What times did you drink?

[retronoodle]

This might be embarrassing to answer here, or even tough to think about, but I was just wondering how similar my experience is to others. .

[Tina73]

After 8pm usually. Once in a great while before, but not too often. I would usually start at 8pm and stop whenever I ran out, and if I ran out before midnight, I would con my husband into going to the store and get me more.

Not hard to answer at all. No one judges any one here. I found that out my first week on this site. I slipped and people gave the courage and strength to try again.

I'm dealing with my stressers as best as I can and I make sure I don't go to the store any time around 8 pm. I just had to (had no choice, had to go) go by the store to pick my son up and had my husband go with me. He knows I'm trying this time and I felt more comfortable with him with me. I wanted to stop at the store, but not enough to actually stop or even ask my husband to stop. It felt pretty good.

[Ella Fant]

they didn't really have my category: late afternoon/early evening before dinner.

[jean]

Same. The second I got home from work at 6ish. Before dinner.

[Steve]

24 hours a day at the end which was the last two to three years of my drinking. It is evil crap. It starts out here and their than sucks you in to a couple days a week. Next, were drinking every night. Stuff mounts and we cross the line. Life pressures push us over that line and we consume to keep the anxiety away causing even more drinking. It is a bipolar roller coaster ride.

steve

[spirit]

Only to be honest.............It's 5 o'clock somewhere. I would wake up to a beer on the weekends to get rid of the downbuzz from the nite before. Of course, once I have the first drink, there's no more cutting myself off. I think you know what I mean.

[Charlie]

I drank when i was out to dinner or out at night

[Freya]

Last four or so years (it's a total blur, and I'm not even sure of the years), I drank around the clock. It was the first thing I did in the morning, pour myself a big tumblerful of vodka and coke, probably seven to ten units of vodka in the glass. My life was: drink 4 hours, sleep 4 hours, drink 4 hours, etc, etc, etc.

It started with wine with water after work, to chill out and get down to earth again after working workaholically during the day, fuelled by cigarettes and coffee and not much else. The water I added directly to the wine, because in the beginning I got drunk too fast, and my goal was not to get drunk, but to just calm down.

The whole process took about 13 years....the progress, I mean.

And now I just love my sober life. It's beyond awesome, even when it is difficult. Because I'm LIVING. I wasn't living when I was drinking. I was in some kind of mental torture chamber that I willingly entered because I did not know how to handle the outside world. Even the very "innocent" drinking that I did in the beginning gradually made me less and less able to handle the real world. Which made the need to flee it so much greater.

One big trap. Damn hard to escape. But when you do, you don't want to ever go back.

[Gemini]

My favourite time was early afternoon, I would look forward to taking a day or half day off work, buy myself munchies and plenty of wine and go home and drink by myself. I would drink with wild abandon, slugging it down as fast as I could. I loved drinking alone at home, I preferred it to any other time or place. I would think deeply and I would start off feeling great and buzzed but by mid afternoon I would get maudlin and I could feel a deep sadness within me, sometimes I would cry myself to sleep. Great Fun:eek::D

[Norma]

I think it was the times I was drinking that finally proved to me that I was fooling myself if I thought I was a normal drinker. By the time I quit I would drink all night on Fridays night but would be so bad with the guilt and anxiety when I woke up I began drinking what ever wine was left in the fridge the next morning just to calm me down. I cringe when I picture myself sitting in the living room at 8am on a Saturday with a huge glass of wine hidden at the side of the sofa in case my daughter saw it. Of course I was only topping up from the night before and it would go to my head straight away. Then hubby would get up all happy and cheerfull saying "OK whats the plan for the day". How I wanted to ignore him and climb back into bed. I dont ever ever want to go back to those days. Eyes forward

[AnnieBodie]

5 p.m. onwards is my time. If I can make it without drinking to dinner (7-8) I don’t feel like it any more.

[Doodlebug!]

reported as spam

[staunchally]

I used to do it every day. After work, on days off I would wait until sometime in the afternoon. Then I thought, "This is too much". So I just did it on days off. But that means from morning until night, 12 hours straight or more. I felt horrible the rest of the week. So it has to stop. I want to enjoy my days off, not "forget" them. So I'm going to begin making changes.

