Wine On The Weekends

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{I love my wine club, Winc! On the days that I do enjoy a glass, that is 🙂 }

I’ve written before about my internal struggle between wanting to enjoy a reasonable glass of wine with dinner each night (my heart) and my belief that having alcohol every single day is not the best choice of habit (my mind.) This is not a new topic, but it’s one I’m revisiting after going through a year off of alcohol to have a baby and then starting habitual drinking again. I want to catch you all up on a change in my weekly consumption that is working well for me (for now!)

Truth: I feel my best when I don’t drink.

Even just one glass of wine leaves me a little bit dehydrated, and I don’t sleep as well at night.

I love the taste and culture around wine and have no intention of giving up drinking entirely. I also don’t have a problem with overdrinking and rarely over consume, but it is easy to turn one glass into two with a heavy pour or few extra splashes.

Research says that women should have no more than seven drinks per week for optimal health.

A daily drink plus a little more at social events equals a lot more than seven. (Those lucky men have a lot more wiggle room with their recommendation at less than 14 drinks per week.)

I highly recommend listening to Brooke Castillo’s program Stop Overdrinking, which I have written about before. I was in agreement with every single point she makes about all the reasons people get conditioned to drink alcohol habitually (which is different from alcoholism). While I haven’t been a program participant, I have listened to her free videos on the topic and she does an amazing job explaining the science behind why we reach for that habitual glass. You don’t have to be drinking a bottle a night to want to cut back – her program is for anyone who just wants to drink less than they currently are. 

Reasons To Have A Drink

Brooke talks a lot about classical conditioning and all the reasons people pop open a bottle:

a happy day

a sunshine day

a cold winter day

a difficult parenting day

a good parenting day

Because you’re a grown up

Because it’s delicious

There are so many “good” reasons to drink that it is easy to talk myself into a glass. It’s not as easy to talk myself out of it.

Reasons Not To Drink*

Because there are a host of negative health effects associated with alcohol, including inflammation, hormone interference, possible weight loss resistance in women my age, empty calories   

Because I don’t sleep as well.

Because wine costs money.

The list of reasons not to drink is a lot shorter than the reasons to have a drink, thus I find that I often can talk myself into having one.

*There are other important reasons not to drink, but I’m writing in the context of my general daily life and not including reasons such as having to drive, sickness, etc.

The Change: Weekdays Are Alcohol Free

All of that to say: I decided I wanted to drink less. Like most goals, just admitting I wanted to drink less to myself probably wasn’t going to create any real change. See above. So I created some structure to my change: no alcohol Monday through Thursdays. 

I’ve been doing this since January with great success. The first week it was hard, and I found myself thinking about pouring some wine at 5:00 nearly every day. But the second week it was easier, and by the third week (don’t they say it takes 21 days to break a habit?) I wasn’t even thinking about it during the week. Telling Thomas about my new goal and having him support me with some accountability was also a huge help. 

I give myself the option to drink during the week if we go on a date or I have a social event (I’m not trying to deprive myself socially!) but truthfully that hasn’t happened yet in two months. Our weeknights are pretty boring these days!

Is Taking Weeknights Off Making You Drink More On The Weekend?

One might think so, but actually no. Because I’m not telling myself that I can’t have it at all aka restricting – I just have to delay the pleasure to the weekend. It does make the weekends more special, and I do look forward to Fridays a little bit more because of the fun of having a drink, but I don’t find myself going crazy on the weekends. Like I said, I haven’t had a problem with drinking too much because there’s nothing worse than a hangover!

Is This A Long Term Plan?

I honestly don’t know if I’ll stay on this schedule forever. I have considered switching to every other day or swapping Sunday for Wednesday or something like that, but because I wouldn’t want to open a fresh bottle of wine on a Wednesday, I think it makes the most sense to keep the weeknights in a row alcohol free. I also wonder if summertime will make me want to drink more. Because it’s “it’s summertime!” a good reason to drink? (See above again!) Ideally though, I think this weekday/weekend schedule makes the most sense fun-wise and health-wise so I do hope to stick to it.

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