Tips and Tricks for Drinking Moderately

Abstain Monday thru Thursday and drink what I want on the weekend.

 

Two things have worked for me:

1- knowing how much I’m actually drinking, as in how many “standard drinks” I’m having (one standard drink is 12oz of 5% abv beer). Two 16 oz cans of 7.5% abv IPA is the equivalent of 4 standard drinks. A 1.5 oz. pour of 40% whiskey, which I drink from time to time, would count as one standard drink.

2- setting a number of standard drinks I allow myself per week. I set my number at 10 standard drinks. So if I have the aforementioned two pints of 7.5% abv beer on a Tuesday night, then I would have six drinks left for the week. I’ll ocassionally suspend/ignore this amount for things like vacations or the days around Christmas. But, other than those times, 10 is my limit. Honestly, I find I'm not even making it to 10 most weeks.

I really think item one is very important and something a lot of BAs are ignoring. This is part of the reason why I love lower abv beers. I like to drink volume, I don't want to sip it. I enjoy a nice barleywine every few years, but it's not something I'd drink regularly because it takes too much of my weekly limit. I recently came across a beer called "The Future is Unwritten" from Small Change. It's a 3.1% abv. dark mild. I can down three pints of that beer and it only counts as 2.5 beers for the week.

 

Already a couple great pieces of advice.

Started drinking a bit more towards the end of 2022, which has now given me a health issue as well as weight gain (probably tied to the health issue).

Went from being very fit to overweight in a matter of a couple years and consuming more alcohol obviously didn’t help.

@BigIronH has a great plan and gives you something to look forward to at the end of each week. This is something that has worked quite well in the past as far as keeping alcohol intake to a minimum and controlling weight.

 

Like anything, it’s more about changing your routine over time.

The first year of the lockdowns I would drink about 2 beers a day at home, going out was a lot less frequent than in the past. My tolerance decreased since I drank more while working (1990s-2010s).

Over the past two years I consciously switched my at home drinking to one beer per day (about once a month I’ll have two, the second with a rare late night meal). I look forward to and enjoy a single beer more than when I had 2-3 beers in a day.

Also, on brewery / bar visits, I now have about one per 45 - 60 minutes, usually 1-3 in a visit and that’s plenty. I’m good with the changes and consider myself a moderate drinker at this point. One “tip or trick” is to have a full pint of water with each beer. Will naturally slow you down, and keep you hydrated (a win win).

 

For those people that are “at home” drinking recommend keeping busy as long as possible before you have your first beer and when you normally go to bed/ stop drinking. This will condense your beer drinking timeframe and thus help reduce the opportunity for multiple beers. If you tend to over indulge at bottle shares or going out to breweries with friends, simply cut back on the frequency.

 

1. Don't drink when you're sick.
2. Don't drink when you're on prescription meds.
3. Quit drinking at least 2-3 hours before you sleep.

 

Muck like @Providence I use the standard drink calculator, which helps, I have found my weekly intake to vary anywhere between 8-11 drinks per week.

For me personally the styles I enjoy help me with this too but on top of that I'm rigid, in everything, which is good in this case but bad in others.

I have a few rules...which I tend not to break, rigidity...

1) no beer monday
2) one drink tuesday-friday (if it was a long friday once and a while two)
3) two saturday, two sunday

Something that helps me I guess is that if I go over two drinks, I almost always get a sinus headache and feel like crap. It keeps me in check on a night I may want to do one more...I'm not sure if my metabolism, my low body weight, or something else but it has helped keep me moderate so I can enjoy something that brings me a lot of joy. Being present, and enjoying each sip of beer I take...

 

I use this one: http://aodtool.cfar.uvic.ca/index-stddt.html

Not an app but you can mess with units and it allows decimals as well...

 

Good post. This is very top of mind for me currently and has been since March of 2022. For many years, I didn't eat terribly well and drank too much (2-3 beers per day and I like them strong). After a blood test which revealed elevated cholesterol and a subsequent cardiac calcium scan which revealed significant calcification (not good), it was time to cut back on beer consumption and eat healthier. Even at 52 years of age, weight wasn't an issue for me since I have always been very active. Surprisingly, eating healthy (Mediterranean diet) was more challenging than cutting back on drinking. My method for monitoring beer consumption is somewhat similar to "Providence" post. I keep track on an Excel spreadsheet each night how many drinks I had that day. I count a 12oz or 16oz beer as 1 beer each regardless of ABV and I count a 22oz bottle or 750ml bottle as 2 beers each regardless of ABV. Many people that read this may raise an eyebrow and think, wow, that is still a lot of consumption and very conservative counting. I agree, but I had to start somewhere since drinking was somewhat out of control. The amazing thing about the spreadsheet is that it keeps me on top of my beers per day average throughout the month. It makes me challenge myself some nights and just skip beer to bring down my average which makes me feel good about my efforts. I'm not having a "dry January" by any means but I'm currently on pace to have my lowest beers per day average for any month since March of last year. And I'm excited about that. Cheers!

