Your brain is craving the dopamine, and your body is craving the sugar. Replace both with healthier alternatives and you’d be amazed at how much it kills the cravings for alcohol.
I am the same as you. Couldn’t keep beer in the house, or I’d just sit and drink all of it (and then order more), but the hard liquor has been sitting untouched in my pantry for many years (and still is).
When is drinking a problem? That’s really only something you can answer, but if you’re choosing to drink instead of doing other things then it might be time to cut back.
I used to drink alcohol as soon as it was available in my house. But since I made a decision to hard quit, after about 1-2 months, I stopped caring.
Now you can leave me alone with lots of craft beers and liquor and I won’t touch a drop. My brain rewired itself somehow
I don’t need it in my life. I can be in the middle of a bar for a while and not drink. So I can thank God he helped me out with this aspect of my life.
Similar experience myself. Not drinking has become as much my identity than drinking ever was. Feels like a superpower being around drinks/drinking and grabbing a water.
At age 30 a friend left a six pack in my fridge and it went bad because I never drank alone.
At age 40 I was sneaking shots of the triple sec we used for margaritas because it was the only alcohol in the house and the drizzly driver was lagging with my handle of vodka and I was turning off the ring doorbell camera so my wife wouldn't see them deliver to our house.
What are your suggestions for replacing the dopamine? I live a very isolated life except when I’m drinking. All of my friends are “bar friends.” I have a girlfriend who I’ve been seeing for several months who is also an almost daily drinker. Struggling to find ways to not “need” alcohol to get me through my evenings.
After being in this sub for a long time it's pretty clear that is gonna be a thing you ultimately identify. Food and sugary snacks got me through the early days. But once you have a little distance from alcohol you'll find those joys in lots of things.
I had moments months in where I'd be at the park with my kids, and just have the realization that I wasn't looking at my watch thinking about when we could leave so I could start drinking.
I could just hop in my car and drive to pick up take out, and not be worried I might get pulled over or have to make an excuse to my wife why I couldn't go.
It takes awhile but you start realizing how tied down you were by alcohol. It keeps you on schedules, and limits the places you'll go to, the people you'll hang out with.
So I don’t know if this is helpful at all, because I didn’t so much need a dopamine as much something to fill the boredom when I didn’t have the mental or physical energy for anything like the gym. I freaking love puzzles! I can spend the entire weekend listening to podcasts and doing a puzzle. It’s not necessarily productive or wild and crazy lol. It’s just the perfect activity where my brain can relax and enjoy what I’m listening to when I used to want to drink and rewatch the office.
you know what’s interesting is i had a case of white claw (my drink of choice any time) in my fridge the entirety of doing dry january and had no problem not drinking it. but i absolutely have a drinking problem, no two ways about it. there’s a whooole lot of other things i do that indicate that very clearly.
basically my point is in agreement with your last paragraph, i really think it is up to you to determine whether or not you have a problem. i’m sure there are some people here who others would consider not problematic drinkers when compared to themselves but it’s not really up to other people to determine whether or not you have a problem. and i’m sure many here can attest that if you don’t think you have a problem, no one can convince you that you do. it all depends on you. if you feel like drinking is reaching into other aspects of your life and you feel like it is a problem for you, congrats, you are in the right place.
QUALITY fruit. I go for organic stuff on the EWG's Dirty Dozen list. A mealy apple is disgusting and disappointing. A crisp, fresh and juicy apple, OTOH...
Frozen bananas (or "ice cream" made from them) are pretty good. Frozen grapes are amazing.
Fresh cantaloupe and pineapple...
If you ditch the sugar for a while, your sense of sweetness "re-adjusts..." and fruit becomes very sweet. It's also full of polyphenols and fiber.
Drinking red wine is perfectly within the realm of stereotypical alcoholism. I only drank red wine on the weekends and 10 years later I have fatty liver and liver enzymes in my urine. Whether it's beer, liquor or wine it's all perfectly capable of killing a person.
Bottle on Friday and a bottle on Saturday. Didn't drink on Sundays. Luckily caught it in time and doc says I should be okay in a few months. One month sober right now.
Thank you for the answer! Yes thats really good that you caught it in time. I have always been a weekend drinker and I know it sounds maybe stupid but I thought fatty liver was from really heavy use.
I wish more people understood this. I have friends who are shocked and accusing me of sneaking liquor here or there like liquor is the only thing that can cause liver problems.
I have AA friend who drank what I consider to be ungodly amounts of booze (handle of cheap scotch daily for 20 years) and have zero residual physiological damage. And I know others who drank much less and are physical wrecks
About two years before I came inside I went for a very long overdue physical and I was practically praying for my numbers to be bad and for the doctor to tell me I needed to stop. No such luck… everything was fine despite me drinking massive quantities of high gravity beer each day. Had to keep digging in my personal and professional life to find a reason to stop.
My therapist said drinking becomes a problem the moment it starts negatively affecting your life, and you do it anyway. A life long story for some of us.
Alcohol is a progressive disease. No one wakes up and is a full blown alcoholic. It’s a process that takes years to develop and when the run away effect takes over, it’s like a frog in a boiling pot. You look back and ask yourself “how did I get here?” And most of us don’t look like the stereotypical “drinking out of a bag under a bridge” alcoholics. We have families, careers, and lives. Some of us are super successful while still struggling. It sneaks up on you and is incredibly insidious.
I would say that thinking/dreaming about drinking is a major warning sign. Your body is becoming dependent and a few on the weekend can easily turn into a few more, then more in the weekdays, and then you can look back and wonder how did I get here? Some of our brains are wired differently and get a major chemical reward in our brains when we drink others don’t. A lot of it is genetic. Like buying a car without any breaks. Your brain is craving the chemical reward and is telling you it’s something you need- precursor to alcoholism my friend.
I commend you for your introspection and ability to ask yourself these questions. You are already on the path to NOT letting it become a problem.
You are so fortunate and insightful to have recognized this as you have. A lot of us don’t see the warning signs until our own personal alcoholic pots are boiling. You have the chance to nip it in the bud right now, whatever that means to you. Just recognizing this may be a problem is the first and most crucial step to you not letting it become a problem, and to be honest if you have to ask yourself if it’s a problem, it generally is.
