Hi all,
It's a strange thing coming around to the realization that I am an addict and need to make changes. My story:
I'm 51, self employed, married 27 years with 2 kids (24yo special needs son, 20yo son).
10 months ago I quit smoking cold turkey. Was a pack a day man for 30 years. Tried to quit half heartedly a few times before, but last quit was motivated by a bet with my 20yo old son to get him to quit smoking too (it worked). It was hard but I was motivated.
So in the last 10 months I've gained about 25 pounds - partly due to the quitting smoking (I'm hungry all the time since I quit) and partly because of getting older and also liking my home cooking. And likely my drinking....
I hit 250 lbs a few weeks ago. I'm over 6'0" and doctor said I would feel much better being down around 200lbs. I started to get a stomach and noticed it one day getting ready for a fundraiser and my dress shirt was tight. Also I was starting to dislike looking in the mirror at myself without a shirt on. I just had a bigger 'beer gut.
Long story short I decide I need to get my weight under control. Rather than dieting I decide I need to make a lifestyle change so I hit the internet and start looking up men over 50 (sigh, I feel old now) weight management. Aside from realizing that i need to start looking at portion sizes, cutting out snacks and looking at total calories, I keep reading about the amount of calories in alcohol. So is start researching alcohol and it effects, then alcohol and quitting drinking, etc.
I downloaded myfitnesspal and started to log my caloric intake. A bit of an eye opener. I never thought about how much calories were involved in beer. Some days i'm drinking over 1000 calories of beer. So if I want to lose weight I'm gonna have to do something about my beer drinking as well.
Cutting out that bag of potato chip at nights was easy (although I do miss those ketchup flavoured chips). Cutting out beer though......
So I was drinking between 3 and 9 beers a day. Mostly light beer that I could drink like it was water. Although I'd alternate with a premium honey brown ale which I usually drank less when I did buy it. Some weekends in the summer doing yard work or whatnot I could go through a 24 case easy. But I didn't think I had a drinking problem. If we were out and about I could go all day without a drink and not think about it. And most evenings I would stop drinking by about 8pm. The occasional scotch and amaretto on the rocks in the evening, or maybe a glass of wine. I also never had more than 1 drink if I was to be driving anywhere (driving as part of my work forced me to be responsible with no drinking and driving - otherwise no income).
My drinking increased about 10 years ago. It became daily. Heck some days my first beer would be at 11am if I was out doing yard work. I would have the rare days I would not drink. In a week there was probably an average of 2 days where my drinks were less than 3.
It was rare for me to be 'drunk'. Worst was the lack of energy and the wanting to go to bed earlier. Last hangover I had was in the spring when visiting family in Europe and I drank way too much Vodka in celebration with my cousins.
So, in trying to lose some weight I am faced with the reality of my alcohol use - wow I really do have a problem with how much I'm drinking.
So 2 weeks ago I decide i'm going to cut down. I decide that for the short term I won't buy beer for home. Everything I read suggest there may be withdrawal, so for a week I dri
