I'm going to attempt to stop drinking....

[FIZZER6]

So after buying the house and spending all my nights working on it with the dog with not much to keep me motivated but beer I've been consuming way more alcohol than ever. I am averaging 5 per evening during the week, maybe 8 Friday and Saturday afternoon/evenings. Not only is this starting to cut into my home improvement budget (since I do not drink the cheap stuff) but I'm sick of feeling like sh!t at least 2 mornings during the week. Not sure what it is but if I drink more than 4 beers on week nights and then have to wake up at 6am for work I almost always feel queasy and have a bit of a headache.
Maybe it's just the result of getting old?

At any rate I've decided to only drink lightly on the weekends and not drink from Sunday night through Friday afternoon, starting this week. I will update this thread if I make it.

Anyone else ever attempt something like this? How did it go?

 

[dstaffx]

When I stopped drinking the DIY stopped too.:BLAA:

 

[DownrangeFuture]

I was placed permanently on medication that doesn't play well with booze. I had two beers and passed out the one time I tried, so I haven't drank since. So I've been dry for awhile.

I had a bit more motivation to stop drinking though.

1) Get drunk, don't take meds, have migraines
2) Take meds, no migraines, no drinking
3) Take meds, drink, and risk passing out permanently.

I took #2.

Good luck though man. I found I enjoy myself better when I don't drink. More time to do other stuff, you don't miss out on awesome places you'll only miss once cause you're only interested in finding a bar. More money for sure.

 

[2006_FZ6]

For a awhile, I would stop drinking after new year's every year. Not sure why, I think I did it just to prove to myself I could. Lost some weight, well, firmed up a bit and saved some money.

I'd usually start drinking again when the beach weather hit. I'm okay drinking the cheap lite beer, so that may have something to do with it?

But I've skipped the last two years and seem to be fine. But I don't over do it either.

Regardless, good luck to you!

 

[FIZZER6]

When I stopped drinking the DIY stopped too.:BLAA:

This is the basis of my problem! I can't stay motivated on the seemingly endless DIY projects I want to do around the house, on the car or on the bike without beer! :iconbeer:

 

[CHEMIKER]

So after buying the house and spending all my nights working on it with the dog with not much to keep me motivated but beer I've been consuming way more alcohol than ever. I am averaging 5 per evening during the week, maybe 8 Friday and Saturday afternoon/evenings. Not only is this starting to cut into my home improvement budget (since I do not drink the cheap stuff) but I'm sick of feeling like sh!t at least 2 mornings during the week. Not sure what it is but if I drink more than 4 beers on week nights and then have to wake up at 6am for work I almost always feel queasy and have a bit of a headache.
Maybe it's just the result of getting old?

At any rate I've decided to only drink lightly on the weekends and not drink from Sunday night through Friday afternoon, starting this week. I will update this thread if I make it.

Anyone else ever attempt something like this? How did it go?

Yup. I quit drinking completely for a month in Sept 2010 just to see if I could. That was a dark month LOL. Later in the year I found myself creeping back up again to probably too many every night, so my New Year's resolution was to limit it to 2 beers per night on week nights. I have found that to be much more sustainable than quitting completely. It's tough with a kegerator in the garage, but it makes my mornings so much more pleasant.

It's really hard when drinking while working on projects, which is probably the worst time to drink heavily. My temptation is to guzzle, so I have to watch out.

At the end of the day, you have to find what works for you. It may be that quitting completely is the only thing that works. I would hope not, but that's the only thing that works for some people.

 

[LERecords]

ive quit drinking about that much due to starting a new job and finances (right, beer isnt cheap).. i can say that the frist week or so i just got these nasty headaches.. other than that things have been great.. minus the fact that it takes a bit longer to fall asleep now.. good luck with the quitting

 

[Erci]

Wow.. and I thought I was bad @ 1 bottle every night (also don't drink cheap stuff.. ). I'm cutting down now due to my training (big bicycle ride).
Beer never motivated me to do anything.. it's my *dessert*, so I do miss it, but I'm not finding it's all that difficult to let it go.

 

[FIZZER6]

Good comments so far!

I need this to help motivate me to stick to the quitting, even if I just tame it down to 1 or 2 per day, that would be a huge improvement. I find I drink more when I'm all alone out of boredom I suppose.

 

[dstaffx]

This is the basis of my problem! I can't stay motivated on the seemingly endless DIY projects I want to do around the house, on the car or on the bike without beer! :iconbeer:

Maybe you need to do set yourself a task for the day. If you complete it then your reward is a beer or two. That way you'll get the work done and drink less in the process. Also I think the beer after doing loads of work tastes better than the few as your working.
:beer:

 

[macem29]

I dealt with this successfully a few years ago, exact same scenario.
Got to the point that even 2 beers made me feel like chit the next day,
any more than 2 and it would be a few days to feel right again. Hate to
say it but the best way for success is to quit altogether, yep, no weekend
beers either. Try this for 3 months. that's how long it takes to feel the full
affects of sobriety, you will be amazed at the difference. I've since started
to consume a bit with my old buddies, a few times a year, typical binge activity,
but that's it. Once back at work and normal routine...no alcohol, ever, not even
one beer. That's what worked for me. Good luck!

 

[KDN]

my two cents, for what it's worth......
Stop drinking all together. period.
You're dependent on it...break that dependance.

Once you don't NEED beer, go back to having a beer once in a while.

I have one beer Friday night, Saturday night and one Sunday night. Kind of a reward for a hard weeks work.

While you're trying to kick it, pound the water to you. Always have a bottle of water with you.

Best of luck!!

