Not an expert here, but it’s plainly obvious that you’re expecting something substantial to come from three days of hard work. That’s just deluded nonsense: do you think an overweight person is going to achieve anything by working out really hard for three days in a row?
You clearly need to see a physician, counselor, or other support group. You can’t do this on your own; and you shouldn’t have to do this on your own.
Good luck, and do the right thing.
Like this poster, I am recommending exercise as an aid. The exercise should help you get to sleep and should help you burn off some steam. It helps, for me. Exercise when you get off work, and, about two hours or so after you stop, it should relax you enough so that you can sleep. I am concerned that you don’t seem to think you can quit and perhaps this brief period of abstinence will reassure you that you can.
The not noticing as you pound a bottle of white wine in 10 minutes is a concern to me too. Do you do it for the buzz, or genuinely don’t realize how intoxicated you’re getting? I’ve gotten that way myself, after a certain number of drinks—it’s just like throwing another log on the fire and I actually feel soberer the drunker I’m getting. It’s an illusion, of course, and I take pains to not consume anywhere near that amount anymore. (Two drinks is a big evening out, these days.) Just wondering if it’s the same with you? If it’s just to have something tasty with your meal, China Guy’s tip of sparkling water/club soda has really helped me cut back. Add some sugar free flavored syrups, and it’s even better.
Your stated level of drinking adds a lot of empty calories to your body, is hard on your liver and other organs, and can lead to problems with the law if you drive while drunk or do other stupid shit while you’re drunk. The latter is getting tougher and tougher to avoid these days, or it just seems that way from talking with my friends who practice criminal defense law.
I have worked in the hospitality industry, and had many friends in F&B. Everybody drinks. We drank to relax, to avoid memories of that asshole guest and the shit we had to swallow because that was our job, because we liked the taste of the: (gifted 1/5 of a bottle of wine, craft beer, cognac, etc…) There were lots of reasons. When I was in that line of work, putting away 3-4 drinks or more a night was not uncommon. When we felt like celebrating, it would be much more: e.g., a bottle of white for the first two courses, a bottle of red for the main, a half bottle of dessert wine. It adds up. It just gets old at my age (early 40s), and harder to recover from the night before.
I’m basically agreeing with MPB; I’m having a hard time thinking of another industry where it’d be tougher to abstain. But three days—while a change in your habits and therefore uncomfortable—shouldn’t be that difficult of a feat for you. If you find that it is, then you have a bigger problem and might want to seek out some professional help as Ravenman points out. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
She need not change her profession: she could work in an Islamic restaurant (perforce alcohol-free).
I think people are jumping the gun. Maybe she has a problem, maybe she doesn’t. Trying a period of abstinence is a good way to find out. If she can’t make it through then she indeed has a problem and can take it from there. If she can make it through, then she can work on regulating her drinking.
Like Quartz said.
This experiment might be a bit telling. How much of this drinking is habitual? Psychological? An actual physical addiction?
Some insight into how much of each it may be could certainly indicate what the most proper path further down the road is.
So what? It’s not his at-work drinking that’s the problem. It’s his after-work drinking where the majority of the problem lies. And anyway, if he can’t drink at home and responds by overdrinking at work, we’ll certainly know that he’s an alcoholic. One of the easiest ways to break a habit is to remove the temptation. Surely if he were trying to stop smoking for three days, you’d recommend that he get rid of the cigarettes in his house, even if he worked in a smoky bar?
The last time I went for three (actually closer to six) days without alcohol was when my gallbladder had to come out. It was eazypeazy, thanks in part to the morphine and Demerol.
My husband used to be a daily drinker. When he quit, he had a lot of trouble sleeping. First we tried tea, which helped somewhat but eventually he went to the doc for some prescription sleep aids. Now he’s off of those pills, but still has trouble sleeping sometimes.
Now he’ll have some drinks on the weekends, and yes, I worry that he will pick up the old habit. So far, so good, he seems to be able to handle it. It’s great that he doesn’t need to drink every day. I wish you luck!
I never thought about this before, but he did really stink (and sweat more) while he was quitting. It must be part of the detox I guess.
Totally agree with this. Not everyone who drinks a couple of drinks every day is an alcoholic. It has been easy for me to stop whenever I’ve wanted to (I’ve done it every couple of years for the last 15). If it ever turns out to be difficult, I’ll admit I have a problem and get help.
3 days doesn’t prove anything though. I usually go for a couple of months at least. After the last time I switched to ‘only weekends or social occasions’ to help reduce calories. The only bit that I found hard was finding something else (low calorie and non-alcoholic) to drink.
I’m eager to hear how it works out. Good luck, Sparky!
Masochist.
Three days is plenty.
Thank you for everyone’s helpful advice. Before I turn in I would like to say that there were SO many comments about how three days proves nothing and to 99% of people, you’re probably right, but I’ve done the math. If I only had one drink every day for the last nine years (and I have, I’m not kidding) which is realistically way more than that, that’s over 3000 days of doing the exact same thing. Just making it 24 hours is a HUGE obstacle for me. So, yeah, you might say that three days is nothing, and that’s probably because going 24 hours without a drink is nothing to you. And all I can say is, lucky you.
Three days may be too long. I suggest you just don’t get drunk today.
