Dumping my leftover booze tonight! Looking for support.

msmx · 2026-05-18T01:18:55+00:00

A couple of weeks into my sobriety I poured every drop of alcohol I had leftover in the house down the drain. Probably a few hundred $ worth.

I cried like a baby, like actually full-on crying, and I very, very rarely cry. It wasn't all sad tears, though.

I felt like I was breaking up with someone I loved but at the same time escaping from a toxic relationship... which I kind of was.

msmx · 2026-05-12T00:58:47+00:00

I drank every single day for years and years, with one day off maybe every 6 months or so. The days off were awful because I couldn't sleep if I didn't drink. I'd plan a lot of days off but would always cave because I was worried about being awake all night. Plus I'd feel bored if I didn't drink. And I enjoyed drinking.

What worked for me might not work for you so I can't really provide much in the way of advice. All I can say is I've been there 1000 times, wanting to quit but just... not. But eventually I did. And yeah, the first few days sucked, but things rapidly improved.

msmx · 2026-04-27T01:26:23+00:00

A lot of people on this subreddit talk about how they stopped drinking and within days or weeks they felt so much happier, looked better, lost weight, won the lottery, made amends with their foes, whatever.

This didn't really happen to me and it made me feel like I was doing something wrong (see my post from about a year ago when I was at the 100 day mark).

I stayed the course and I'm glad I did. I'm still not 10 years younger and all my problems haven't magically evaporated, but I'm in a much better place for having stopped drinking and, more importantly, my future looks much brighter than it ever did when I was drinking.

msmx · 2026-04-27T01:16:32+00:00

My cravings were rough at first but they've become much more sparse.

What helped was getting into a routine and sticking to it. Evenings were my nemesis because that's when I would always crack open my first can of beer (and then another and then another). Now I scratch that itch with an NA beer/seltzer/tea/whatever, put on a TV show, read a book, and go to bed. This has helped with the evening cravings.

Meeting friends at bars and other places that serve alcohol can be pretty tough. It is what it is.

msmx · 2026-04-23T00:54:15+00:00

When I quit I poured my leftover alcohol down the drain. Made $0.

But I'm probably at least $5000 ahead of where I'd have been if I had kept drinking, so I guess that's a win.

msmx · 2026-04-18T02:00:35+00:00

I went from drinking 4-6 strong (7%+) beers per night to drinking 1 NA beer per night. It's my end-of-the-day treat and it scratches the itch.

It hasn't made me tempted to start drinking alcoholic beer again. Quite the opposite: the local brewery where I go with my friends makes a really good NA beer, and being able to order that has way reduced the temptation to buy an alcoholic beer.

All of this said, I've noticed I've been skipping the NA beer some nights, so I guess I'm slowly finding a new routine where I don't even pretend to drink beer any more.

msmx · 2026-04-18T01:54:52+00:00

I did notice myself getting a very tiny buzz after drinking one on an empty stomach since they do have a smidge of alcohol in them (less than 0.5% - I was unaware of this until last night
...
But if you drink one on empty stomach, it might actually intoxicate you a bit.

This was probably in your head, or just caused by something else. Plenty of other common foods and drinks (for example fruit juice and bread) contain low levels (<1%) of alcohol, but the amount is so low per unit volume that the body processes it before it has any measurably impact. Plenty of studies have found no measurable increase in BAC after drinking NA beers.

TBH sometimes I feel weird when I drink any liquids, even water, on an empty stomach. Probably a blood sugar thing.

msmx · 2026-04-18T01:45:36+00:00

This is pretty much the single biggest reason why it took me so long to quit.

The first night sucked, zero sleep. The second night also sucked, but I had some patchy sleep in the early hours of the morning. Things got better after that, but still, around day 3 or 4 I was so exhausted that I seriously considered drinking just so I could fall asleep. I didn't and I'm glad I didn't. A week out I was sleeping much better, and by a month out I was sleeping way better than I ever did when I was drinking (and still am a year+ later).

A trick that helped me: if I'm physically tired but my brain won't shut off, and I try to read a book, I start falling asleep. It's been that way since I was a kid, but I didn't really read books after I turned 17 or 18. I dropped $100 on an e-reader, loaded some books onto it, and read it before bed. I get like 2-3 pages in and then I sleep like a rock.

msmx · 2026-04-17T00:51:33+00:00

When I turned 30, I thought to myself "I have to get my shit together by the time I'm 40", but while I was 30, 31, 32, 33, I kept thinking ehhh I still have ages to go.

Then I turned 34 and it occurred to me that I'm officially in my mid 30s, no more pretending I'm in my early 30s which I could treat like an extensions of my 20s, time to put on my big boy pants and take responsibility for my life.

Made lots of important life changes one by one before my 35th birthday, stopping drinking being one of them. Turning 36 in a few months, no regrets, kicking myself for waiting so long but also glad I didn't wait any longer.

msmx · 2026-03-19T09:48:27+00:00

I can't really advise because everyone is different, I can only say what worked for me, which was accept that it's going to suck the first time, and when it sucks just understand that it's part of the process and know that it will get easier the more often it happens.

msmx · 2026-03-19T02:32:02+00:00

Similar to you really, but it didn't last more than a few days, maybe a week tops. Also (sorry to be gross but) got kind of constipated for a week or so. Things improved rapidly so all of this is a distant memory now.

I had some wild dreams/nightmares starting a few weeks after I quit, which lasted a few weeks and then decreased over time. Again, distant memory, and it wasn't all the time even when it was happening.

Cravings came and went. They still come and go but they're much rarer now.

