Too much alcohol and I know it.

A good initial approach would be to remove all alcohol from the house. Pour it all down the sink! There will be a big voice going off in your head when you do it saying "What a waste" but really it's the opposite! Having your house empty means you don't have immediate access to it during any times of weakness - e.g dinner time. Next step is to mentally prepare yourself before you go grocery shopping to stay away from the alcohol isle.

You are definitely not alone man, I was/am in a very similar position as you (switch the 2:3X for 2:5X) but have pretty much cut out all non-social drinking and even that is very limited. I do not regret it at all nor do I miss alcohol at this point. It will be hard but there is a lot of really good practical advice in these threads. Things that helped me:

-Get the alcohol out of your house, make yourself have to make a conscious decision to go purchase it;

-When you buy alcohol buy only the supply for what you are drinking now, make it so it is not easy to just crack a bottle and consume. Make sure that you are making a conscious decision to imbibe every time;

-Track your sleep, I use an Oura ring but there are many sleep trackers and it is clear how much alcohol f-s with your sleep. Seeing how much it hurt my physical and mental recovery was very instructive;

-I am sure you are doing your best as a father/husband/runner/worker but alcohol makes you worse at all of these things. If you are a good dad while drinking you will be amazing sober. Realizing that alcohol was like a tax that I paid in every aspect of my life and that I made my family pay (your kids know what is up) helps;

-Do something that requires sobriety in the evening, work out, coach something, take a course (not winemaking). A lot of this is just breaking the habit so that you can get breathing space and accumulate time sober. It's like running, to get faster you need time on your feet, here you need time away from alcohol.

-Lot of good advice in here about switching to some other NA drinks, honestly there was a really good diet root beer that I got hooked on that helped me switch out from alcohol at dinner. I felt like a 6 year-old at a birthday party but it was good and it helped, find whatever works!

Good luck man, rooting for you!

I agree with your post except this part.

Someone brough an assorted box pack to my house once. Leftover was a disgusting peach single beer bottle.

I kept that as the only alcohol in my place and kept it cold in the back of the fridge.

My inner monologue:

"If you want to drink you should drink the beer at home first."

"Disgusting...[stops wanting to drink]"

REPEAT.

Was a highly functional alcoholic for 10 years. 3 years sober as of last week.

"This Naked Mind" and "The Alcohol Experiment" by Annie Grace overwhelmingly changed my life for the better and finally gave me the skillset I needed to conquer alcohol. Incredibly powerful behavior change theory packed into those books. I highly recommend. Good luck, you can absolutely do it.

LOL this is my nightmare

If I found pills, some booze, whatever I'd for sure just go on with my day. But if I came across a bag of meth it would be a 'call my sponsor or ANYONE in AA' moment for sure.

It's not just you. My wife and I "joke" that we are professional drinkers. However, I have no withdrawals when I don't drink anything, so I don't necessarily believe I have a drinking problem. HOWEVER, I have started to develop what could only be called a "beer gut." That, and I have noticed a problem with my lower back. I do not necessarily believe the back issue is related to drinking per se, but I do expect that the beer gut may be contributing. SO... I decided to quit. What I found, was I was craving certain foods... mostly sugars. I am gonna go out on a limb and say that If you don't truly otherwise think you have an actual drinking problem (If you do, then you will just have to begin being the adult in your life and tell the child in you, "no, you can't have that"), then you should take a look at your diet. 70+ is a lot of miles. You aren't getting any younger. As we get older, we need to eat better because our bodies don't respond or recover the same. Your body might just be telling you it needs more of some kind of calorie set, and your slipping into drinking alcohol is the quick solution to that craving that you can't overcome. Check your diet and drink more water. Or suck it up and quit. It may take a couple of weeks to adjust, but you'll be better for it anyway.

Best.

The only thing that worked for me was listening to the Huberman Lab podcast about all the things alcohol does to you. I was in the same boat as you. Incredibly productive and in shape but would still down a bottle of wine every night. You’ll never quit unless you know what it is costing you.

This is a rare, positive mark on the LRC boards. Content like this can positively impact many lives here, and this is such a common issue across our society. Thank you all for your constructive contributions. Alcohol is difficult to toe the line with, and establish a healthy coexistence with, while not at some point ruffling any feathers in your close relationships.

OP. I think a lot of people drink a lot as once you are a parent, unless you really make a point of doing it, there isn't any "me time" or time to socialize. So you are a bit bored at night and drink. It gives us something to do, it kind of reminds us of college and in our head we are socializing and getting a little buzzed, having the edge taken off.

My advice - try some NA drinks.

Now you are a wine drinker so that might be a problem. As a beer drinker, I have done a dry February the last two years. I found the NA beers are pretty good. So now if you are drinking, you could have two beers and then just switch over and not notice much of a difference. Or alternate them.

The problem is I've heard the NA wine is terrible from my wife.