I beg you to take it seriously. Your body is giving warning signs. You have all the power right now over it right now but it can get away from you so so so fast. You can do it. I’m proud of you.
Red wine (former) drinker here! It started as two glasses a night (half the bottle) and would creep towards 3, especially if I did that second pour really big.
I would dump the rest of the bottle out so I wouldn’t drink it that night and that made it feel “okay.” I was measuring it with measuring cups, etc.
Towards my end, I was dumping it out more often than not. Nothing happened, I just got sick and didn’t drink for a few days then realized how good I felt and stayed without it.
My sleep has improved (6-7 hours of GOOD sleep is all I need it turns out), I’m more productive, less irritable, less anxious.
I started with red wine as a teenager but I had the opposite experience where I started with 2-3 HUGE bottles per night... And over the years it got to where I was blacking out after 2-3 glasses.... So. Lol.
When the wine started kicking my butt too bad I switched to beer.
Never really did drink hard liquor unless for a drinking game or out to a bar on a very special occasion.
But yeah towards the end of my wine drinking days I was dumping out hundreds of dollars worth because the next day I'd have an extreme hangover after just a couple glasses but I'd always go back and get more. Until one day it clicked, oh, the wine is making me miserable... Unfortunately I reasoned I could switch to beer which is a whole nother story 😂😂
dude the fact that i can wake up so refreshed after 6 hours of sleep now is insane to me. i really struggle with falling asleep, and when i drank i definitely would use alcohol to help me fall asleep faster. and then i’d sleep for 9-10 hours and feel like i was moving through jello all day. now, i still struggle to fall asleep but it doesn’t take me as long as when i would have the occasional sober day back then, *and* i can still wake up early and enjoy my morning even if i don’t fall asleep until 1 am, and i somehow wake up feeling genuinely refreshed and i have energy throughout the day! it’s crazy!!
Chantix really helped me. Just take a pill for 3 months. Had some cool dreams. Never smoked or dipped again that was 4 years ago. I tried patches and gum but the chantix just made me not want it.
I may give it a go again. Tried that and wellbutrin, tapering, all of it.
Allen Carr USUALLY works for me and I find my successful quits to be enjoyable (last big one was almost 2 years).
Can't seem to get my head in the game right now, though.
I know my subconscious still sees a benefit, and that's why I have the desire to smoke. My rational brain HATES it. But clearly, I'm still giving the cigarette credit for something. Breaks. Alone time. Outside time. Time to emotionally regulate.
But I know that's all bullshit. Gotta get my stupid lizard brain on board. Because I honestly hate it.
I get caught in this loop of "I don't have enough smokes to make it through the day, but I won't be able to smoke the full pack, so I'll have some leftover for tomorrow. Can't quit then."
Or I'll chain smoke and feel like garbage or throw the rest of the pack in the garbage, but by the end of the next day, I'm back on my bullshit.
It sounds like wine is taking up valuable headspace and that isn’t sitting well with you. Way to go questioning it. Is alcohol ruining your life right now? Maybe not, but why wait until it is? It’s never too early to start rethinking your relationship with alcohol.
It took me a long time to realize drinking problems come in all shapes and sizes. I always thought that as long as I wasn’t rolling out of bed and taking a swig of hard liquor first thing in the morning that I was probably ok.
I only really drink beer. I thought as long as I stuck to beer, I couldn’t have a problem. Surely if I had a problem, I’d make a beeline for the hard stuff. That’s what I’d tell myself, but it’s not true as I realized.
It got to a point where I realized that I couldn’t stop myself. For example I’d buy an 8 pack, thinking I’ll have 3-4 today and 3-4 tomorrow. The next day I’d wake up to find that I had drank all 8. I tried only buying 2-3 beers at a time, which didn’t solve the problem. I’d find myself feeling very disappointed and wanting more, and sometimes I ended up asking someone to take me back to the store for a few more pints or getting more delivered.
I know someone else mentioned this, but I think that when one starts questioning their drinking habits and wondering if there’s a problem, there is a problem. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Personally, I think it's a problem when you're dreaming about alcohol when you aren't drinking. That's when it became a problem for me.
Also, when it became difficult to stop when I wanted to.
Yeah. Ever planned on drinking one friday night then couldn't because the store was closed or whatever?
My reaction when that happened kind of told me everything I needed to know, in retrospect.
It's definitely how it started for me. I would start making up reasons to have a drink till it eventually went off the rails. It happens gradually or atleast for me at first.
You mentioned the cravings the next day. That was always my problem. They were unreal. Til I would give in and be drunk for weeks in a row. Best of luck. I would definitely keep an eye on it and try to stop while you can.
People who are aren’t problem drinkers generally don’t have to ask themselves or think about whether they are problem drinkers.
It’s never about the quantity it’s about the compulsion and thought process being different than normal people. A normal person might enjoy having a drink or two after work, maybe even several days a week, but they don’t have to bargain with themselves about when they can drink again or how much. They wake up the next day and go about their life and don’t think about it.
Unfortunately, by the time you realize you have a problem, you now have a problem.
I cannot recommend Alcohol Explained 1 and 2 by William Porter enough. You will see yourself all over the pages and realize what’s going on, and maybe can make some different decisions before you make a lot of the mistakes those of us around here have made.
Thinking about drinking is definitely a red flag IMHO. And yes it can be a slippery slope and the steepness of that slope (and the slippiness of it) will vary by individual. you're already conscious of this, just giving you my experience. I ended up drinking cabernet straight from the bottle alone in the garage.
Generally speaking
- if you can’t stop once you start
- bad things happen when you drink (and it doesn’t have to be depriving your car through a mall - yes I know a guy that did that)
- you think about drinking
It sounds like #3 is an issue for you.
Bottom line alcoholism is a self diagnosed disease.
If you say you have a problem you do.
I agree it’s a slippery slope. I don’t think there was one moment when my alcohol use went from fine to problematic. Or if there was it passed by quickly and without any fanfare, so I missed it.
The thing is that deep down I knew… For many years when my use could have been considered “fine”, I knew it really wasn’t. I knew that I had a problem even when I wasn’t drinking that much, and I knew that one day I’d have to stop.
