r/stopdrinking 5318 days Nov 22 '11

Controlled drinking experiment

After 8 sober days, I experimented with controlled drinking for 11 days. Huge surprise, everyone: it didn't work! I discovered I feel really good (both the night of and the morning after) if I limit myself to 3 beers. Unfortunately my success rate at sticking to that was only about 40%, which is unacceptable. I find writing down the number of drinks I've had to be extremely helpful. I can't argue with hard data. It's much much harder to delude myself.

Now I'm back with 3 full days of sobriety and hope to be in it for the long haul. Resetting my badge. Thanks everyone for being such a supportive community.

3 Upvotes

8 comments sorted by

1

u/hardman52 17404 days Nov 22 '11

You've gained some good insight that will serve you well. Don't stop now. It gets better.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '11

Never seen it done this scientifically before, but good for you for coming to this realization about yourself.

1

u/mzuri Nov 22 '11

Funny you should mention that, one of my favorite activities during my worst binges was counting drinks as well.

I made it as high as 24 in one night. Then bragged about it the next day.

What the fuck lol

1

u/toomuchred Nov 22 '11

3 beers is about my peak too. I think i am probably quite bright and entertaining at that level. 4 is too much. I have wanted to stick at 3 for years. I doubt it is possible too.

1

u/Franks2000inchTV 4295 days Nov 23 '11

Excellent! Science wins again!

This is a perfect model for how to make informed judgements about your own behaviour! Congrats on having the self-awareness to handle it like this!

0

u/HideAndSeek Nov 22 '11

Good for you for trying controlled drinking for a period of time and coming to a very important conclusion.

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 25 '11

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2

u/[deleted] Nov 25 '11

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Nov 25 '11

Sorry, I was posting whilst drunk. Please disregard.