[Hopey]

workdays - from the moment i got in the door till i fell into bed (usually sloshed)

weekends - here's crazy rationalization for you. i could drink beer from noon on cuz bbq's start around noon, but could only drink my favorite wine or something else after 4pm. but i drank allllllll day from noon on on weekends, usually.

insane thinking eh ??

yeah.

glad that's over.

[Penwin]

when I was lonesome

[Hilikus]

Week nights, around 7pm (game time).
Weekends - If their was a English soccer match on, 11am I was at the bar pounding a pint with breakfast.

[greengirl32]

Usually around 4pm, I'd start. Every now and then (rarely) I'd have a beer with lunch and then have 2-3 more, then take a nap before H came home. I didn't like drinking alone because I felt like I had a problem if I did that :)

[imaguy2]

I started out drinking socially on weekend nights in college, but that soon progressed to the point where I was drinking 24 hours a day. Once you hit that point where you are drinking in the morning, you never ever can look at alcohol the same way because your relationship with it has become so utterly unhealthy.

If you were in the same position I was, please register here and start a quit journal, I manged to pull out of the vicious cycle, and so can you.

[SkiCPA]

Last drink would be at 4 or 5 in the morning, after waking up with a headache. I'd down a big gulp of vodka and eat a snack and go back to bed, getting up around 9 AM. Then, I would start again as soon as I got done working, around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Weekends, I'd start earlier, maybe right after lunch. Back in those days, I'd usually pass out around 10 or 11 PM. Of course, I was taking sleeping pills on top of booze as well.

[Ridiculi]

I drank from 6-7pm on, till I passed out, on work nights. On weekends I would try not to start until early evening but that rarely happened. I would usually give in during the early afternoon and drink until really late. Much later than work nights.
-God what a waste of a weekend. :mad:

[Tree.]

Last drink was before I passed out, so whatever that time was.
wake up slug a few beers, goto work, 3 or 4 at lunch, get home
repeat.

Sad but true:eek:

[imaguy2]

Of course, I was taking sleeping pills on top of booze as well.

During my last year drinking I was having severe sleeping problems because of my alcoholism. I wasn't taking sleeping pills necessarily, but I started taking the maximum recommended amount of Benadryl a day, all at once, while drinking much too much vodka. I remember it would drug me up that much more, but I was able to fall asleep. When I stopped taking the Benadryl, I had to drink that much more to just fall asleep, otherwise I lay in bed for hours, drunk, but not drunk enough to fall asleep. Between that, and all the aspirin I would take before going to bed, it must have been absolute hell on my organs. I remember feeling dull pains in my sides where I figured my liver and pancreas were. I'm really glad it cleared up after I quit.

[Pickle]

It began with the odd 4 cans of lager a couple of nights a week and progressed over the years to a cycle of drinking lots of wine of an evening, waking up feeling like death, full of remorse that I didn't remember what I had said or who if anybody I'd upset. I then wouldn't drink that day as I felt too ill to. In the end I'd wake up feeling crap, go to work still drunk or call in sick, swear I wouldn't do it to myself again and be drinking again that night. I'd do this for up to three nights by which time my body just couldn't take anymore and I'd have to stop for a day....as soon as I felt better I'd repeat it all again.... TRAGIC!!! Worse was my ability to lie to myself and convince myself it wasn't that bad.....argh.....it was a living hell :mad:

[Artoo]

I drink every single day. It's the first thing I do after work. If I am playing a cricket match I down a couple before the game. Otherwise I am at the pub wasting my hard earned money.

On weekends it varies, but I often start at 10. I actually feel like starting earlier, but I think to myself that that would mean I have a problem, and I don't have one of those. Yeah Right.

[Hoots]

It really depends on what is going on, if I had a social event at 8am where there was beer and I did not have to work that day...party was on. If I got off work at 10pm then the party was on. If I had to work in the morning several days in a row then I would not drink as much or I would not drink at all but if I had 4 days off the party was on for 4 days.

Hoots

[Gardengirl]

I drank in the morning if I had nothing going on that day, or it was the weekend. I drank beer, usually. I usually drank instead of eating.