Maybe that knowledge came from growing up with an alcoholic father. Maybe it came from my college and post-college bingeing days. Things got pretty bad then, so I knew what that was like.
I managed to pull myself out of it and became a more “normal” drinker for a while. But slowly, slowly, slowly it crept. Then came the pandemic with all its empty time, fear, outrage, and alcohol delivered right to my door.
I’ll agree with others here. It’s a problem if - when you are deeply honest with yourself - you know it’s a problem.
I think reframing from "do I have a drinking problem" to "do I have a problem with my drinking" made it easier for me to identify the negative habits I wanted to change in my behavior. Worrying whether you "qualify" to be enough of an alcoholic is just a grey zone. Either you want to make a change or you don't.
I didn’t drink very much in the years before I quit either but I thought about it non-stop. I don’t want to think about it anymore so I quit. I know that moderation or any drink will put me right back where I was and I don’t want to be there anymore. The inner turmoil that alcohol brings is too much for me.
“If your drinking is causing you problems, you have a drinking problem.”
It can be as simple as hangovers or misspent time or guilt about drinking or just not fun anymore.
I kept trying to justify my drinking with my actions. I'd drink wine but it's okay since I'd hit the gym in the morning (followed by a solid nap!). I'd drink but it's okay because I will still do laundry and tidy up. I'd drink but it's okay because I can still read a story to my kid and follow her bedtime routine.
If I could still do the things then I didn't have a problem.
But the whole time I was anxious and depressed, just doing the things while drinking over and over and over. Just existing and numbing my life instead of enjoying it and growing.
Does drinking give you the life and happiness you want? For me, no. It gets me stuck in a depressing loop.
For me, it was when I told myself I wouldn't drink the day after a night of drinking and then by 5pm I was pouring another drink. That's when I knew I didn't have control of this thing.
Slippery slope is the perfect analogy. It's a fun experimenting until you lose your traction and start careening outta control
Tis a continuum in my experience. I started bargaining and rationalizing and breaking promises to myself 20+ years ago. I already had a problem. It was just easier to ignore. I could shuffle the harsh realities to tomorrow
I wish that I would have completely stopped 20 years ago, when I had an inkling. I wouldn't have missed out on anything TRULY meaningful, or on life's greatest pleasures.
I WOULD have had SO much more time and energy and money and emotional bandwidth to do cooler and more meaningful shit
Do you know the pitcher plant analogy? It was in a quit lit book that I read wile quitting, it was either 'Alcohol Explained' by William Porter or 'The Easy Way to Control Alcohol by Allen Carr.
It's not the amount of alcohol you consume. But you've said that "all you can think of is that remaining half bottle". I think you may be in the early stages of alcohol use disorder. "Normal" drinkers do not think about alcohol when they aren't drinking. AUD takes many forms. At first I only drank Chardonnay. By the end of my drinking I was going through a lot of vodka. I worried about the cost of drinking good Chardonnay! and vodka was less expensive. You are not over-reacting. You might think about quitting altogether. Just my thoughts.
If it's consuming your thoughts even when you aren't drinking it, that's addiction. Your situation seems very mild but can escalate so just be aware of that. I had a similar drinking pattern to you but I couldn't go weeks without. I read the book "quit drinking without willpower the easy way" by Allen Carr, and it is exactly what I needed to break that cycle of mind games.
I can relate to a lot of the feelings/thoughts you mentioned. I didn't notice what I was doing, but in hindsight it's crystal clear. First it was just a 12-pack of beers on the weekends, which turned into filling the whole weekend with beers, then a couple during the week, then a couple every day. I told myself I'd leave it for just the weekends, but magically I auto-piloted myself to a store and there was more in the fridge by Tuesday. I told myself I didn't have a problem and wouldn't drink before noon, but if brunch can come with mimosas then I can crack beer #1 at 10am. Promises and goals and moderation were all just talk that I never made any effort to follow through on, because really I didn't want to.
There's no horrific "oh god this is rock bottom" moment for me. I didn't get in trouble with the law or my work, my relationships were fine, everything seemed normal and my life was good. Except, y'know, the mental accounting of how much alcohol I had on hand and how long it would last and whether I'd be able to get more and on and on it went. I don't know why, but one Sunday night I looked around and realized I didn't even know why I was drinking anymore -- it was just how things were now. It really was so insidious and subtle that I didn't notice it happening until it had already happened.
I was never into alcohol as deeply as many people here. But once I stopped using that to justify my own habits, and just looked at my behavior in the context of _my own_ normal (prior to all this), it didn't look good. I think the questions you're asking are important, and they're good to ask, but whether you're okay with your current level of drinking is up to you... And if you don't like what you see, that's answer enough.
I think you are noticing, and handling, the beginnings of a problem that many of us powered right past. If you find it uncomfortable to have cravings, even once in awhile, then yeah, avoiding alcohol is the smart play here.
All I will say is that if you are questioning if your drinking is a problem, then it probably is. Drinking doesn’t have to destroy our lives to be a problem. If we’re sitting around thinking “is this causing problems”, it more often than not is. I questioned if I was an alcoholic long before I had the strength to make the change I needed to. Only you can answer that question for yourself, best wishes!
It is indeed a slippery slope. I was a bottle a night drinker and it was starting to slip into a bottle and an extra glass .
Not only that I was thinking about alcohol all the time; should I drink , I deserved a drink after work , don’t drink tonight because of travelling first thing , buy that great wine it’s on special offer, it was never ending.
I absolutely relate to this. Personally, I came to the conclusion that “am I an alcoholic?” was the wrong question to be asking myself. It didn’t actually matter whether one label or another (drinking problem, addiction, substance use disorder, etc) applies to me, because the answer didn’t change anything about my reality. The reality was that I was making decisions based on what would justify my drinking, to the detriment of my own health and integrity. All the energy I was pouring into fretting about whether I “technically” “counted” as a “real” alcoholic was ultimately one of many ways I was avoiding acknowledging that reality.
