Cutting down on drinking

[Verisimilitude]

Drinking to excess is something that I have been doing too much. It changes me into a different person and I can't do it anymore. Furthermore, it ruins my relationships and it doesn't help me pick up girls any better.

Do you guys have any tips on cutting back on alcohol? Chase mentions how he did cut back, but never really says how. I'd like to see how any of you guys is able to limit themselves. I also go to college so alcohol is always present, so if there are any tips on that I'd appreciate that as well. Thanks!

 

[Estate]

I'm not an expert or anything on this but I have some experience.

So here goes...

It depends on whether you're saying you are not able to control your alcohol intake and it's a serious problem and you want to stop?
Or do you just tend to drink a little more than you think you should and just want to drink less?

If it's the first then it's hard to know what to suggest. For a serious alcoholism problem then there are other and better places than here to deal with it I suspect.

If it's just the 2nd though then I've done the same. It all just depends on my mindset going out. If I go out with the mindset of just wanting to drink and drink and have a good time then, while I can handle my drink well, I'm not going to be doing too well chatting to women with that much alcohol in me.
You can do a few things:
- Decide where your threshold is in having a little buzz going vs. being drunk. Just drink that, and pace yourself. It's not too hard. Sometimes at parties people will egg you on but I've often just flat out refused saying I just can't handle those shots or whatever, hold a strong frame and people won't be bad about it.
- Making a beer last 2 hours is difficult. So when I say pace yourself, just don't chug, enjoy the beers, and when you've hit the limit you get for yourself, start ordering a coke or a ginerale, if you really need to, you can tell people it's a mixed drink but nobody has ever really asked me about it.
- Don't take $100 out of the ATM before, bring hat you plan to spend and allow a taxi fare home if you need. "It's not payday until next week man".

There are two things involved:
- Your own self control. Preset yourself a limit and just drink that much, if someone forces a shot on you, ok, 1 shot won't kill you but don't drink anymore. Just set a limit and stick to you, you'll fell better about yourself late in the night and the next day.
- Other peoples perception. This is what gets a lot of people, they think they'll be asked "Why aren't you drinking?" and be made fun of. I solve that by doing as I said above, If I have a beer in my hand early in the evening, nobody has ever cared if it's my 10th or still the first one from an hour ago. If I switch to a coke or gingerale later in the night, people generally assume it's a mixed drink and don't ask questions. It's really when you are standing around with your hands at your side and you're not really engaging with people who are drunker than you then people will ask why you're not drinking.
If someone DOES ask... you can say it's a mixed drink or you can tell the truth. It's actually a case where if you frame it right, nobody will judge you if you hold a strong frame about it and say you've had enough for whatever reason.

I hope that helps some. The basic idea is limit yourself but still engage in the party and have something in your hand... it's no big deal then and nobody cares.

 

[Chase]

Runner-

Drinking to excess is something that I have been doing too much. It changes me into a different person and I can't do it anymore. Furthermore, it ruins my relationships and it doesn't help me pick up girls any better.

Do you guys have any tips on cutting back on alcohol? Chase mentions how he did cut back, but never really says how. I'd like to see how any of you guys is able to limit themselves. I also go to college so alcohol is always present, so if there are any tips on that I'd appreciate that as well. Thanks!

My questions would be the same as Estate's. And actually, I'd narrow them a bit - is this a problem all the time, or only with certain friends / situations?

For me, I was drinking to excess only with friends who drank a lot at first. I started drinking more and more even while alone as well, however. I had a bunch of bad incidents in a row - not remembering how I got home; driving when I was REALLY drunk and trying very hard to keep straight on the road, and having cop cars I didn't even know were there go zooming by me in a state that's not very friendly toward driving drunk; getting arrested and thrown in a drunk tank; and finally getting pick-pocketed because I was too drunk to know what was going on. All of this together was both too scary and too humiliating, and I said, "Screw it, I need to get better control of myself, this is disgusting," so I went cold turkey for a while. I'd still go out to bars and clubs, but I'd refuse anything other than an ice water or a Redbull with a lemon or lime in it. If the place wouldn't serve me an ice water, I'd have nothing, or I'd leave. At first it was a little weird hanging out with all my drinker friends and not drinking, but I got used to it.

Eventually, I started drinking again, but I kept it to one or two drinks. My policy ever since then has been "nurse your drink and make it last." I began timing myself to make sure that any drink I had took me at least 45 minutes to finish. I wasn't allowed another drink until at least 45 minutes after I'd ordered my previous drink. These days I will also combine drinking a water with having a drink. So, I'll order a cocktail, and also a water, and take turns taking swigs of each. That way, I'm slowing down my alcohol intake (half the time I'm drinking, it's just water). Drinking water while you drink alcohol also gets you drunker faster, but also clears the alcohol out of your system faster too, and eliminates hangovers if you drink enough water while you drink alcohol.

Anyway, for someone who's drinking too much, I'd probably recommend the system I used if you wanted to reduce but not eliminate drinking:

• Go cold turkey for at least 2 months. Drink only ice waters or energy drinks, with a lemon or lime or cherry for garnish if you don't want people to know you aren't drinking alcohol
• After the 2 months are up, you can go back to 2 to 3 drinks a night, maximum. Nurse them. If you finish a drink in under 45 minutes, you're not allowed another drink until that 45 minutes is up
• If you're having trouble nursing drinks, get a water too, and stick to the same rules: one alcoholic drink to last you 45 minutes

Occasionally I will break these rules if I'm hanging out with a drinker friend I haven't hung out with in a while (I don't have any hard drinking friends I still hang out with regularly anymore). However, my rules are:

• I must not have anything important happening the next day, because I'll be hungover and feel terrible, and
• I must not be driving / must have an easy way of getting home, and/or be drinking at a bar very close to my place

I also accept that if I'm going out with hard drinking friends, I'm probably not going to be picking up (sometimes it happens, but it's more a bonus than anything, and it's usually some girl taking advantage of me because she thought I was sexy even though I was a hot mess and sloppy and all over the place), and instead rather we're just going to be hanging out and chilling and talking and getting drunk and shooting the breeze.

Chase

 

[Verisimilitude]

Thanks Chase, that is some good advice. I might wait longer than two months to drink again, but I like the idea of water and alcohol at the same time and taking a long time per drink