|
I'm similar to ziggisocki and Dane. I'm a fairly heavy drinker, with low dependencey and no spillover into the rest of my life. I enjoy drinking and think of it as a reward for when my day's work is finished. I drink mostly at home, spread it out over several hours, never get "hammered" and can control it.
That said, I decided on the morning of July 13 that I've been drinking too much. Mostly worried about irreversible health effects like liver and CNS damage. I decided on that day that I was going to limit myself to 1000 drinks per year, distributed however I want. That is almost 3 drinks a day, which would be a significant drop in consumption for me -- like I said, I've been drinking too much. That flexibility of having a large number of drinks to manage over a long period of time was important to me so that I never feel like I couldn't have a drink if I want it. Limiting myself to 3 drinks a day or 20 drinks per week was not appealing. But 1000 drinks in 1 year seemed like it would allow me to have freedom, while still helping me to significantly drop my consumption.
Beginning on July 13, I've been religiously measuring every drink with a shot glass and recording them on a spreadsheet. This ritual keeps me focused on my goal since I am a quantitative person. I've had 34 drinks in the last 18 days, which puts me on a pace for about 700 for the year. On my highest day I had 6 and on several days I've had none, and haven't felt deprived. I have a column that shows me how many drinks I can have today while staying on pace for my 1000 for the year. Today I can have 18 drinks and still be on pace. I won't drink anywhere near that many, but I like to watch that column grow. Actually, I want to have a decent bank built up for holidays, vacation and the like. Maybe by the end of the year I will have only drank 586 drinks or something. That's fine if that's what happens. But that is not the goal. The goal is 1000.
|