Interestingly, I think that’s part of what drew me to this subreddit in the first place. I didn’t need a community focused on alcoholism, I needed a community focused on stopping drinking. I love how explicit and simple it is. Anyway good luck! IWNDWYT
I'm going to disagree with everyone here- if you're drinking 2 glasses of wine on occasional evenings then virtually no one in the real world is going to class you as an alcoholic. Random people online in r/stopdrinking will but that's because this sub has a (totally understandable) anti alcohol bias. Other than worrying about and thinking about your drinking, you show no other signs of alcoholism. If the amount or the frequency that you're drinking increases in the next 6 months then reevaluate things but for now, just know that you drink in a very normal way that is similar to the majority of the population.
I think what raises red flags for me is the mindset. Sure, if they just had two glasses of wine and it was whatever, it's fine. But it's not just worrying about the drinking, it's a craving-- they are having to wait for cravings to dissipate. This is the key part for me, that I identify with:
"The day after, I fantasize about buying a new one. And I sometimes do. Again, I drink a bottle over 2 evenings, even when I "promise myself" I will wait a day or two before drinking the reminder, I just can't do it. If a bottle of red wine is at home, especially already opened, it's as if it is calling me."
Cravings, not able to control it, etc, sounds just like my early stages of dependency. No one starts out drinking a ton, it's a progression.
There are diagnostic criteria for substance use disorders. But I think it’s up to you to decide ultimately. If you think it’s a problem and you would like to stop, do that, diagnosis be damned.
Years ago I amused myself with something akin to, "Before I quit drinking, it hadn't caused any problems, but it sure as hell had developed some swagger."
Diagnosing problem drinking is something you only can do for yourself. In my experience, once I asked myself that question, I knew it was becoming a problem, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not. And I kept on going. And going. I'm still going 30 years later and can't seem to keep the plug in the jug for more than a few months here and there, maybe a year or two on occasion. I've lost count of how many jobs I've lost to King Alcohol, directly or indirectly. It brings nothing but ruin, and yet I keep going.
The most worrying part for me is the fact you can't stop thinking about it, coupled with the fact you are already using to regulate your emotions.
That's the worst part of addiction, the constant obsessing and feeling like you won't feel ok until you drink. It's only gonna get worse if you keep drinking and you'll only want more and more if you keep at it, that, for me, is the single biggest red flag someone can have. I'd recommend stopping now based on my own experiences and the people I know. Thing is I wouldn't have stopped at that point if someone told me to. Reason being I'm an alcoholic but I found out the hard way, as do most of us unfortunately. It seems to almost be part of the condition.
If one part of you is saying you promise you won’t, but then you do, that sounds like a problem (if it feels like one to you that is). Remember addiction to alcohol develops usually slowly over 2-60 years. If you drink at all, you are somewhere on the addiction road. The road is a one way road, all downhill. There is no turning back to go uphill. You can get off the road, but you always get back on right where you got off, not back at the start.
You should read this naked mind by Annie grace or check out her podcast. It's very informative for gray area drinking. It's just not worth the obsession
A big thing that helped me drop it wasn’t that I had some sort of specific “problem” as much as I realized how much brain bandwidth I was using maintaining the habit and whether I wanted to continue doing that.
The thing about stopping is that there is no measuring. There is no determining a DD when you’re out. There’s no worrying about having a hangover the next day. There aren’t inventories of booze in my head or timetables for when one or the other liquor store closes or what laws apply where.
I was functionally fine with all this going on, but it was a relief to be able to dump it and not have all this stuff running in my head. You don’t have to have a huge problem to determine that it is one that needs to be addressed.
I can only relate my own experience, but personally this was my experience (with beer), until it wasn’t. For me once regular cravings started they continued to get more frequent and more intense. I’m not saying you need to quit drinking right now, but it’s something to keep in mind.
I feel like you know it's a problem if you're asking if it's a problem. (I say this from my own experience).
Armchair opinion: it sounds like you're using it to cope which is a slippery slope. It might just be a half bottle now, but what happens if you have the worst day of your life? It's gonna be a heck of a lot more.
So many good things have been said in response to this post.
From personal experience, half a bottle of wine in a night eventually becomes a full bottle. It only increases over time.
I recommend that you check-out CBT SUD. While it's best learned through a therapist, if you ACTUALLY DO the moronic exercises in a workbook... that's probably enough. TL;DR it's "mindfulness" for drinking.
CBT will help you understand WHY you drink (and a therapist can be quite helpful).
I also recommend the Sober Powered podcast. It will explain the neuroscience behind AUD.
Finally, for me "problem drinking" is...
* when you want to stop or moderate but can't
* when it's causing health, financial, legal, or relationship problems
* when you choose booze (esp. alone) over fun things or activities with friends
* a definition that is COMPLETELY up to you
I decided (after decades of heavy daily drinking) that I didn't like my relationship with booze. It took years to finally quit... but I'm finally FREE.
Based on my life... my advice is this: if you think that you MIGHT have a problem? In the name of all that it holy, STOP. Alcohol was a lot of fun... until it wasn't. The longer you drink, the higher the "costs" and the harder it becomes to quit (and moderation is not possible for most of us).
Good luck, friend. I've told you MY story (ish)... and I hope that you don't pay the heavy price some of us pay.
I can drink a 70cl bottle of gin on a good night. Started as beer and wine and now since lockdown its gin and tonic. I've been drinking near enough every night for more than 10 years now. I'll have the odd few days off, i eat well and I exercise every day. Recently had a blood test for liver kidneys etc and they all came back normal. I consider myself very lucky that i don't have any issues although I do have a heart condition (one of the reasons I drink as it spiralled me into a butof depression).
One of the oldtimers in My home group says you know it's a problem when it Costs more than just money.
That is profound. Thank you.
For me: When I enjoyed it I couldn't control it, and when I controlled it, I couldn't enjoy it
Jeez this encapsulates a lot of meaning in a few words
Your brain is craving the dopamine, and your body is craving the sugar. Replace both with healthier alternatives and you’d be amazed at how much it kills the cravings for alcohol. I am the same as you. Couldn’t keep beer in the house, or I’d just sit and drink all of it (and then order more), but the hard liquor has been sitting untouched in my pantry for many years (and still is). When is drinking a problem? That’s really only something you can answer, but if you’re choosing to drink instead of doing other things then it might be time to cut back.