 

Great thread idea. I certainly struggle to moderate my intake. The only thing that's worked for me when accomplishing extended breaks is sheer will power and determination. My big hang-ups are always sleep, oral fixation and sheer boredom. I'll share some tips that have helped me overcome those obstacles:

Sleep - I'm not proud to admit I often use alcohol as a crutch to help me sleep. I'm a light sleeper, always have been and beer is a surefire way to help me get to sleep (or rather, pass out). When taking breaks, I've found Melatonin (specifically liquid Melatonin, the absorption rate is faster, so you can take it right before bed and it does the trick) will at least get me to a dream state, if not full REM, which is better than staring at the ceiling. The quality of Melatonin matters though. Buy it from a reputable supplement shop/website, not the grocery store. Lower quality Melatonin tends to lead to fucked up dreams. I've also discovered GABA but haven't used it enough to determine if it works as well as melatonin. GABA is different in that it's not a full-on sleep aid, it just promotes relaxation. So the idea is to take one in the day and one at night to just keep your mind relaxed so you can get to sleep easier. More high maintenance obviously, which is why I haven't been able to form a full opinion just yet.

Oral Fixation - To me, replacing beer with N/A beer isn't really helping the issue. You're still spending money since some of the really good N/A beers are just as expensive as the "real" stuff and the goal shouldn't be substitution, it should be conditioning yourself to not "need" the fix. However, the oral fixation issue is one that's particularly strong for me, so it's sometimes necessary to employ the substitution tactic. I like the Lagunitas Hop Refreshers since IPAs are the only style I actively crave and they're not quite as pricey as some of the high end N/A beers. Also, especially this time of year, I like to make Golden Milk which is turmeric, ginger, cinnamon and a little bit of sweetener heated up in a milk alternative (I prefer oatmilk). So, if you have a particular hot beverage you like such as mulled cider, hot chocolate, chamomile tea, etc. that can curb the nagging of the oral fixation habit.

Sheer Boredom - Definitely the toughest to tackle. No magic secret here. Try reading, focusing more on a hobby, exercise more or start exercising, immerse yourself more in work but try not to replace it with work or you could become a workaholic, do some community work. Any other suggestions?

I tried @Providence 's approach a couple times of limiting myself to even 14 standard drinks a week but was unsuccessful. I kept trying to bend the rules and social outings involving alcohol would pop up after I had already drank my allotment for the week. One thing I haven't tried is @ChicagoJ 's idea of a full pint of water with every drink. I heard way back that, if you do that, you won't get too inebriated no matter how much you drink, and it certainly would slow me down at the very least. Maybe I'll give that a shot.

 

Outside of abstaining from alcohol, this consumption habit change has produced the most positive benefit to my sleep and recovery.

It also works nicely to limit your consumption, i.e. if you have a set bed time, you can only consume so many beers in the window between returning home from work, and your 2-3 hour sober period before bed.

 

What really helped me was tracking my drinking in terms of US Standard drinks (12oz of 5% beer) and being intentional about trying to stay under the 'heavy' drinking limits (for a man, 4 drinks in a day, 14 total in a week).
I made a spreadsheet to track my daily/weekly drinking. Average daily drinks over the course of the year, how many days with no drinks, etc.

With the ABVs in craft beer, and often large package sizes (pint cans, stovepipes, bombers, 750s), it's easy to drink more than you realize. At least in terms of standard drinks.

 

When you say "Very Fit" does that mean that you were actively working out or you sayin you just weren't what you are now?

Working out regularly helps offset all of that weight gain immensely. I know not everybody can do lift weight and do intense cardio , but thats what i do to maintain specific Weight. ,

Building Muscle mass also helps keep your body less susceptible to injurys which is great as you age.

Hope ya can cut the beer and get back to where you were before!