Thankyou | I will follow your advice and spend tomorrow/next week reading through other topics on this website.
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The OP is doing exactly what I did, in THIS forum, nearly 5 years ago and I’ve been sober ever since.
If not for the SUPPORT of the people here, I would never have attempted it.
Believe me, they are in the right place and asking the right questions 
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From your writing you seem fairly intelectuall, processing all apsects. Problem is, there is a lot you are assuming. Was there struggle in the beginning of my sobriety journey…at that moment I would say yes. Looking back…once alcohol was out of my life…struggles stopped, strained stopped.
Yes, life has its roller coasters…lot easier to ride it without alcohol clouding the ride.
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Tbh I wasn’t sure if this forum was actually right for me / Or not.
I Googled ‘‘alcohol support forum’’… And this website was the 3# result in Google.
(So I assumed this was a forum for people who were trying to reduce their drinking and/or quit entirely :: Not just a forum where/for people who don’t ever drink to simply just ‘‘come online & talking about their ongoing alcohol-free life’’)
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Trust me.
YOU’RE IN THE BEST PLACE.
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This place is for the sober curious as much as for those with long term sobriety.
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I think you kinda have to consider, what if everything you are and all your capabilities and achievements, are only 10% of your true potential?
What if…without the drink…you’re more extraordinary and successful than you ever imagined?
Thats the thing…what if, without even being aware of it, you sabotaged an absolutely incredible life, that you never thought possible, that was MEANT for you. What if there’s someone you’re supposed to kiss in a rainstorm? What if there’s a person you’re suppose to save just by being you?
You’ll never know if you don’t quit…And with the benefit of experience, I’d be fairly confident that no matter how successful you are now, no matter how happy you think you are…its not a fraction of what it could be.
Give it up my darling, get rid of it…theres so much more to you that you haven’t given yourself a chance to explore.
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How’s your drinking in the weekend, also “only” 2-6 units?
I went through certain phases with my drinking. There was a time where I too put physical fitness at the top of my list. It abled me to ‘control’ my drinking bc I wouldn’t be able to workout if I was horribly hungover. I managed to only drink a couple drinks a couple nights a week for quite some time. Of course there was the odd dinner or party where I’d over do it, bc I was still an alcoholic. I will never not be.
When certain events happened in my life, and I began drinking heavily again, fitness took a back back burner and alcohol got top shelf. That’s just where it wanted to be and continued to climb higher. The only motivation I was left with was getting to the liquor store.
Again, no one can tell you what to do. I just know from experience that the longer this disease progresses, the more unmanageable it becomes. If I could have seen my future, maybe I would have quit sooner. But maybe not. We tend to be stubborn.
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Right. It’s not like any of us knew we were bound for alcoholism when we took our first drink. We were just doing what everybody else was doing at the time.
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This. OP hasn’t hit any “YETs” yet. Pun intended.
Mr. Cade, so glad you engaged with this thread. Your words and experiences are brilliant!
To the OP, welcome to the community. Been here 6 years, sober for 2.5 years. These people here helped me survive all of my YET’s (consequences from the progressive nature of alcohol abuse) AND continue to help me today. Recovery from alcohol addiction is progressive too. If you haven’t read between the lines of some of these responses, living FREE from alcohol is a life that I never want to give up. You are chained to alcohol, and maybe someday one of your YETs will be enough for you to give it up.
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Not to be brash, but the name of the app is Sober Time. Not moderation time.
The “high functioning” statement is coming from your misconception of what alcoholism actually is.
This falls under "you can lead a horse to water but… "
Wish you the best
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Tbh weekends are literally no different to me vs weekdays…
As having spent the past 15-years working shift-pattern work (mixture of days/nights/weekends - with 8 years of that spent working as a nightclub bouncer) :: Weekends to me are simply the same as weekdays.
(I don’t really have an interest in having friends or social-life / Thus weekend social-drinking hasn’t really been my thing since age 18 tbh)
I do understand that many (if not everyone) in this forum seems to want to be sober merely for ‘‘the sake of being sober’’?
But whilst ofcourse that is totally fine if that’s how certain people’s minds work…
For me personally, I wouldn’t ever choose to do/not do something ‘‘just for the sake of it’’.
I instead would review & assess the benefits of doing/or not doing XYZ, compare that to the alternative side of that same action, and subequently choose whichever option provided me the highest level of actual personal benefit overall.
(Therefore to me, the notion of being sober merely ‘‘for the sake of it’’, simply would be nonsensical | As I would instead need to actually truely understand for myself what benefit to me it was/would actually provide, given that I would be quitting something which I actively liked & enjoyed, to do it)
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To me you seem to be drinking for the sake of it. And purely out of habit. The only real reason you give is that you want to blunt some emotions and fill the emptiness. But you’ve been drinking daily for at least 400 days. You can’t know how life without it would be. And what you’re doing now honestly sounds rather empty and depressing, especially in the long run.