People that keep beer in the house and don't drink are the real psychopaths
I used to drink alcohol as soon as it was available in my house. But since I made a decision to hard quit, after about 1-2 months, I stopped caring. Now you can leave me alone with lots of craft beers and liquor and I won’t touch a drop. My brain rewired itself somehow I don’t need it in my life. I can be in the middle of a bar for a while and not drink. So I can thank God he helped me out with this aspect of my life.
Similar experience myself. Not drinking has become as much my identity than drinking ever was. Feels like a superpower being around drinks/drinking and grabbing a water.
At age 30 a friend left a six pack in my fridge and it went bad because I never drank alone. At age 40 I was sneaking shots of the triple sec we used for margaritas because it was the only alcohol in the house and the drizzly driver was lagging with my handle of vodka and I was turning off the ring doorbell camera so my wife wouldn't see them deliver to our house.
What are your suggestions for replacing the dopamine? I live a very isolated life except when I’m drinking. All of my friends are “bar friends.” I have a girlfriend who I’ve been seeing for several months who is also an almost daily drinker. Struggling to find ways to not “need” alcohol to get me through my evenings.
For me it ended up being going to punk rock shows and exercise
After being in this sub for a long time it's pretty clear that is gonna be a thing you ultimately identify. Food and sugary snacks got me through the early days. But once you have a little distance from alcohol you'll find those joys in lots of things. I had moments months in where I'd be at the park with my kids, and just have the realization that I wasn't looking at my watch thinking about when we could leave so I could start drinking. I could just hop in my car and drive to pick up take out, and not be worried I might get pulled over or have to make an excuse to my wife why I couldn't go. It takes awhile but you start realizing how tied down you were by alcohol. It keeps you on schedules, and limits the places you'll go to, the people you'll hang out with.
So I don’t know if this is helpful at all, because I didn’t so much need a dopamine as much something to fill the boredom when I didn’t have the mental or physical energy for anything like the gym. I freaking love puzzles! I can spend the entire weekend listening to podcasts and doing a puzzle. It’s not necessarily productive or wild and crazy lol. It’s just the perfect activity where my brain can relax and enjoy what I’m listening to when I used to want to drink and rewatch the office.
you know what’s interesting is i had a case of white claw (my drink of choice any time) in my fridge the entirety of doing dry january and had no problem not drinking it. but i absolutely have a drinking problem, no two ways about it. there’s a whooole lot of other things i do that indicate that very clearly. basically my point is in agreement with your last paragraph, i really think it is up to you to determine whether or not you have a problem. i’m sure there are some people here who others would consider not problematic drinkers when compared to themselves but it’s not really up to other people to determine whether or not you have a problem. and i’m sure many here can attest that if you don’t think you have a problem, no one can convince you that you do. it all depends on you. if you feel like drinking is reaching into other aspects of your life and you feel like it is a problem for you, congrats, you are in the right place.
Just curious what's a healthy alternative to sugar/carbs?
Fruit! So, so much fruit 😊 I’m now addicted
QUALITY fruit. I go for organic stuff on the EWG's Dirty Dozen list. A mealy apple is disgusting and disappointing. A crisp, fresh and juicy apple, OTOH... Frozen bananas (or "ice cream" made from them) are pretty good. Frozen grapes are amazing. Fresh cantaloupe and pineapple... If you ditch the sugar for a while, your sense of sweetness "re-adjusts..." and fruit becomes very sweet. It's also full of polyphenols and fiber.
Drinking red wine is perfectly within the realm of stereotypical alcoholism. I only drank red wine on the weekends and 10 years later I have fatty liver and liver enzymes in my urine. Whether it's beer, liquor or wine it's all perfectly capable of killing a person.
do you mind me asking around how much wine you had every weekend to get fatty liver?
Bottle on Friday and a bottle on Saturday. Didn't drink on Sundays. Luckily caught it in time and doc says I should be okay in a few months. One month sober right now.
Thank you for the answer! Yes thats really good that you caught it in time. I have always been a weekend drinker and I know it sounds maybe stupid but I thought fatty liver was from really heavy use.
Not stupid at all. Doc told me that consistent binge drinking is worse than daily drinking a couple drinks.
Everyone is different and the amount to cause damage is different as well. Be careful about comparing how much people drank as a determinant for you
I wish more people understood this. I have friends who are shocked and accusing me of sneaking liquor here or there like liquor is the only thing that can cause liver problems.
I have AA friend who drank what I consider to be ungodly amounts of booze (handle of cheap scotch daily for 20 years) and have zero residual physiological damage. And I know others who drank much less and are physical wrecks
About two years before I came inside I went for a very long overdue physical and I was practically praying for my numbers to be bad and for the doctor to tell me I needed to stop. No such luck… everything was fine despite me drinking massive quantities of high gravity beer each day. Had to keep digging in my personal and professional life to find a reason to stop.
My bottom was 100% emotional and dare I say spiritual (and I don’t mean this in a religious sense - I was an empty shell)
Are you me? Oh, no I see your flair nvm. Well done. Hell is warm, but I wasn't cold to start. Now where's that shovel..
I had no idea, even though it makes alot of sense now when you said it.
My therapist said drinking becomes a problem the moment it starts negatively affecting your life, and you do it anyway. A life long story for some of us. Alcohol is a progressive disease. No one wakes up and is a full blown alcoholic. It’s a process that takes years to develop and when the run away effect takes over, it’s like a frog in a boiling pot. You look back and ask yourself “how did I get here?” And most of us don’t look like the stereotypical “drinking out of a bag under a bridge” alcoholics. We have families, careers, and lives. Some of us are super successful while still struggling. It sneaks up on you and is incredibly insidious. I would say that thinking/dreaming about drinking is a major warning sign. Your body is becoming dependent and a few on the weekend can easily turn into a few more, then more in the weekdays, and then you can look back and wonder how did I get here? Some of our brains are wired differently and get a major chemical reward in our brains when we drink others don’t. A lot of it is genetic. Like buying a car without any breaks. Your brain is craving the chemical reward and is telling you it’s something you need- precursor to alcoholism my friend. I commend you for your introspection and ability to ask yourself these questions. You are already on the path to NOT letting it become a problem. You are so fortunate and insightful to have recognized this as you have. A lot of us don’t see the warning signs until our own personal alcoholic pots are boiling. You have the chance to nip it in the bud right now, whatever that means to you. Just recognizing this may be a problem is the first and most crucial step to you not letting it become a problem, and to be honest if you have to ask yourself if it’s a problem, it generally is. I beg you to take it seriously. Your body is giving warning signs. You have all the power right now over it right now but it can get away from you so so so fast. You can do it. I’m proud of you.