Since I found this site, there's been only one day I drank in the morning...at the county fair. Of course...it was before I left. :rolleyes:

Weirdly enough, I would drink in the morning, but the amounts weren't that great. I usually wouldn't drink more than six beers in the 10-12 hours that are in the day. But I remember evenings being terrible. Just terrible. Tired, sick, guilty, vague feelings of dread and anxiety that wouldn't go away no matter what I tried to do to fix it.

I think I was using it as a food substitute, to calm me down, to keep me mellow all day long. Very strange way to deal with life, isn't it?

I'm writing again in this thread to put this in my head because today we're hosting a party at noon, and my husband is providing boatloads of alcohol. Newcastle, miller lite, red wine, white wine. The party will start at 12:30 pm. All Catholics.

Unbelievable situation, and one I used to relish, but today it just seems difficult and weird, and like something I still want to do but I also don't want to do it...if that makes sense. :(

[Shining Star]

If hubby was around, I would wait until dinner, then have wine. Then fill up my glass with the 'secret' second bottle so it looked like I was only having one glass. :rolleyes:

If hubby was not home, a couple vodka and sodas when the kids came home from school, in my water bottle so they won't know. Then have a cup of coffee when hubby got home, so he won't smell the booze.

Drank until bed. I would go to bed before hubby so he didn't see how drunk I was (we have seperate tv areas).

Enough of that crap!

[DiggerDave]

Soon as I had finished work, then start around noon at the wkends (always had one eye on the clock, aware that Goooood Drinkin' Time was slipping by). I Used to brew my own country wines, elderberry, blackberry, rhubarb, etc. and one summer I was out of work and would drank a couple of bottles a day, all day and most days. That didn't scare me enough. But this sunday gone, sitting in the sun, alone, pouring down the ummpteenth untasted can, it occurred to me how just how simple life would be if I could spend ALL my days just drinking...

Which is why I ended up here, thank heavens.

[George]

if i was employed i had to keep the drinking to the weekend, fri night, sat & sun. i'd start the day with beer in the morning and progress to vodka or whiskey at night.

i often called in sick at the beginning of the next week in order to continue drinking, usually just monday & tuesday.

at my worst i was unemployed and drinking vodka full time, 2 liters a day. drink for a few hours, then pass out for a few hours.. repeat.

i'm now 28 and have been sober for 3 months and 10 days.

[Icarus]

When working from home I'd down between 8 - 12 5% ciders or beers a day probably with a huge glass of wine or two chucked into the mix. If I ended up going out clubbing stack another 6 or 7 pints of beer on top of that. I knew I had to stop when I was using glasses of wine in the morning to get myself back on a footing for the day. I never drank before going in to work but it was only a matter of time.

[snivi]

often in the truck on the way home from the store I stopped off at after work.

[wame]

when I first started drinking I would just drink at night and not every night.

But during my divorce, I remember being totally hung over one day and there was a ton of beer left over. So I snuck one in the laundry room---where my young son and my estranged husband would not notice. I downed it. Lucky for me it eased the awful hangover....Unlucky for me, it was the beginning of my downward spiral.....I never had a hangover again without easing out of one with what was leftover from the night before.....

So, in the final years of my drinking, I would always have a supply for the next day and my hangover....very sick existence but at least I was finally able to see the hell that my drinking life became....

[Stubborn Canuck]

I would "treat" myself to a before dinner drink while preparing the meal.

This seemingly civilized ritual turned into cramming whatever I could shove down before my husband came home with my eye always on the garage to I could hide bottles and glasses from him.

Sometimes I would have some wine in the afternoon and if sleeping badly, I'd have some big tumblers full of wine while watching TV in bed.

[Bridgit]

I have been on unemployment for a couple months so I would wake up and drink whatever beer left in the case from the night before...that creates a vicious cycle. So whenever I felt like it lately, but before that at night after work.

[scoochie]

after a period of abstinence i could start just on social occasions, then only on one night on the weekend...progressing to two nights on the weekend....progressing to two nights on the weekend plus sunday....progressing to add every second weeknight....progressing to everynight....progressing to most recently all of the above plus waking up on sunday morning really early and getting drunk again before my wife woke up and going back to bed when she got up and spending the rest of the day in bed.....what a waste of my life.....need to stop

[loves2read]

after a period of abstinence i could start just on social occasions, then only on one night on the weekend...progressing to two nights on the weekend....progressing to two nights on the weekend plus sunday....progressing to add every second weeknight....progressing to everynight....progressing to most recently all of the above plus waking up on sunday morning really early and getting drunk again before my wife woke up and going back to bed when she got up and spending the rest of the day in bed.....what a waste of my life.....need to stop

Hey Scoopy......I'll do it with you.

