The Alcohol Free Social Life!

I have come across two main groups of people who have alcohol problems. One group needs and even wants to give up alcohol forever. They realise that even just one sip can lead to continued over-drinking and they cannot keep or stick to limits.

Another group is the opposite and wants to enjoy drinking alcohol but just not to overdo it - i.e. to moderate their drinking and stay in control.

If you are in this group, then I would like to refer you to the HAMS website - Harm Reduction For Alcohol. They have a Moderate Drinking Cheat Sheet with 14 strategies for controlling your drinking.

The Strategies:

1. Eat before you drink
2. Be well hydrated
3. Plan and schedule your drinking
4. Plan your transportation
5. Choose your buzz
6. Measure your drinks
7. Count and chart your drinks
8. Pace your drinks
9. Alternate your drinks
10. Choose your drinks
11. Avoid pre-drinking
12. Avoid drinking when you feel bad
13. Have a snack instead
14. Do an abstinence period
15. Get support

The web-page goes into more detail for each point with some specific advice on how to achieve moderation so you can still enjoy drinking without going overboard. Please go here for more information:

http://hamsnetwork.org/mods/

Reviewing it again, there is some good information on this page for each point with some handy tips so please review once more for you to control your drinking.

In this post, I want to refer you to a website created by a beer company. Now this might seem strange as you would think they would want you to drink as much as possible.

However, the company SAB Miller has created a website with information on the effects of alcohol on your body and also how to drink moderately.

There is some interesting information here with some diagrams of what happens when you actually have a drink. How does your body react and what affect does it have on various parts of your body? Find out here:

http://www.talkingalcohol.com/index.asp?pageid=68

Click on the arrow where it says see what happens to be given a tour through the body when you have a drink.

There are also some pdfs on alcohol and its effect on your heart, liver etc so it is worth checking it out for more information.

In the meantime, I have been working on the bonus for the 2010 Alcohol course on one of the main causes of alcohol problems - boredom. I have interviewed an academic professor who has investigated what is called habitual boredom where people seem to have lost their purpose or drive in life. One of the ways of dealing with the pain and numbness this causes is with alcohol. More on this to come but something for you to consider about why you might be drinking too much.

This is one of the most worrying aspects of the long-term effects of alcohol. Tonight, I have just completed the bonus e-book on Brain Fitness and Alcohol which will be available soon with the 2010 Alcohol course. Some of the things I learnt were worrying to say the least. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel because the scientist I spoke to in order to create the section detailed the specific things heavy drinkers can do to develop their ‘brain fitness’ in the long-term. I will let you know when it is available.

In the meantime though, here is a YouTube question where a Doctor from the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory University is asked whether drinking alcohol can cause brain damage. Find out what he has to say:

If you have been drinking too much, I would like to ask you to think about why it is that you are drinking too much.

Is it for the following reasons:

Boredom

Low Self-Esteem

Work/Stress

Money Worries

Relationship Issues

Habit of Drinking

Grief

Other Issues

 It is very important to work out what are the underlying causes of your alcohol drinking. In some cases, this is more important than just focusing on the actual alcohol drinking. Often, just changing your routine or who you spend a lot of time with, will automatically deal with the alcohol problem.

Tomorrow, I will hopefully be meeting the author of a book on moods and managing your moods. I am hoping to feature her material in the new version of the alcohol course I am working on. Now, she says in order to improve your mood - which is a key reason for drinking alcohol - to change your mood - there are five elements you can look to.

Surroundings, your physical health, relationships, what you know and being yourself and expressing yourself are keys to making a difference. I went to a workshop with her where she said someone was depressed but as soon as they changed their home, the depression suddenly disappeared.

Certainly something like doing regular physical exercise (as long as you check with your medical practitioner you are ok to start beforehand) cannot but help to get you automatically feeling better about yourself and hopefully less likely to reach for a drink.

Relationships is a simple one - there are some people with whom it is seemingly impossible not to be able to spend time without drinking or others who almost cause you to need to drink!

Competence in yourself and what you can do - creates confidence as I have been told. Alcohol can be a way of dealing with the emotional pain of not being good enough, so investing in your skill-set and expertise might be a way of overcoming these feelings.

Expressing yourself in my view has something to do with doing what you love. If you have to conform to something you are not really invested in, then you are not going to feel good. Alcohol may dampen the pain in the short run but only by making big changes will you be able to start feeling better about your life. It can be a scary thing to contemplate which is why the alcohol is a nice way of dealing with this. But the side-effects and the long-term price you are paying is a high one.

So, please look deeply into why you are drinking too much and also whether you can make some changes which might have an immediate and almost automatic effect on your drinking.

I came across this very interesting publication from the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK about alcohol and how many units of alcohol you might be drinking:

http://www.tinyurl.com/ydu49ws

It is a booklet which helps you to work out how many units of alcohol you are drinking, goes into some of the effects of excessive drinking and then gives some great advice on how to moderate your drinking. Here are their Top 10 tips for balancing your drinking.

Drinking and you:

10 ways to find the balance

1 Decide how many units you want to drink in an evening – and stick with it.

2 Reduce your units by choosing drinks that are not so strong.

3 Avoid ‘top-ups’ so you can keep track of your units.

4 Drink water before you go out. Then drink either water or a soft drink between each alcoholic drink.

5 Eat before you go out and while you are drinking.

6 If you think you may be drinking a bit much, set aside specific days in the week when you do not drink.

7 If you spend all your money on drink, take out less cash. Leave the credit cards at home.

8 Before you go out, think about how you are going to get home. If you are in a group, designate a nondrinking driver. Otherwise take a licensed taxi.