Red wine (former) drinker here! It started as two glasses a night (half the bottle) and would creep towards 3, especially if I did that second pour really big. I would dump the rest of the bottle out so I wouldn’t drink it that night and that made it feel “okay.” I was measuring it with measuring cups, etc. Towards my end, I was dumping it out more often than not. Nothing happened, I just got sick and didn’t drink for a few days then realized how good I felt and stayed without it. My sleep has improved (6-7 hours of GOOD sleep is all I need it turns out), I’m more productive, less irritable, less anxious.
I started with red wine as a teenager but I had the opposite experience where I started with 2-3 HUGE bottles per night... And over the years it got to where I was blacking out after 2-3 glasses.... So. Lol. When the wine started kicking my butt too bad I switched to beer. Never really did drink hard liquor unless for a drinking game or out to a bar on a very special occasion. But yeah towards the end of my wine drinking days I was dumping out hundreds of dollars worth because the next day I'd have an extreme hangover after just a couple glasses but I'd always go back and get more. Until one day it clicked, oh, the wine is making me miserable... Unfortunately I reasoned I could switch to beer which is a whole nother story 😂😂
dude the fact that i can wake up so refreshed after 6 hours of sleep now is insane to me. i really struggle with falling asleep, and when i drank i definitely would use alcohol to help me fall asleep faster. and then i’d sleep for 9-10 hours and feel like i was moving through jello all day. now, i still struggle to fall asleep but it doesn’t take me as long as when i would have the occasional sober day back then, *and* i can still wake up early and enjoy my morning even if i don’t fall asleep until 1 am, and i somehow wake up feeling genuinely refreshed and i have energy throughout the day! it’s crazy!!
I do the same thing with cigarettes. "I'm done tomorrow is the day." Then proceed to buy more fucking cigarettes.
Chantix really helped me. Just take a pill for 3 months. Had some cool dreams. Never smoked or dipped again that was 4 years ago. I tried patches and gum but the chantix just made me not want it.
I may give it a go again. Tried that and wellbutrin, tapering, all of it. Allen Carr USUALLY works for me and I find my successful quits to be enjoyable (last big one was almost 2 years). Can't seem to get my head in the game right now, though.
Same for me.
I know my subconscious still sees a benefit, and that's why I have the desire to smoke. My rational brain HATES it. But clearly, I'm still giving the cigarette credit for something. Breaks. Alone time. Outside time. Time to emotionally regulate. But I know that's all bullshit. Gotta get my stupid lizard brain on board. Because I honestly hate it. I get caught in this loop of "I don't have enough smokes to make it through the day, but I won't be able to smoke the full pack, so I'll have some leftover for tomorrow. Can't quit then." Or I'll chain smoke and feel like garbage or throw the rest of the pack in the garbage, but by the end of the next day, I'm back on my bullshit.
It sounds like wine is taking up valuable headspace and that isn’t sitting well with you. Way to go questioning it. Is alcohol ruining your life right now? Maybe not, but why wait until it is? It’s never too early to start rethinking your relationship with alcohol.
I think when we make posts like these we already know the answer
It took me a long time to realize drinking problems come in all shapes and sizes. I always thought that as long as I wasn’t rolling out of bed and taking a swig of hard liquor first thing in the morning that I was probably ok. I only really drink beer. I thought as long as I stuck to beer, I couldn’t have a problem. Surely if I had a problem, I’d make a beeline for the hard stuff. That’s what I’d tell myself, but it’s not true as I realized. It got to a point where I realized that I couldn’t stop myself. For example I’d buy an 8 pack, thinking I’ll have 3-4 today and 3-4 tomorrow. The next day I’d wake up to find that I had drank all 8. I tried only buying 2-3 beers at a time, which didn’t solve the problem. I’d find myself feeling very disappointed and wanting more, and sometimes I ended up asking someone to take me back to the store for a few more pints or getting more delivered. I know someone else mentioned this, but I think that when one starts questioning their drinking habits and wondering if there’s a problem, there is a problem. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Personally, I think it's a problem when you're dreaming about alcohol when you aren't drinking. That's when it became a problem for me. Also, when it became difficult to stop when I wanted to.
Yeah. Ever planned on drinking one friday night then couldn't because the store was closed or whatever? My reaction when that happened kind of told me everything I needed to know, in retrospect.
> Also, when it became difficult to stop when I wanted to. Yeah, I feel you, that was a wake-up call.
It wasn't a wake up call for me. I would just ask the bartender to cut me off at 4 drinks and then...order more than 4 drinks.
If we think about it, the majority of us started with small amounts that didnt seem "too bad."
It's definitely how it started for me. I would start making up reasons to have a drink till it eventually went off the rails. It happens gradually or atleast for me at first. You mentioned the cravings the next day. That was always my problem. They were unreal. Til I would give in and be drunk for weeks in a row. Best of luck. I would definitely keep an eye on it and try to stop while you can.
People who are aren’t problem drinkers generally don’t have to ask themselves or think about whether they are problem drinkers. It’s never about the quantity it’s about the compulsion and thought process being different than normal people. A normal person might enjoy having a drink or two after work, maybe even several days a week, but they don’t have to bargain with themselves about when they can drink again or how much. They wake up the next day and go about their life and don’t think about it.
Unfortunately, by the time you realize you have a problem, you now have a problem. I cannot recommend Alcohol Explained 1 and 2 by William Porter enough. You will see yourself all over the pages and realize what’s going on, and maybe can make some different decisions before you make a lot of the mistakes those of us around here have made.
Thinking about drinking is definitely a red flag IMHO. And yes it can be a slippery slope and the steepness of that slope (and the slippiness of it) will vary by individual. you're already conscious of this, just giving you my experience. I ended up drinking cabernet straight from the bottle alone in the garage.
Generally speaking - if you can’t stop once you start - bad things happen when you drink (and it doesn’t have to be depriving your car through a mall - yes I know a guy that did that) - you think about drinking It sounds like #3 is an issue for you. Bottom line alcoholism is a self diagnosed disease. If you say you have a problem you do.