I only drank in the evening before dinner. Usually after I ate dinner I wouldn't drink anything. Sometimes I would have another glass of wine, but usually not. Doesn't mean I don't have a problem, though; just picky about when I drink.

[Rich]

Only after work and on days off. I worked 3 different shifts

[janisj]

i like a heineken before 9am. i know that's bad

[jack81108]

If I was working I'd start right after work, sometimes while driving home. If I wasn't working I'd start as early as 3 hours after waking up. I never started first thing in the morning and never woke up after sleeping one off and had another drink. I couldn't stomach that. If I had reefer (which I consider part of the same problem with less ugly side effects) I would start smoking as soon as I woke up and keep smoking all day until the bag ran out. Sometimes I'd be high for a week straight.

[Sam]

5:01 pm until........

[jonesing]

i only drank weekend evenings and holidays

some people at aa recount stories of drinking within 20 mins of waking up. one time away watching football, i woke up at 11, and had arranged to meet a friend in a pub at 11 and was there within 30 mins having a beer. (four hours before the match). that was a one off though

. dosent mean i didnt have a problem though

[snivi]

:eek:

Just kidding but I couldnt really relate to a specific time. I mean if I was off work, I was drinking or at least about one or two hours away from drinking.

[Maximus]

i used to drink within seconds of waking up ! :eek:

[Steve]

Maximus, my friend, we are wired the same way. I will never return to that part of my life without punching, kicking, and screaming.

Peacewalker

[jonesing]

only weekend evenings, that was enough!!

[Thinker762]

Between 4PM and whatever time I passed out.:D

[belamorte]

From approx 10am till I would fall asleep/passout about 7pm everyday. :eek:

[Clear Sky]

I didn't discriminate. I had plenty of after work sessions and plenty of weekends where it started in the morning. Blah!

[Sandrea of the light]

Anytime I thought I could get away with it.

[Aaron]

Anytime I thought I could get away with it.

Me too Sandrea!

[okthen...]

3 or 4 pm on weekdays and then as close to 12 noon as possible on weekends.

When I started thinking about drinking was a different story, however. The minute I woke up I confirmed that I had the inventory in the house (wine). If I didn't, I would plan which wine store to hit - where was I in my rotation so I didn't look like a drunk to the store keeper. Then - alcohol consumed my thoughts throughout the day.

And that first sip.... WOW !

[hammer]

I would usually start thinking about drinking at about 2 in the afternoon every day and be drinking by 4:30-5:00pm or after work until I fell asleep or passed out. Many nights woke up to find myself sleeping on couch.

Never was a morning drinker, hot summer weekends could find me drunk by 3pm.

[daisy~gurl]

I would usually manage to hold off on drinking until at least 430 or 5 PM, but by the time I was in the car on the way home, I just knew I couldn't resist and would have to have something. Like Okthen, I would check to make sure I had enough to get me trough the day and if not try to figure out how I was going to get it into the house and hide it from my husband - he knew I drank, but had no idea how much. I am only on day 2, but it feels so much better to know that on my way home this evening, I'm not going to get all anxious and sweaty-palmed about having to go into the liquor store and wondering if the guy behind the counter remembers that I was here a few short days ago. Such a burden has been lifted just by this simple decision to quit.

[Antaeus]

I'd start as soon as I got home from work and hammer down a couple vodka martinis while getting supper started (I love to cook). I'd slyly switch to Perrier when my wife got home and then have a few glasses of wine with dinner. After dinner, I'd mix an after dinner martini in a six shot (with ice) glass and quietly add vodka all evening so the drink never ran dry. I used to keep a 1.75 liter jug in the freezer and I'd cycle the town liquor stores buying a fifth or more a day to refill the half gallon so that it looked like I was barely drinking to my wife. I'd generally awaken to my wife trying to get me off the couch to go to bed. More often than not, I couldn't remember going to bed or conversations my wife said we had. Like Imaguy2, when my sleep began to get disrupted, I'd throw down a couple of benadryl before I stumbled off to bed. On weekends, I kept pretty busy with skiing, bicycling, and motorcycling during the day, but once evening hit, I was back in the saddle.