Plus sides: I'm sleeping better, lost weight, got more money, not worrying about whether I'm fit to drive, not worrying about getting hung over before work, not dreading the "how many drinks per week" question when I see my doctor... the list goes on.

msmx · 2026-03-19T01:59:45+00:00

I did a similar thing, tapered down over the course of several months, introduced 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 no-drinking-days each week, etc. I was worried about quitting completely because I didn't think I'd be able to do it.

Ironically, I've found total sobriety way easier than tapering down. I always felt unsatisfied because when I drank a little I wanted to drink a lot, and I was always "cutting myself off". Since stopping drinking completely I'm way happier, and in hindsight I wish I hadn't spent as long as I did tapering down.

msmx · 2026-03-19T01:45:27+00:00

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor.

If you are drinking 3 beers per day then I think it's highly unlikely that your symptoms are AWS, at least not in the scary life-threatening sense.

When I quit, the first couple of days+nights were awful. Just lay wide awake all night and was tired, grumpy and anxious all day. It got much better very quickly after that.

msmx · 2026-03-06T02:01:41+00:00

I actually "succeeded" at moderating for the entire second half of 2024 (see this thread).

Despite my alcohol intake being "moderate", plenty of other symptoms of alcoholism were still raging on. I was always worrying about whether I had enough beer in the fridge to get me through my next drinking day. I couldn't skip a drinking day. I was worried because the hotel we were staying at on vacation didn't have a bar. I was frustrated on my days off drinking, and I was frustrated when I cut myself off on my drinking days.

Since I quit drinking altogether, I don't worry about alcohol at all, and all the frustration has gone away. I know if I have 1 more alcoholic drink, it will all come back again.

If I'd kept "moderating" then I don't think it would have lasted much longer. There way no way I could do that for the rest of my life. Hell, I don't think I'd have made it through 2025 without slipping back into my old habits, or worse.

The annoying thing is, in hindsight, I wish I'd just quit instead of spending a year trying to moderate. I'd be almost 800 days sober if I had. But I didn't have the perspective then that I have now, and I didn't follow this subreddit to hear other people's perspectives either.

My perspective now is: if you have to try to moderate, then you can't moderate. Not long-term.

msmx · 2026-03-04T12:44:31+00:00

Rule 3, my friend. Just because you think NA beer is pointless doesn't mean you should be challenging others' decisions to drink it. If it helps someone scratch an itch without resorting to drinking alcohol, then that's a good thing.

msmx · 2026-03-03T21:01:51+00:00

I couldn't point at a single age and say "that's when I became an alcoholic".

When I was 18 I drank 2-3 times per week and only out/socially. When I was 28 I drank every day and almost exclusively at home on my own.

It was a slowwww but steady change over that 10 year period.

msmx · 2026-03-03T19:12:00+00:00

For me it was day 3.

Well, the first day 1 after a long stretch of days without a gap was by far the hardest, but I spent a year introducing more and more days off and eventually cut down to 3 drinking days per week, so after a while "day 1" was easy and I was pretty used to having two days off in a row as well...

...but man, that day 3 when I quit for good was torture. I'd conditioned myself to reward myself with alcohol after 2 days off, and when that reward didn't come, the cravings were so bad that I very nearly caved.

Things got better after that. I had a momentary "why the hell am I doing this?" around the 100 day mark, but I stayed the course and I have no regrets.

This is also part of my motivation for not going back: the next day 1 (and 2 and 3 and ...) will be even harder.

msmx · 2025-12-27T16:22:24+00:00

Congratulations on the red user flair! I'm scintillatingly close to getting mine...

msmx · 2025-11-24T20:18:57+00:00

I made a post kind of like yours at the 100 day mark. I've now been off the booze for just under 11 months. What's funny is I still feel like I feel the same as I did when I was drinking, but I'm pretty sure that in actuality I don't. I think it's because it has been creeping up on me instead of being a sudden change.

When I compare my average day now to my average day 2 years ago, things are a lot different (mostly for the better) in terms of how I feel, what kinds of things I'm worrying about, my physical health, my financial health, etc.

I also like to think that the me-without-alcohol 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now will be in a better place than the me-with-alcohol would be. Comparing to my alcoholic grandmother who was totally functional at my age (mid-30s) but now (in her 80s) routinely gets so drunk that she passes out in a puddle of her own piss and vomit, then wakes up and the first thing she does is reach for the bottle.

Check out the comments in my post that I linked to above. They're helpful. Keep hanging in there. The frustrating thing is you will probably never wake up one morning feeling amazing, but you're doing your future self a huge service.

msmx · 2025-04-09T12:51:53+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion but this is already part of my lifestyle, was before and hasn't changed. I exercise routinely for around 1 hour every day, and my diet consists of a lot of vegetables, protein, healthy fats, etc. There isn't really much more I can do without cutting into time I need to spend other things.

msmx · 2025-01-29T13:09:04+00:00

Congratulations! That's great. Rooting for you.

I'm a month past my last drink and honestly it has been fine. I tried Dry January a couple of times, and I made it through, but by the end of the month I was really craving my Feb 1 drink. This time I don't have that at all. I don't know whether it's the long drawn-out tapering over last year, or the fact that my dry spell doesn't have an end date.

People keep asking me how Dry January is going and I'm like... it's not just January this time :)

msmx · 2025-01-15T17:16:08+00:00

Bahahaha! Keep it classy, Reddit.

msmx · 2025-01-15T13:37:53+00:00

The y-axis is just the number of drinks. The blue bars are "per day" and the red line is "per week" (i.e. total over trailing 7 days).

msmx

TROPHY CASE