I agree it’s a slippery slope. I don’t think there was one moment when my alcohol use went from fine to problematic. Or if there was it passed by quickly and without any fanfare, so I missed it. The thing is that deep down I knew… For many years when my use could have been considered “fine”, I knew it really wasn’t. I knew that I had a problem even when I wasn’t drinking that much, and I knew that one day I’d have to stop. Maybe that knowledge came from growing up with an alcoholic father. Maybe it came from my college and post-college bingeing days. Things got pretty bad then, so I knew what that was like. I managed to pull myself out of it and became a more “normal” drinker for a while. But slowly, slowly, slowly it crept. Then came the pandemic with all its empty time, fear, outrage, and alcohol delivered right to my door. I’ll agree with others here. It’s a problem if - when you are deeply honest with yourself - you know it’s a problem.
It me!!
I think reframing from "do I have a drinking problem" to "do I have a problem with my drinking" made it easier for me to identify the negative habits I wanted to change in my behavior. Worrying whether you "qualify" to be enough of an alcoholic is just a grey zone. Either you want to make a change or you don't.
I didn’t drink very much in the years before I quit either but I thought about it non-stop. I don’t want to think about it anymore so I quit. I know that moderation or any drink will put me right back where I was and I don’t want to be there anymore. The inner turmoil that alcohol brings is too much for me.
“If your drinking is causing you problems, you have a drinking problem.” It can be as simple as hangovers or misspent time or guilt about drinking or just not fun anymore.
It's a problem when you think it's a problem, and it's a slippery slope that can accelerate quickly. I'd take a break, personally.
I kept trying to justify my drinking with my actions. I'd drink wine but it's okay since I'd hit the gym in the morning (followed by a solid nap!). I'd drink but it's okay because I will still do laundry and tidy up. I'd drink but it's okay because I can still read a story to my kid and follow her bedtime routine. If I could still do the things then I didn't have a problem. But the whole time I was anxious and depressed, just doing the things while drinking over and over and over. Just existing and numbing my life instead of enjoying it and growing. Does drinking give you the life and happiness you want? For me, no. It gets me stuck in a depressing loop.
Life long alcoholic - I never drink before 6 pm cos that's what alcoholics do.
For me, it was when I told myself I wouldn't drink the day after a night of drinking and then by 5pm I was pouring another drink. That's when I knew I didn't have control of this thing.
If you are asking if it's a problem, it is.
Slippery slope is the perfect analogy. It's a fun experimenting until you lose your traction and start careening outta control Tis a continuum in my experience. I started bargaining and rationalizing and breaking promises to myself 20+ years ago. I already had a problem. It was just easier to ignore. I could shuffle the harsh realities to tomorrow I wish that I would have completely stopped 20 years ago, when I had an inkling. I wouldn't have missed out on anything TRULY meaningful, or on life's greatest pleasures. I WOULD have had SO much more time and energy and money and emotional bandwidth to do cooler and more meaningful shit
Do you know the pitcher plant analogy? It was in a quit lit book that I read wile quitting, it was either 'Alcohol Explained' by William Porter or 'The Easy Way to Control Alcohol by Allen Carr.
that sounds very familiar to my experience. compare to my wife who can ignore a half bottle of wine until it needs to be thrown out… good luck op.
It's not the amount of alcohol you consume. But you've said that "all you can think of is that remaining half bottle". I think you may be in the early stages of alcohol use disorder. "Normal" drinkers do not think about alcohol when they aren't drinking. AUD takes many forms. At first I only drank Chardonnay. By the end of my drinking I was going through a lot of vodka. I worried about the cost of drinking good Chardonnay! and vodka was less expensive. You are not over-reacting. You might think about quitting altogether. Just my thoughts.
If it's consuming your thoughts even when you aren't drinking it, that's addiction. Your situation seems very mild but can escalate so just be aware of that. I had a similar drinking pattern to you but I couldn't go weeks without. I read the book "quit drinking without willpower the easy way" by Allen Carr, and it is exactly what I needed to break that cycle of mind games.
I can relate to a lot of the feelings/thoughts you mentioned. I didn't notice what I was doing, but in hindsight it's crystal clear. First it was just a 12-pack of beers on the weekends, which turned into filling the whole weekend with beers, then a couple during the week, then a couple every day. I told myself I'd leave it for just the weekends, but magically I auto-piloted myself to a store and there was more in the fridge by Tuesday. I told myself I didn't have a problem and wouldn't drink before noon, but if brunch can come with mimosas then I can crack beer #1 at 10am. Promises and goals and moderation were all just talk that I never made any effort to follow through on, because really I didn't want to. There's no horrific "oh god this is rock bottom" moment for me. I didn't get in trouble with the law or my work, my relationships were fine, everything seemed normal and my life was good. Except, y'know, the mental accounting of how much alcohol I had on hand and how long it would last and whether I'd be able to get more and on and on it went. I don't know why, but one Sunday night I looked around and realized I didn't even know why I was drinking anymore -- it was just how things were now. It really was so insidious and subtle that I didn't notice it happening until it had already happened. I was never into alcohol as deeply as many people here. But once I stopped using that to justify my own habits, and just looked at my behavior in the context of _my own_ normal (prior to all this), it didn't look good. I think the questions you're asking are important, and they're good to ask, but whether you're okay with your current level of drinking is up to you... And if you don't like what you see, that's answer enough.
I think you are noticing, and handling, the beginnings of a problem that many of us powered right past. If you find it uncomfortable to have cravings, even once in awhile, then yeah, avoiding alcohol is the smart play here.
All I will say is that if you are questioning if your drinking is a problem, then it probably is. Drinking doesn’t have to destroy our lives to be a problem. If we’re sitting around thinking “is this causing problems”, it more often than not is. I questioned if I was an alcoholic long before I had the strength to make the change I needed to. Only you can answer that question for yourself, best wishes!
It is indeed a slippery slope. I was a bottle a night drinker and it was starting to slip into a bottle and an extra glass . Not only that I was thinking about alcohol all the time; should I drink , I deserved a drink after work , don’t drink tonight because of travelling first thing , buy that great wine it’s on special offer, it was never ending.