Personally I quit drinking because I was on a fast road towards suicide through my drinking. I drank to escape my emotions and feelings. It worked for decades but in the end it caught up with me.
Since I quit I actually started working on the stuff I ran from. Which is hard work that I never could have done would I have continued drinking. And my life has gotten better enormously. So I didn’t quit for the sake of it, I quit to safe my life.
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Tbh I’m not really in that same boat at all | If anything the total opposite.
I was drinking alcohol (wine at the dinner-table) from the age of 8-9 years old…
Thus when I turned 16-17, and started drinking at pubs/going to nightclubs with my college mates, alcohol wasn’t some form of ‘‘magic potion’’ that I was desperate to get my hands on / Nor something which my body wasn’t able to handle extremely well (*in that even if I had 8+ pints and/or a multiple glasses of whiskey, I would still be totally fine in terms of my cognitive-functionings… ect).
So for me there has literally never ever actually been any ‘‘nightmare events/moments’’ in my life due to alcohol…
As even if/when I drink 4-5x more then everyone else around me, I was still always the most ‘sober-functioning indvidual’.
(As it simply would of taken me an insanely huge amount of alcohol to actuallly ‘‘get drunk’’ / Which tbh was never really my aim when drinking)
~
The reasons I drink (virtually every evening/night) are simpy because like right now I feel ‘‘hollow/empty inside’’.
Yes I can & will watch TV, could even go gym, sure I could find loads of creative things to do even (if I happened to be creative)…
But whilst doing the actually realistic one of just sitting relaxed on my sofa watching TV, I can ofcourse do it without a bottle of beer :: But I will feel hollow & empty inside.
/
Wheras if I have a few beers, I will feel abit better & more settled emotionally.
*I wouldn’t subsequently continue to keep drinking beyond 4-6 beers maximum though, as whilst it wouldn’t really impact me either way if I did or didn’t, I know ‘‘health-wise’’ that exceeding 5-6 beers is just further adding even more health-issues onto my body for future | Thus my constraint/ceasing at around that number per day is based purely upon those health-awarenesses.
~
Like I said, I really don’t know if thos forum is the right place for me or not.
I honestly didn’t wake-up this morning & plan to find an ‘‘alcohol reduction’’ forum today! haha
I literally was just sitting on my laptop this afternoon and thought to myself:
This evening you will start drinking a few beers, like you have done every evening for the past 200-300 days in a row | You know that even trying to do 1 entire evening without a beer is a severe struggle for you | So why not go online & checkout the forums which offer tips/advice for people who are wanting to reduce their daily-dependence on alcohol.
I’m not looking to live some kinda Mary Poppins life, where I skip around everyday smelling the fresh flowers, smiling to myself that I’m not drinking alcohol! haha
(Entertaining as that sort of lifestyle does look on a postcard)
In reality I’m quite simply seeking tips/advice on how I can motivate myself to:
‘‘Reduce my alcohol-consumption days down to only 2-4 days per week’’
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Thankyou for your post.
~
I am going to spend tomorrow / this coming week looking at various other topics on on this forum, as a place to start my journey.
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you deserve more.
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That is extremely kind of you to say to me.
I honestly don’t know how to respond to it though | But so will putting my laptop away for the night now
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I drank for much the same reasons. For me, it eventually got worse.
For what it’s worth, you ask the benefits of not drinking. Just stopping, perhaps just better physical health.
Like you though, I also needed to work on some of the “whys.” This is why many join support groups, seek counseling, etc. I couldn’t ignore those feelings forever.
I can say that a prolonged period of sobriety, my baseline mood this time improved including notably less anxiety. Some of it I sense is very physiological. Some of it came after working through what was weighing me down by a recovery program.
My life and joy expanded greatly since getting sober. Drink added nothing but wasted time, keeping me from the things that could make me happier.
Now I’d rather spend my nights doing anything but drinking.
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Hi there and welcome to the forum! For me, this was the first step in quitting drinking.
This right here breaks my heart. I’ve been here. So empty and so hollow inside. So tired of feeling not much other than pain, heartbreak and disappointment. I smoked or drank daily for decades to try to take the edge off of my pain. To get some reprieve for a while. The thing is, I thought there was nothing I could do to improve my life besides doing this. It’s a progressive addiction and my body began shutting down. At that point (36) I started my sobriety journey. I was sober and life was improving a little but I wasn’t changing on the inside. And I began AA. I had NO idea the freedom I could have. I didn’t even realize the extent to the emotional weight I carried until I was able to drop it by doing the steps with my sponsor. There is a new freedom and a new happiness that can await you. And life truly doesn’t have to be like that, you are worthy of SO much more! 
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