Quitting all together or cutting WAY back?
 

Have any of you successfully managed to go from drinking every single night to being able to drink on the rare occasion or once a week in moderation socially? How successful were you?

I ask because I wonder if I just don't keep any booze in the house, and since I only get out away from the kids one night a week due to my husband's work schedule, if I could successfully cut way back.

I was not successful with that. It was so much easier to quit completely.

I tried moderating for years. Only drinking on a Friday...only drinking after 6 pm....drinking wine instead of vodka. They all worked for short periods of time, but I couldn't maintain it.

My drinking towards the end was spiralling way out of control. Giving it up completely was the far easier and less exhausting option x

I've tried to moderate it time and time again, but that never worked very well for me.

This time I'm aiming for giving it up completely. Alcohol is too seductive to me and eventually, I always lost the self-control to 'drink responsibly' like I meant to. Plus to be very honest, I don't like to drink in moderation.... I like to drink to get drunk and once I start drinking I just want to drink more.

Welcome BoozyBlues - glad you joined us!

I also tried for many years to control the amounts I drank. I was determined to use willpower to drink socially, rather than give it up. Nothing I ever tried worked - I always ended up having too many and getting wasted. In the end, I drank every day and was completely dependent on it. So no - I wasn't able to ever manage it.

Good you are here and asking questions about what alcohol is doing to your life. I hope you find answers that will help. :)

<--- this person has been trying to learn moderation, but ultimately I am learning it is impossible. If I make it through the next few nights... still kicking... then I am putting 100% of my focus on sobriety. This stuff isn't even worth a minute of my time.

Not possible for me, i'd think to myself after a month or two sober "1 drink surely can't harm me". Inevitably i'd come around five days or a week later wondering what the f*** had happened, suffering from severe withdrawl and not having a clue what i'd been doing. Has to be zero alcohol for me, had a few blips but getting there!

Good luck. :biggthump

Hi BB - I think you'll find the overwhelming answer here will be no.

Have you tried to cut back before?

D

I wasn't able to do it, but that doesn't mean you can't. Lots of people do it, but they are probably not on a recovery forum.

Cutting back is a perfectly appropriate goal. If it doesn't work you can change your goal to abstinence if that seems more appropriate.

The HAMS network has some good resources for harm reduction and moderation goals.

before I knew it
 

Thanks everyone.

To answer your question Dee74, I have cut back successfully or abstained successfully for months at a time. I honestly don't know if I would be successful or not this time around.

Soberknitter, thanks, I'll check that one out too. This was the first forum I came across the other night. =)

You went from posting about quitting in your first post to posting about cutting back. If you want to know the extent of your problem, observe your struggle in staying quit as you start this recovery journey.

Ooops sorry wrong thread... :P

Not me. That would surely lead to a visit to a hospital for detox.

I thought of that quite a few times,:scorebad then some more times(, only drinking on weekends. )It never worked, I could never get past day 2 . So, I'm gonna say no...I don't think an alcoholic can just drink occasionally. At least I couldnt. :)

Well, I guess that's what I get for trying to add something cute.:gaah

Moderation did not work for me either. The saying keeps recurring: People who drink moderately don't need to TRY to drink moderately.

Also something foreboding, is that the founder of Moderation Management ended up abandoning the idea, and killed two people in a DUI.

You will have to decide for yourself, but I do recommend watching this 7 part video on youtube. It will show you how drinking affects brain functions, whether or not you buy into the Disease model of addiction. Pleasure Unwoven - YouTube

Another very good link is the Crash Course on the AVRT website.

I would like to hear from you on your journey.

Nope! Can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber.

Those who do it are probably not real alcoholics but problem drinkers.

There are plenty of moderate drinkers who at some point in their lives realized they were overindulging and cut back. I call that trying. And succeeding.

This is apropos of nothing. The only thing we could possibly glean from this is not to abandon the notion that moderate drinking is a possibility, lest we kill someone. It forebodes nothing.

Those are distinctions unique to AA, and they don't apply elsewhere. The OP didn't identify herself as an alcoholic (a word with a different meaning to almost everyone who uses it).