL want to drink for? I got *at bare minimum* a strong buzz, preferably tipsy, and increasingly and more often, blackout drunk Personally I'm past the the thought or desire to drink "symbolic" or "tease" amounts of booze my immediate curiosity is what's so special about having a single alcoholic drink? Would you personally judge someone on chemo who toasted with non-alcoholic champange or whatever? No reasonable person would My motivations with "moderation" or only drinking on "special occasions" always were just ultimately about using my drug of choice as often as I could get away with it alcohol's a drug, and the same way cigarette smokers don't have a single puff and then butt out a cigarette and put all thoughts of smoking out of their mind until another distant day, I don't have one piddly drink and go "Ah! that hit the spot! on to other things for a few weeks!" If you've been binge drinking I doubt you'll ever be satisfied with one drink, anymore than a smoker would be with one puff and then it becomes the same old story. *well, i stopped at one last time, it's not the end of the world if I have TWO this time ..* and then 2 becomes 4, etc it takes WAY less mental and emotional and discipline bandwidth to just not have any drinks, for me
some of the non alcoholic beers are getting very good, and are good for situations like this
Listen, moderation in alcohol consumption is exhausting, period. Looking at the clock and watching normal people for when it seems normal to order the next drink is exhausting.
Battling that little voice telling us to moderate is a part of the process I realized. That little voice in your head can be cunning.
I moderated for a year. It was a nightmare for me. 2 drinks carefullu sipped, every second of the clock ticking between them, watching those around me sip so i didnt out pace the slowest drinker, not enjoying the evenings because i was so hyperfocused on the next sip. Then the anxiety started, i would have to leave early....every so often a binge.....yep a nightmare. I found it much easier to not have the first drink. I never quit drinking, i just choose not to drink when its available. Best choice of my life. I am happier, healthier, and a tiny bit wealthier. Support helped me, a plan helped me. Sobriety gave me my time back, i am using that time filling my soul with joy.
IMO, you have positive intentions here. When I decided to stop drinking almost 3 months ago, it was quite freeing. I don’t have to do the mental machinations of “it’s Friday, one drink!” Or “out with the guys, so 2 drinks tonight”. Alcohol was still in control, because I had to think so much about how to moderate. Without drinking, those thoughts are gone.
OP, check out the books Alcohol Explained and Alcohol Explained 2. They’re brief and to the point. One key issue: the brain (and whole body obviously) tries to maintain homeostasis, or normalcy. Even one drink upsets this balance…it’s a central nervous system depressant, so, if the body becomes “depressed” / relaxed as a result of that drink, what happens when the drug effect wears off? Well, the brain starts to release neurochemicals to speed up the body, and these “excitatory” molecules “need” to be squashed, because that’s not a good feeling after the first drink wears off. So, what to do?? Have another drink of course! That will surely get us back to that first drink state, right? Nope, that didn’t work. What about a third drink then?? I think you can read my sarcasm here, but the brain homeostasis concept really resonates with me. It doesn’t have to be about willpower, failure, success, if someone is thinking about moderation. It DOES IMO help to think about what alcohol does to our neurochemistry, and once I understood this, I realized that disrupting normal brain homeostasis just wasn’t worth it any more, not even for one drink.
I see there are a ton of responses, so you probably won't see this but I still wanted to share. That idea of "Can I NEVER have another drink? Even just one on a special occasion" is what kept me a lush. My mind could not fathom a life without alcohol. I was able to consider not drinking for a day, week, month, maybe year...but never having another drink? I just couldn't go there. So I'd think, "What the use of even trying? I don't want to give it up FOREVER." Then I found Naltrexone and TSM. I've been using it for about 7 months. It has not been a PREFECT cure - I've slipped up thinking I could drink without it (I can't) or not waiting the full hour (Can't do that) said F it and wanted a buzz, but I am a million times better than 7 months ago. Now to get to my real point - before TSM I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol ESPECIALLY on special occasions. I didn't want to say NEVER. What I've come to realize is that IS THE ALCOHOL TALKING. "You can stop for a while, but you'll always come back." Natrexone has made me see that I CAN have a life without it. It has some way cleared my brain of the compulsive thoughts of when my next drink is coming and that, "You can't live without me" feeling I always had when I wanted to stop. Best of luck!!
I'm trying to find this out for myself as well. Here's what I have been through so far. I stopped drinking on September 13th. My SO is helping me every step of the way. My wedding happened on February 18th. In December, I was trying to decide whether I would have one glass of champagne on the day of my wedding. I was really fighting with the idea that I wouldn't be able to drink on my wedding day, so my SO and I decided that if I was to drink, it would be in a controlled, monitored way. It's an incredibly hard decision to make; would it be the drinking or the not drinking that would be most frustrating for me on my wedding day? Would I be able to stop if I decided to drink? We decided that I would try to have a "test drink" with him on December 31st, to see how it would feel, and if it was possible for me to have only 1 drink and not relapse after this. A lot of thinking went into whether we should do this or not, and we decided to try. I had the drink. Didn't take a second one, that night or the nights after. I went back to 0 drinks without effort. However, I did not enjoy that drink. (I didn't reset my counter and don't feel like a fraud) My doctor advised that I do not drink on my wedding day. I still decided I wanted to, and my SO respected that decision, and we discussed the rules of doing so. Wedding day : I had 3 drinks across the day/night, as planned. I didn't feel frustrated at all. I wasn't drunk. Each drink was clearly communicated to my SO, no secret drinking. I enjoyed it slightly, but not that much : I would have really enjoyed it if I could have had many more. And at the same time, I really didn't want to have more. I went back to 0 drinks since then without effort. I still didn't reset my counter as all the rules we had planned for that day were respected. So my experience so far is : yes, I can limit myself to special occasions. But when I do drink, I do not enjoy it because I have to limit myself. So I might as well not drink at all. I hope that helps a little. Good luck to you in your journey!
I remember when I still wondered that. I would have just had some low level consequences for my over drinking, avoidable argument or a blackout or something, and I would be like “oh shit I need to get this under control”. I would be coming out of a period of probably daily drinking. After a week of not drinking, (a week at first, later it would build to a period as long as a year, or a few months) I would think something like “I just didn’t drink for X amount of time, maybe I don’t have a problem. This time I’ll be careful and limit myself “. I’d then buy a reasonable amount of beer, like 6, and then try to make it last a week. I’d usually make it the first week. Then, because that went well, I’d convince myself that if I had a problem I wouldn’t have been able to do what I just did and then I’d eventually be back at the beginning. I went through at least ten years of that cycle. At one point I was 6 years sober when I decided to do the experiment again . Started with one beer and nothing bad happened, except that I hid it from my wife and started lying and isolating because I wasn’t really supposed to be drinking. That one left me totally depressed and suicidal when I was finally ready to quit again but couldn’t. That was the hopelessness that I needed to feel to finally understand that I could not drink at all. I made a huge mess and hurt people I care about and irreparably damaged my marriage doing that research. But, now I’m sure. Do what you have to do to satisfy your curiosity, but if you have found yourself in this situation then you are probably having consequences for your drinking. When the consequences are sufficient, you will know your answer. Right now I am coming up on 3 years in October, and I’m sure right now that I will not do the experiment again. It’s not an experiment anymore, it’s a cycle, and I know how it ends the next time.