I probably kept that pace pretty steadily for the past eight years.

[collings]

before my first quit (30 days) I was a six pack o' pabst from 3 til the good stuff seemed appropriate then i'd kill a pint of gin.. maybe a few more beers till it was pillow time :confused:
during my relapse .. i thought "well, at least i won't "booze".... so may be at around 2 or 3 pm i'd stop and get a 4 pack of those little sutter home wine bottles ... drive the long way home i.e. roads lesser traveled so i could sip and drive :eek: ... then around 6pm it was a 6 of coors and alot more red wine .... maybe just a shot of jack b4 pillow time.... then the beauty of it ? id be snoring within a minute of hitting the pillow ... I relished those mornings when i hadnt drank enough to get me through the nights ... get up in the quiet hours of 3-4 am and have a few more beers ... then back to finish my knock-out of unconsciousness i used to call 'sleep' ... my motto was "drink em if ya got em" ........ scary and sad ....

[rob68]

the reason im off the booze again is because my drinking has been escalating for the last few months.self employed so i could arrange to leave early around 2 pm to "pick up supplies for the next day".this early day would happen most days with friday being an early day.
i would show up at one of my few pubs i attend with a sigh of relief as i walked up to the chair. some days i would have a few pints minimum,other days i would have 4 to 5.
than there were the extra late days that would see me packed with 10 to 12 pints,thats 3 gallons of beer with some shots in there for good measure.
last couple of years i'v been noticing heart pressure issues and pains in my mid section.
oh yea theres also the week end drinking! early starts aswell.

[pooky]

Always after work on weekdays...whenever I happened to get in. I wouldn't ever rush home but equally never failed to drink within seconds of coming through the door.

One of my wake-up moments was the fact that on weekends I would start around lunchtime or even in the morning.

[Gengengen]

The stores here can't sell alcohol after 11 pm. Everyone close to me has known my problem for years and disapproves. In order to keep it hidden, and because everyday I was trying not to drink, I would hit the store at 10:30, when my guy had gone to bed. Sometimes at 5 to 11, running, because I didn't want to drink but changed my mind when I'd see it was going to be 11.

I often would give a smiling "no thank you" to people, on holidays or evenings out, so they would think I'm not drinking much. Then find an excuse to leave around 10:30 pm, so I could get some booze and go home with it.

The stores can't sell alcohol before 11 am here. If I was home alone and there were some leftovers (usually not because I can't stop until everything is gone), first thing in the morning right after a cup of coffee. If not, around noon so the clerk wouldn't look at me funny for getting booze at 11 am. (?!?)

Sometimes I would drink earlier, when I'd make a wine sauce for whatever I was cooking (do you know how much wine sauce I've made in the past year??). When my fiance was not looking I'd chug whatever I could from that bottle.

I remember recently going to the pub in the morning because our car had broken down in PA and we had to keep going to get to Canada. We went to the pub to wait for someone who was coming to pick us up. I remember having beer at 10 am and thinking "if only this was my everyday life". Bleh.

[JustJen]

I am a binge drinker. So, the urge to drink wouldn't hit every day, usually just in social situations like having people over or going out, almost always just at night. I can not drink for weeks at a time, then easily have 15+ drinks & still not be satisfied. I think the build up of anticipation of a night out really got me high.

[Tree.]

morning, noon and night

[dr.pharmacy]

I didn't drink, i quit drinking

Thanks god almost a year has passed and i am away from drinks.

[Andy]

straight after work usually , on the weekend -from afternoon and untill I switch off

[Foofighters2]

I drank alone, all day everyday. Booze was the love of my life, id probably still be perfectly happy in my little haze of a life, if I had a never ending supply and my health hadnt started to fail.
If people looked at me with that mixture of pity and contempt you see, then I cut them out of my life.
Well its been over 24 hours since my last drink, I want to be able to go out for a loaf of bread and return with just that.

[Korina]

My favorite time to drink is in the morning. I love starting the day with a buzz.
I would stay drunk all the time if I were not as responsible as I am.