9 Don’t drink in rounds as you’ll tend to drink more.

10 Try not to go out too often with friends who drink heavily.

So this is a great resource for finding out clearly how many units you are drinking, what are the recommended safe limits and then what you can do about reducing your excessive drinking.

I would like to include this interesting video from YouTube about real-life women and their alcohol problems. What is interesting here is how common some of these drinking issues are and most importantly how some of these problems start and continue gradually. 

Here is the description of the video from the Research Channel on YouTube:

This program by the National Institues of Health features narratives of seven women recovering from problems with alcohol. These stories make it clear that it’s possible to miss danger signs and that social drinking can become problem drinking, which in turn can evolve into addiction. Abuse and alcoholism are often perceived as problems that only affect men, but alcoholism has been on the rise among women for the last 30 years.

Although I don’t necessarily agree with the term alcoholism - heavy drinking or alcohol addiction I believe are better words - because they can be broken and are in your control to deal with, I still think this video raises some important life stories and challenges.

Now you may have decided to give up alcohol for some period of time and as someone who now no longer drinks alcohol you might be wondering what to drink when you go out with your friends to a bar or club.

There are the perennial favourites- coke/pepsi or lemonade. However your teeth can really start to feel it after a few of these plus you might want to consider healthier options. And one of them is alcohol free cocktails.

I first thought about this when I wanted to go to a Chiquitos restaurant in London. This is a chain of Mexican style food joints. They are mid-range level so not the cheapest and not the most exclusive of places but quite nice.

I was looking at their menu and noticed firstly on their drinks menu they had a whole section on alcohol free cocktails but also they were half the price of normal cocktails. Everything from the Cancun Sunset - Apple juice and grapefruit juice with grenadine to Playa del Paradiso - cranberry, passionfruit, pineapple and grapefruit juices with lemonade.

Then when I went to a really funky bar in the City district of London, the bartender made an amazing alcohol free cocktail using 7 or 8 different ingredients, shaking it etc. It tasted awesome.

The great thing also if you order alcohol free cocktails, no one will even know that they have no alcohol so you are saved from questions about why you are not drinking etc.

If you however want to make your own alcohol free cocktails at home or for your own parties, here are some delicious recipes:

http://alturl.com/7mom

So, on top of alcohol free beers - most bars in London I goto now offer at least one alcohol free beer, alcohol free cocktails offer a great alternative to coke and other drinks. Plus they help you get your share of 5 fruit and vegetable servings a day!

Today, I would like to point you out to a great website called www.giveupdrinking.co.uk

They have a focus on 50 ways to leave your lager and a lot of great free information and tips on being able to cut down on drinking.

Here are their suggestions on what to do if you want to completely cut out alcohol but are finding it difficult:

Getting professional help
Detox
Use prescribed drugs
Try herbal treatments
Complementary therapies
Rehabilitation and residential treatment centres
Take a blood test
Enlist the help of friends and family
Let prescribed medications take effect
Are stress and anxiety some of your triggers?
Join Alcoholics Anonymous
Buy some self-help books
Don’t isolate yourself – get help in the index

Some of these suggestions are straightforward whereas others might be new to you. You can find more detail about each of these points at the following link:

http://giveupdrinking.co.uk/helptogiveupdrinking.php

Although some of the advice is UK based the principles of course apply worldwide so it is worth looking at. There are also other sections on just cutting down, addressing and admitting your problem and then starting to think positively to gain control of your life.

Here is a good short video showing you exactly what happens when you take a sip of alcohol. What does your body do to process the alcohol you drink? It may surprise you that your body treats alcohol as a poison. Please watch this 1 minute video to find out more:

I would like to point you to the UK site Drinkaware.co.uk which has an excellent page on the effects of alcohol on you. For each particular effect they have a fact sheet which you can either read online or download.

In this blog post, we will focus on alcohol and heart disease.

http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/factsheets/alcohol-and-heart-disease

Here is some of the information about the specific effects of drinking too much alcohol on your heart. The page is interesting because it also focuses on the frequently quoted articles in the media about glasses of red wine being good for your heart.

Drinking too much has the following effects on the heart:

• ‘Holiday heart’ syndrome. Binge drinking or a period of heavy alcohol consumption can cause a sudden, irregular rhythm of the heart in apparently healthy people. This results in shortness of breath, changes in blood pressure and an increase in the risk of a heart attack and even sudden death.

• An increased risk of thrombosis (blood clotting). Alcohol can affect levels of a substance in the blood called homocysteine. High homocysteine levels increase the risk of blood vessel blockages.

• Increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension). According to the Department of Health, men who regularly consume more than eight alcohol units a day are four times more likely to develop high blood pressure. Women who regularly consume more than six alcohol units a day double their risk of developing high blood pressure. People who’ve had a heart attack may be at greater risk of developing high blood pressure or further damage to the heart muscle as a result of drinking alcohol.

• Regular heavy drinking may lead to enlargement of the heart.  This is a sign that the heart is unable to pump effectively. This condition is known as heart failure, and requires treatment consisting of drugs, a pacemaker or even a heart transplant. The condition is not curable.

Please visit this page for more general effects of alcohol on you.

http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/effects-of-alcohol-2

Being better informed will help you with your decision to cut down or quit drinking overall.