 

[Grouse]

Fizzer6 do you want a buddy?
I drink 1L of The Famous Grouse (scotch) every 2 nights. I know this is killing me. As of tomorrow night I will match you on not drinking. Only if you want to.
I need to do this and I would apprentice your help in this. I will post in this thread every night I don't OR do have a drink.If you want to take this out of the public forum just send me a PM. Hell PM anyway ;o)

 

[RedsReboot]

Fizzer6 do you want a buddy?
I drink 1L of The Famous Grouse (scotch) every 2 nights. I know this is killing me. As of tomorrow night I will match you on not drinking. Only if you want to.
I need to do this and I would apprentice your help in this. I will post in this thread every night I don't OR do have a drink.If you want to take this out of the public forum just send me a PM. Hell PM anyway ;o)

Something tells me I'm the worst drinker on this forum right now. A while ago, I was engaged and busy with a small side business and working a normal full time job as well. When everything went south I started really drinking heavy. I got to the point where I was/am drinking about a half a 5th of Vodka and a few beers EVERY night. I tried just quitting outright when I physically started to feel the consequences. I went without it for 2 days and both of those nights I didn't get but 3 hours sleep and that was only at about 15-30 minute intervals. To be fair I have been a chronic insomniac since I served in the military.

I'm about to try to quit again, but I think this time I should try to slowly cut down. FYI to the OP, I know my amount in comparison sounds crazy but we all have different tolerances and dependencies. Be careful as you quit because I found out the hard way that going cold turkey can literally kill you depending on your personal dependency. I had horrible headaches and would for no reason suddenly feel my heart pounding and racing.

I don't mean to offend anyone here, but AA is not my thing even if I need to do something. If we decided to start a "support string" I'd be up for trying to participate.

 

[FinalImpact]

Feather the throttle and slowly replace it with something healthy. . .

Vitamin drinks, V8, green juice. . . Make a choice to place a limit and follow up with your actions.

Just a thought. . .

For the sake of relationships, don't make someone else make you be accountable. Failure of both items will likely be the result as this one has to come from within as build new healthy habits to replace the old unhealthy ones.

Be safe and write often. . .

 

[RedsReboot]

For the sake of relationships, don't make someone else make you be accountable. Failure of both items will likely be the result as this one has to come from within as build new healthy habits to replace the old unhealthy ones.

A good point. Accountability can be a bad or good thing in this regard. My train of thought would be that a person who phsically comes up and asks about it or something could easily go bad, but when it's someone online at a site you go to daily by choice it seems a lot less invasive yet still encouraging.

 

[Botch]

When I stopped drinking the DIY stopped too.:BLAA:

When I stopped drinking, the DWIs stopped too.

Okay, I've never had a DWI, but that's how I first read your thread, and got a good belly laugh.

I'd always been a pretty heavy drinker. Two years ago I got my lifetime dream job (Chief Engineer for the Missile Maintenance Group at HAFB). 14 months of 60-70 hour weeks later, i was (wrongly, I feel) fired, and sunk fast; was soon drinking 12 to 15 beers every night (granted, 3.2% mormon beer). A couple months later (last summer) I fell into depression, got an ulcer, shingles resurfaced, and I came very close to suicide. My new boss (God bless him) recognized I was having trouble, and got me some help. Both the depression and the ulcer medications I was put on forbade alcohol; as of three weeks ago I'm off both, and sobriety is helping me a lot.
Lots of posters here seem to be able to "cut back" but not quit. That doesn't work for me, if I have just one beer it changes my will power just enough to have just one more, and then one more, and then, well you get the idea. Cold turkey worked better for me.

 

[MHS]

I used to drink every weekend in college, and even spent a summer downing close to a 5th of vodka a night.

Nowadays I have maybe a beer a week, if that.

I don't have any suggestions on how to go about doing it, but quitting entirely is the best thing to do, no matter how hard it is.


I don't think this is a fair analogy - but there's this girl I'm trying to get over. If I talk to her at all, those feelings just keep coming right back. Only when I made the resolve to not ever talk to her did I start to get over it.

 

[RedsReboot]

When I stopped drinking, the DWIs stopped too.

Okay, I've never had a DWI, but that's how I first read your thread, and got a good belly laugh.

I'd always been a pretty heavy drinker. Two years ago I got my lifetime dream job (Chief Engineer for the Missile Maintenance Group at HAFB). 14 months of 60-70 hour weeks later, i was (wrongly, I feel) fired, and sunk fast; was soon drinking 12 to 15 beers every night (granted, 3.2% mormon beer). A couple months later (last summer) I fell into depression, got an ulcer, shingles resurfaced, and I came very close to suicide. My new boss (God bless him) recognized I was having trouble, and got me some help. Both the depression and the ulcer medications I was put on forbade alcohol; as of three weeks ago I'm off both, and sobriety is helping me a lot.
Lots of posters here seem to be able to "cut back" but not quit. That doesn't work for me, if I have just one beer it changes my will power just enough to have just one more, and then one more, and then, well you get the idea. Cold turkey worked better for me.

Hey, I don't want to sound rude, but you mentioned "Mormon beer", is that some phrase from where you're from? I notice where you claim to be from and I know a few Mormons from quite a few places. They believe in a life style committed degree that they will never touch a thing that hurts the body to the point of not even drinking a carbonated drink (a soda/pop/coke/pepsi). I hope you mean that as an expression because no Mormon drinks or touches alcohol! No, I am FAR fr a MormanvBTW.

 

[Ransom]

My buddy stopped drinking for six months and at the same week he stopped drinking he started brewing his own beer.... Will is a crazy fella. As he finished a brew he would do the wine thing and swish it around in his moth and spit it out. During that time he got a lot of those DIY projects done.

As for me I am lucky if i get to drunk once a week. Good luck though.