If the urge gets overwhelming and you find yourself heading for the bar or liquor store, before you go in talk yourself into going to the next place down the road instead of the one you are at; sometimes that little bit of time is enough for the urge to pass … and it does pass.
Don’t expect to sleep well for a while. Best way I found was to just stick to a regular time to get up, and if I couldn’t sleep I’d just get up and do something for a while.
If you just don’t get drunk today for a few weeks you will find that you have an incredible amount of money in your pocket. That can be a great temptation to go on a bender like you’ve never been on before – If you survive a couple of those cycles, start thinking about better, more productive ways to manage your money because it piles up at an amazing rate when you don’t get drunk and blow it all every night.
You will also find yourself with a whole lot of extra time on your hands that you used to fill by drinking; you’ll need to find something to do with that time. I could no longer hang with my drinking buddies because if I did, I drank. I bought a guitar and payed in advance for three months of lessons; that gave me something I could do no matter what time it was.
There was a time when I could identify with your idea of pretending not to have a drinking problem; in those days, I tended to drink in fancy, expensive places and tried to impress people. Later, after I had humiliated myself a few times too often, I preferred to drink in cheap dives, surrounded by people I could feel better than. Eventually, I got to the point where I liked to sit on a curb with a bottle of Thunderbird in a brown paper bag and pretend I was a wino.
The last time I woke up in a drunk tank was September 21, 1981. I don’t miss those times at all.
Just don’t get drunk today.
Interesting reaction. Only one person said that.
Several people reported that they tried the same experiment and found it a little easier than they expected. Which is not at all the same thing as saying there’s no point.
I would say that this is typically good advice, although in this specific case, probably a little bit easier said than done, considering that he actually works in a bar and is required to be surrounded for 40 hours each week by people actively, enthusiastically imbibing, watching them, even encouraging them to drink and have a good time, as that is his job.
I am not saying that a recovering alcoholic can’t ever work in an establishment that serves booze, but for someone who is just trying to start out on the wagon (as opposed to a guy who already has 10 years of sobriety under his belt) it is going to be a huge, HUGE challenge to stay in that environment and keep dry.
Take a long weekend, go camping somewhere remote, and don’t bring any alcohol.
Bring some good books, a fishing rod, some hiking boots and a good friend or your SO you enjoy spending time with.
Enjoy.
I sobered up in Las Vegas, surrounded by all the free booze a person could want, and I continued to work in casinos for over 20 years. I’m not talking theory here – I am telling him what worked for me.
I was you about 25 years ago. I would drink every night: only 2 - 3 glasses of wine, but still every night. I hardly ever got really drunk, just a little buzzed. But every night.
I’d wake up in the morning not feeling so great, and promise myself “I’m not going to drink today”. The terrifying thing, though, was that I COULDN’T DO IT. I almost never could go a night without drinking.
THIS was the thing that terrified me and convinced me I had a problem. I was no longer in charge of my drinking. My drinking was in control of me.
The huge fear of being an alcoholic drove me to quit altogether. Somehow it was easier for me to say “I’m not drinking anymore” than “I’m not drinking tonight”. And I was initially successful at quitting. After several months of not drinking, I thought maybe I could resume a “social” drinking pattern, so I started having a glass of wine when with friends. And very quickly, it was back to drinking every night. So I’d stop again. After about a year of this ping-ponging, I quit completely, and it’s been over 25 years since I’ve drank anything.
For the first couple of years of total sobriety, I was glad -every-single-morning- that I didn’t drink anymore, because I’d wake up feeling good. And I’d remember how I felt in the morning when I was still drinking and wonder how I put up with that for so long.
So it’s been 25 years. If anyone asks, I immediately tell them, YES, I AM AN ALCOHOLIC. An alcoholic who hasn’t drank anything in 25 years. And, unusually, I did it on my own, without AA or a support group. But I’m one of the lucky ones that “cold turkey, alone” worked with. YMMV
I wish you the best with your 3 day experiment, but if your experience is like mine, you’ll be surprised that you won’t be able to stop.
One think I did that helped me quit: I told every single person I knew that I was quitting drinking. I didn’t try to do it in secret. It is oh-so-much easier to backslide if the only person you will disappoint is yourself.
I wish you the best of luck and hope that you’re able to overcome this.
J.
I would seriously consider counseling. If you have to try this hard or think this hard about it, well you do have a problem.
It may be small but it’s an issue if you have to think this hard about it or even post about it.
I know. Getting over a big problem myself.
Seriously go full force on stopping for a while. Not just 3 days either. If you can’t go at least a week I think you have a bigger problem. Might just be psychological but that’s not good either.
I don’t mean this to give you a hard time. It’s coming from someone who was in that business and although I left it that issue became a big issue later in life.
I’m a bartender and a habitually heavy drinker; I quit drinking for a month for health reasons and was fearing the results.
I had no side effects other than boredom. I wonder how much one would have to drink to really have withdrawal symptoms, if I didn’t have any. :eek: Either I don’t drink as much as I thought I did, or there are people out there who can put away mind-numbing amounts of alcohol that would send me to the hospital.
Well I would say that depends on how much you drink daily and how long you have been doing it.
If you are having 4 or more daily and lets say for a couple years I would think you would have some issues. If you are drinking a lot more than that, you need to look at talking to a doctor.
You don’t want a seizure.