I used to set goals like that too, all the time for years.
Only on weekends, until it wasn't just weekends, close enough counted after awhile.
Only after dinner, until it was before dinner, close enough anyway.
Only after work, you know after a full day, until well coming home early was close enough.
Never in the morning, well vacation mornings don't count, really. It was when it was weekday mornings that the goal was no longer being met, I guess.
I set lots of goals.
Took years to realize the problem wasn't in having the goals and not meeting them, it was the need for them in the first place.
But we are different, good luck setting your goals, I hope you don't actually need them, but if you do, rethink your plan, we probably aren't that different.

But I still have a hard time understanding people here not wanting to help someone who wants to prevent being an alcoholic (alcohol dependent/alcohol abuser).

KC,
i'm not sure at all it's about people not wanting to help you.
here are some thoughts:
-i don't know how to support you in attempting what you say you're attempting. for myself, i had no idea how to prevent being an alcoholic.
-took me three decades to really understand and accept that i am one; how could i possibly know how to prevent??

-most of us speak from our own experience of trying and failing repeatedly at the moderation-thing. lack of control was a biggie for us...so how could we help you get control? how would we know how???

-the idea that drinking less will prevent alcoholism is questionable to start with. alcoholism isn't really about the amount.



and frankly, sigh, we're busy. busy with our own sobriety and supporting others who wish to quit and stay quit.
that's enough of a focus for most of us.

which is why i suggested finding the crowd that's interested in doing what you're trying to do. your chances at getting what you're wanting are better over there :)

Would like to say that for this past week I only had 1 drink during the week, which is a lot better than I had been doing.

In my experience I've been able to drink less for a very short period of time. Sometimes for a week, sometimes not even that first day, but it always ends the same. I end up drinking more than I intended to and I have to deal with the consequences. If I allow myself to drink at all I'm opening the door to all kinds of drama. It doesn't matter if it takes a day or a week to get there. Total abstinence is my only option.

Kchance I just joined the moderation management site, join us over there. They have a daily sticky where the group members updates their daily and weekly attempts to moderate. That part of the site is active. You are not going to get any support over here with your goal. Though I do think this site is useful. Myself my goal is to change my relationship with alcohol, if moderation works then more power to ME, if I have to go the abstinence route then so be it. Either way I am adamant about ME not going back to my old behavior, no way in hell. I went to my first AA meeting a few days back and it was nice, don't know if it fits where I am with alcohol. What I heard in that meeting was a group of people who have no business drinking alcohol anymore and are using the only thing they can use to stay sober, for some AA is they're last hope. That said it doesn't mean it is the last hope for everybody else who wants to make changes.

I choose abstinence, I feel for me it is the best way. I came to understand just how important , and how deep the pleasure of intoxication was rooted in my psyche. After the effects of alcohol abuse were becoming no longer ignorable( the progressive aspect of alcohol addiction), the abstinence route was a nobrainer. Alcohol no longer has any importance in my life.
You do see how much importance that one drink holds for you, yes?

It was very progressive for me. There was a time when I could take it or leave it. Some dangerous drinking patterns set me on that road. I have never tried to moderate. When it hits me now I know I want to keep going so I am just going to leave it alone and join the 60% of people who don't drink or drink so little it's negligible. I have wondered if I had realized what was happening sooner if I could have avoided this whole thing. Where I am right now I have no desire to moderate. Booze is for getting drunk. Hopefully you are not at that point. If you are you will know soon enough.

I really really wanted to moderate the first time I quit as well. I obsessed over it the whole time I was sober.

Then I went back to drinking and obsessed over trying not to have too many. Then one day I was in a mood, or forgot my "moderation plan" or whatever the reason may be and I had more than I had planned. Then it was a slippery slope that I could never quite get back up.

I honestly think once you pass a certain point, there is no going back. I also think that wanting to moderate is part of the addiction. If you were really not a problem drinker, you wouldn't have to put thought into moderating. And I can promise you that trying not to drink too much is actually much more difficult than just not drinking at all.

But we all have to learn our own lessons.

Edited to add: You can also do just as much damage to your organs by getting drunk on the weekends because chances are, you will drink a ton to compensate for the weekdays when you white-knuckled it. It only takes a few bad binges or even just one bad binge to do organ damage or even worse. Also you might want to google the founder of Moderation Management. It did not end so well for them.

Also I learned the hard way that saving up all your allotted drinks for the weekend isn't moderation. That's not how it works because of science. One big binge a week or even a month will negate all that time you had none or one drink. If you want to moderate properly and also only drink on the weekends, it means only 2 drinks on Friday and only 2 drinks on Saturday. This isn't a personal attack on you because people are sanctimonious here. This is what the body can handle with no adverse effects. No one tells your liver "hey, it's okay, he didn't drink all week." It still gets overloaded if you have more than two drinks.

During the times I was "improving," drinking less than normal for a period of time, I felt like I was making progress.

But then I would blackout again and do something dangerous or destructive. And repeat, and repeat.

Yeah, I would moderate then my AV (or whatever you want to call it) would jump in and then I would be waking up with a terrible hangover thinking "Where did that come from? Oh yeah, I'm an alcoholic!" Rinse, repeat. But that is just me. Maybe you can, KC. For me, thinking about drinking when I was "moderating" was a form of borderline insanity! One of the best parts of getting sober was when I finally stopped thinking about it all the time...