If the OP thinks he is drinking too much, I think he should cut back or stop but let me ask a question that I"m intellectually curious about that goes in the other direction.
About 6 weeks ago, I went down to my office and looked around and was like, "Jesus *****, what went on in here last night?"

I'd pounded 5-6 beers minimum as that many empties were lying around (and I wondered if I'd tossed any in the trash upstairs). While I felt great, I was a bit concerned about it.

I then thought about it though from an intellectual level and realized I had cracked my first beer at like 5 pm. I went to bed at like 1 am. So is drinking 5 beers over 8 hours really a problem? I bought a portable breathalyzer off the internet and recreated the experiment and a week later and was like never higher than 0.03 to 0.04.

Yes I know the studies say people who drink more than 3 times a week do worse than those that don't, but most people who drink a lot per week are pounding crap really quickly. Most aren't drinking one drink every 90 minutes.

Can a doc or someone tell me what we think is bad about alcohol? Is it the total amount of alcohol or is it alcohol per hour? Or both? Or something else?

This thread has been extremely informative and chalk-full of great information and suggestions. Some of which I've done in the past (without success) and others I will try.

I'm not a doc but I did recently listen to the Huberman podcast referenced above and it is loaded with information as to why alcohol is simply bad for you, really in any amount. It's a great listen for a run if you were curious to check it out. This Naked Mind also goes into the science of why alcohol is bad for you. It's not necessarily the people who drink once every 3 months but the people who drink 7-14 drinks per week or more that end up with problems.

I've gotten the wine out of the house and have a lot of NA beer leftover from my previous 30 day streak. Today is day 2, I'll check back from time to time to update everyone. Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful replies!

Day 2!! Nice work. Great thread all around and I just came back to see if you had an update. I love when OPs come back. In any thread, but with ones like this it is even better.

Good post. I agree with the parenting part. On top of it being stressful, it can be pretty boring at times. Your kid goes to bed at 730, and then you are kind of just cleaning up and waiting for your bed time. It lends itself too well to cracking open a beer. Doing laundry/dishes/cleaning?...may as well have a beer to make it entertaining. Its far too easy for that to become your routine.

casual Starbucks budget for even the lowest instagram model

To the OP: Your story is my story. I love some of the advice here, which I won’t regurgitate. I will offer two things I have not seen yet:

First, make a commitment to yourself. Write it down. Promise yourself that you are not going to drink for a set period of time. Ask close friends to help you stay accountable. But make the pledge with the same level of commitment you would to one of your kids. “I am done drinking for 39/60/90/365 days.” Just do it if for no other reason than to prove to yourself that you can.

Second, start a journal (and, if needed, therapy) to FIGURE OUT YOUR SH!T. Your drinking is not a cause, it is a symptom. You need to figure out what is causing you to default to drink so much (Depression? Bad marriage? Unresolved issues?) You can’t figure it out if you are drunk or hungover all the time. So you need step one.

People drinking 1 -2 beers a night don't often end up with health "problems". Sorry but that is mostly garbage. In fact while they are revising it and dialing it back a little bit the one to two drinks a night for men has been considered the safe amount for decades. Furthermore study after study has shown people drinking that amount live longer lives than people who did not drink it all.

Now yes it has recently been pointed out that it's hard to of course untie all the confounding factors and yes like I said there are some researchers who think the one to two drinks a night should be dialed back but.....

There is absolutely very little evidence to suggest that this amount of drinking is likely to cause some major detriment to your health. Some of the longest live people in certain societies definitely drink a glass or two of wine a day or have a beer each day with zero health issues. Now while it *may* be true even that amount of alcohol may raise your cancer risk a very very small amount there is still some belief that it could be positive for cardiovascular health.

So..... low-moderate drinking for the large majority of people is not a big risk.

So when do you think it becomes a problem?

1-2 beers 20 years ago is now equal to 3-4 beers given the higher alcohol content. Is it getting drunk 4-5 times week?

I wouldn't presume to tell anyone else (except my children) how much they should or should not be drinking, and I used to share your attitude towards drinking moderately. My own father is 99 years old and drinks every day, and my grandfather drank scotch every day until he died at 93, so anecdotally at least, I've got pretty good genes for drinking and longevity.

Unfortunately, I also seem to have a bit too strong a liking for the booze for my own good. I've moderated quite a bit over the years, but it has become all too apparent that I just function better sober than I do with even a very moderate alcohol intake. If I weren't running pretty obsessively, the downsides would not even be noticeable I suspect.

I would also note that very few people have a "couple of beers" a night for very long. Check back with most in 5 or 10 years, and that number will almost always have creeped up. It is the nature of addiction. Having been an addict with other drugs and gotten clean years ago, it is hard to overlook the many similarities between alcohol and hard drugs when it comes to behavior.

Have you figured out why you drink so much? Has alcohol always been a problem?

Please listen to the Huberman Lab podcast on alcohol as another post mentions.

I discovered the Sinclair Method and naltrexone and my life has been completely transformed. I’m the person and athlete I always wanted to be now. It has taken me 40+ years.

Please don’t be me. Good luck.