[mellific]

4:30 like a bell would go off in my head. Pavlovian-like and I would slam down a 9% beer wishing it were bigger and stronger, and then of course wine with dinner and then of course more wine to finish off the evening.

This was to calm me down to help me get through the night after taking care of my son all day.
How sad to think that I actually though that it would help me be a better mom!

[Flying pig]

I was drinking at any time of the day i could. If i wasnt working ,i would go to the bar when it opened in the morning - walk home wasted about noon - then get a ride back after my nap to close the bar down. I had a habit of just going until it was time to pass out . Im only 15 days sober ........ but i feel great . What a whole different life there was out there. When i wake up tomorrow - i will remember what i did today. Its weird because i was so used to all the blackouts , it didnt even even faze me .

[Aquarius]

When did I drink? Hmm. Never in the morning, except on vacations in the Caribbean, where everyone lines up at the bar when it opens at 10 am.

But in my everyday life, I sometimes drank at lunch...2-3 glasses of wine. Then I'd be too tired to finish the day, so I'd go home and sleep (luckily I'm self employed.)

And then of course, 5:00 pm. The end of the workday. 36 days sober and I'm still romancing the drinks after work. (What a powerful disease.) I'd go out with hubby to a nice restaurant, order a martini, or a manhattan (a drink my parents taught me to like.) Only 1 of those...then I'd switch to wine.

I crave a drink every day at 5:00 pm. The way I deal with it is by thinking this drink through, out loud. The out-loud part is important. The romance of the 'after-work cocktial' fade fast when you realize that the great feeling you get only lasts an hour, followed by a "what am I going to do for the rest of the evening?" It never ended well.

So I guess my usual drinking routine was, evenings...1 straight, all liquor drink, followed by at least 2, maybe 3 glasses of wine. Couldn't drink any more than that...I'd be very, very intoxicated, though. Go to bed and pass out and wake up EXACTLY 4 hours later....shaking, thirsty, nauseous, and with a screaming headache. Ugh.

[Serenityseeker]

I'd come home from work, do my chores, and crack open the Old Crow by 7pm. Drink until I got "sleepy" (passed out), usually wake up several times a night (sometimes refreshing the drinkie-poo). Woke up at 6 feeling like crap, go to work, vow to "cut down" THIS evening, hit the gym after work, feel better, tell myself I was OK, and back on the merry go round I went. My boyfriend reinforced this when I was with him because he drinks like a fish so my drinking was "normal" to him. Thank God we broke up! The past 3 days have been very enlightening and even with lack of sleep I feel way better than a hangover ever did.

HANGOVERS SUCK!

Average 8-12 drinks per night toward the end. How is that NORMAL???

[NewDay13]

Drinking 8-12 drinks a night to get to sleep may not be everyone's "normal", but it WAS ours. We can get to a new normal!

[courage]

Work days I would hit the fridge the second I got home. I would drink until I went to bed. Weekends I would start as early as possible. I would try to hold off until at least noon, but that didn't always happen. I knew I had a serious problem, when I would go to the store and would have to drink a beer on the way home. Couldn't even wait 10 minutes.

[wanttolive]

I liked to drink some evenings after work, especially if I'd taken a few days off of drinking. Then, anytime hubby is home early enough to spend time together. Sunday afternoons are the favorite, because we love to cook together and have "a couple" drinks. Too bad it's rarely ever a couple. Those Mondays always suck. Today was one of them. But feeling a new resolve to do better now...

[Sam]

After 5 everyday. It goes with everything from mowing the grass to grilling on the back deck. 5 until.... but never before, so planning started at about 3 everyday.

[going my own way]

Going out with friends , then getting ready to go out with friends . Usually of a weekend (in U.K). In Cyprus it progressed to when husband came home form work , about 7 in the evening, every night .AND going out with friends which happened a hell of a lot more over here, on average about 4 times a week , and most things started in the afternoon. I was getting fed -up of the predictabilty of having every Saturday or Sunday wiped out - staying in bed - feeling ill - it hit me when I realised that I was accepting this as a normal way of life.

[jeffo]

I was a pro morning, noon or night I diddn't discriminate! My favorite was in the summer after working all day in the sun, picking up a couple 40oz. I could catch a real quick buzz after being physically drained.