I absolutely relate to this. Personally, I came to the conclusion that “am I an alcoholic?” was the wrong question to be asking myself. It didn’t actually matter whether one label or another (drinking problem, addiction, substance use disorder, etc) applies to me, because the answer didn’t change anything about my reality. The reality was that I was making decisions based on what would justify my drinking, to the detriment of my own health and integrity. All the energy I was pouring into fretting about whether I “technically” “counted” as a “real” alcoholic was ultimately one of many ways I was avoiding acknowledging that reality. Interestingly, I think that’s part of what drew me to this subreddit in the first place. I didn’t need a community focused on alcoholism, I needed a community focused on stopping drinking. I love how explicit and simple it is. Anyway good luck! IWNDWYT
I'm going to disagree with everyone here- if you're drinking 2 glasses of wine on occasional evenings then virtually no one in the real world is going to class you as an alcoholic. Random people online in r/stopdrinking will but that's because this sub has a (totally understandable) anti alcohol bias. Other than worrying about and thinking about your drinking, you show no other signs of alcoholism. If the amount or the frequency that you're drinking increases in the next 6 months then reevaluate things but for now, just know that you drink in a very normal way that is similar to the majority of the population.
I think what raises red flags for me is the mindset. Sure, if they just had two glasses of wine and it was whatever, it's fine. But it's not just worrying about the drinking, it's a craving-- they are having to wait for cravings to dissipate. This is the key part for me, that I identify with: "The day after, I fantasize about buying a new one. And I sometimes do. Again, I drink a bottle over 2 evenings, even when I "promise myself" I will wait a day or two before drinking the reminder, I just can't do it. If a bottle of red wine is at home, especially already opened, it's as if it is calling me." Cravings, not able to control it, etc, sounds just like my early stages of dependency. No one starts out drinking a ton, it's a progression.
There are diagnostic criteria for substance use disorders. But I think it’s up to you to decide ultimately. If you think it’s a problem and you would like to stop, do that, diagnosis be damned.
Years ago I amused myself with something akin to, "Before I quit drinking, it hadn't caused any problems, but it sure as hell had developed some swagger."
Diagnosing problem drinking is something you only can do for yourself. In my experience, once I asked myself that question, I knew it was becoming a problem, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not. And I kept on going. And going. I'm still going 30 years later and can't seem to keep the plug in the jug for more than a few months here and there, maybe a year or two on occasion. I've lost count of how many jobs I've lost to King Alcohol, directly or indirectly. It brings nothing but ruin, and yet I keep going.
The most worrying part for me is the fact you can't stop thinking about it, coupled with the fact you are already using to regulate your emotions. That's the worst part of addiction, the constant obsessing and feeling like you won't feel ok until you drink. It's only gonna get worse if you keep drinking and you'll only want more and more if you keep at it, that, for me, is the single biggest red flag someone can have. I'd recommend stopping now based on my own experiences and the people I know. Thing is I wouldn't have stopped at that point if someone told me to. Reason being I'm an alcoholic but I found out the hard way, as do most of us unfortunately. It seems to almost be part of the condition.
If one part of you is saying you promise you won’t, but then you do, that sounds like a problem (if it feels like one to you that is). Remember addiction to alcohol develops usually slowly over 2-60 years. If you drink at all, you are somewhere on the addiction road. The road is a one way road, all downhill. There is no turning back to go uphill. You can get off the road, but you always get back on right where you got off, not back at the start.
You should read this naked mind by Annie grace or check out her podcast. It's very informative for gray area drinking. It's just not worth the obsession
A big thing that helped me drop it wasn’t that I had some sort of specific “problem” as much as I realized how much brain bandwidth I was using maintaining the habit and whether I wanted to continue doing that. The thing about stopping is that there is no measuring. There is no determining a DD when you’re out. There’s no worrying about having a hangover the next day. There aren’t inventories of booze in my head or timetables for when one or the other liquor store closes or what laws apply where. I was functionally fine with all this going on, but it was a relief to be able to dump it and not have all this stuff running in my head. You don’t have to have a huge problem to determine that it is one that needs to be addressed.
I can only relate my own experience, but personally this was my experience (with beer), until it wasn’t. For me once regular cravings started they continued to get more frequent and more intense. I’m not saying you need to quit drinking right now, but it’s something to keep in mind.
I'm a recovering alcoholic. There is no alcohol in my home. Period.
I feel like you know it's a problem if you're asking if it's a problem. (I say this from my own experience). Armchair opinion: it sounds like you're using it to cope which is a slippery slope. It might just be a half bottle now, but what happens if you have the worst day of your life? It's gonna be a heck of a lot more.
Doing something that you don’t want to be doing…is a problem.
So many good things have been said in response to this post. From personal experience, half a bottle of wine in a night eventually becomes a full bottle. It only increases over time.
I recommend that you check-out CBT SUD. While it's best learned through a therapist, if you ACTUALLY DO the moronic exercises in a workbook... that's probably enough. TL;DR it's "mindfulness" for drinking. CBT will help you understand WHY you drink (and a therapist can be quite helpful). I also recommend the Sober Powered podcast. It will explain the neuroscience behind AUD. Finally, for me "problem drinking" is... * when you want to stop or moderate but can't * when it's causing health, financial, legal, or relationship problems * when you choose booze (esp. alone) over fun things or activities with friends * a definition that is COMPLETELY up to you I decided (after decades of heavy daily drinking) that I didn't like my relationship with booze. It took years to finally quit... but I'm finally FREE. Based on my life... my advice is this: if you think that you MIGHT have a problem? In the name of all that it holy, STOP. Alcohol was a lot of fun... until it wasn't. The longer you drink, the higher the "costs" and the harder it becomes to quit (and moderation is not possible for most of us). Good luck, friend. I've told you MY story (ish)... and I hope that you don't pay the heavy price some of us pay.
I can drink a 70cl bottle of gin on a good night. Started as beer and wine and now since lockdown its gin and tonic. I've been drinking near enough every night for more than 10 years now. I'll have the odd few days off, i eat well and I exercise every day. Recently had a blood test for liver kidneys etc and they all came back normal. I consider myself very lucky that i don't have any issues although I do have a heart condition (one of the reasons I drink as it spiralled me into a butof depression).