Mod Squad August Thread!

[DeeBee]

A pinch and a punch for first of the month!!:H

Morning Modders,

I'd like to extend an invitation to all and any whom are "lurnking" on the the moderation threads. This particular thread is for anyone who's goal is to drink moderately. Some have achieve this and some of us haven't. Doesn't matter -- this thread is all about support, ideas, friendship and a safe place to put our thoughts down.

I have noticed quite a few posts from newbies who's goal is to mod, I urge you to seriously consider doing 30 days AF (or more) before making any decision.
Their are a few of us here who's goal is to have a AF August please feel free to join us.

So, here's to a fantastic August Girls (and guys):rockon:

[mooderator]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Lovely fresh summery new month...

...shame about the weather here in the UK this summer, although today isnt raining yet.

A big THANK YOU to DEEBS for getting us started again and good advise contained above for anyone thinking of joining us please do...its been the best move I have made since getting here.

So after the sh1t that occurred last week I am determined to have a successful and happy August. Also I am on board both with J-VO for a one week AF pact starting tomorrow and with DEEBS and others for AUGUST AF. Sadly I will have to let you down at day 29, as I am off on holiday for a week then and there are weddings and parties and stuff, so I actually do want to have a few drinks on those occasions...but I will still do 29 day run with you guys and am very happy to be doing it.....it's so great to have the extra support for us all.

Although I would rather have removed last week from my calendar althogether and had it not happen, it did mean I ended up being a proper modder for the week. I drank 3 times and was really sensible each time. I am stunned at how far I have come.

The irony of it all is that due to the stress of the week and the fact that I just could not DO all the GOOD stuff right (diet, exercise and AF time were replaced with tears and arguments with my mother mostly), I have gained real confidence in how well my mod life is coming on. As you probably mostly know, I tend to try and run an AF policy most of the time and be much more sensible when I do drink, so havent really "practised" modding in general. So, taking the positive out of the negative, I have leant that I am improving all round. I will have been here for 6 months on 22nd August and think I will have lots more positive things to day on the quaterly review thread I did once before.

Sorry to waffle, but I am excited, today is a new day/month full of possibilites and I am going to be AF for 29 days, eat well for 29 days and do lots of exercise for 29 days.....and all the while I can look forward to a week away with Mr Moo at the end of it.

Happy Weekend to all....Moooo

[wine lover]

Mod Squad August Thread!

A new start

Hi Dee and Moo, would love to join you, will not be totally AF till Monday, as I have a visitor staying on hols at the moment and hope to moderate over weekend, will report to you on Monday.


Good Luck to All.

:wave:

[AMY]

Mod Squad August Thread!

You guys seem to live in dream land. I dont get it. It is obviously not working is it? I am trying to understand the point of this thread. Dont want to be harsh, but its just what I see. you invited lurkers, so I thought I would make my point to you all.

[DeeBee]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Afternoon Gang.

Moo, I think you've got a solid plan for August which has SUCCESS written all over it. I nearly forgot that it's my 15th Wedding Anniversary this month which is cause for celebration but I went AF last year and intend to go AF again this year.

WL, it's great to have you here again. I'm looking forward to your report on Monday.

Hiya and welcome Amy.
This thread "The Mod Squad" was started a while ago by a bunch of us who had just finished a long AF stint and wanted to moderate their drinking. I think that many of us agree that choosing this path is not necessarily the easy route but it is the journey we've chosen. For me, personally, I have proven to myself that yes, I can drink moderately. But since I've given up smoking my craving for sugar/carbs/AL has got out of hand, hence the sugar-free (and AL free) August I am going to do.

I'd love you to read some of our older threads as you will see that to drink moderately IS possible and there are many here who are doing so. And there are also some who have discovered (sometimes the hard way) that it is just not possible for them to drink moderately.
One of the things I really love about the people who contribute on this thread is that they will NEVER advise a person whether they CAN or CANNOT mod -- we are only here to support one another in their decisions and quest for sobriety.

Is it your plan to try and drink moderately?

[DancingGirl]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Hi, I'd like to join the "Mod Squad" if I may. I'm one of your "lurkers" for two reasons. One is that I never did the 30 days AF (the timing just isn't right) and the other is that I'm not sure when one moves from being a "newbie" to being a regular to being long-term.

I found MWO four weeks ago and have been successfully moderating since then. I can't relax with it yet, but I haven't slipped either.

[Sunbeam]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Dancing Girl,
You are welcome here! There are no membership requirements, just suggestions from your mods friends, based on their experience. Most don't post under Monthly mods because new posts are quickly blocked on the main menu by the very popular word association game.

[DeeBee]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Welcome Dancing Girl!!

Congrats on your modding success so far.
When you are ready, please share with us your hope and goals -- we'd love to get to know you better.

(Hiya Sun)

[Tabbers (a.k.a. KTAB)]

Mod Squad August Thread!

A big hello to everyone here in mod land.
Well I find myself in here for the first time. When I started on MWO I thought 7 days AF would be virtually impossible. I reached 7 days and decided if I could do 30 then I would try to mod. When 30 days started to loom large on the horizon I realized it was way too soon and I would quickly be back where I started.
I am now on day 82 totally AF and without any cravings, feeling fit and healthy. I cherish my sobriety as something that is very important to me, I fought hard to gain it and will not relinquish it without putting up a hell of a fight. So here is the crux of it, a crossroads at which many before me and many to come after me will find themselves, is it possible once having stared into the abyss, to have a couple of drinks without falling into hell again? I dont know the answer to that question yet but I do know that to attempt it would be 100 times harder than what has gone before.
I suppose some people would say why bother if you dont crave it? Again I am not fully convinced I have the answer. I do really enjoy the taste of a good quality beer and a glass of fine wine. So here I stand, day 90 approaching and I am considering trying to mod, I do know I never want to be drunk again and if I fail in my attempt I am fine with being lifelong AF. I realized a while back this is a serious prospect for me and I have reconciled myself to this fact. It honestly sits ok with me. Anyway thanks very much to anybody who is still reading and please wish me luck in my attempt to mod I feel I will need it at some stage.

[DancingGirl]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Thank you for the welcome Sunbeam and DeeBee. I've enjoyed reading posts by both of you. I won't go on and on, but here's a bit about me.

I've been drinking since I was almost 14, and had problems with drinking too much within six months of my first illicit mouthful. Even then I guess I tried to "mod" - I remember deciding before going to parties that I would have only three beers and then stop. It worked if I wanted it too. Fast forward 30 years and meet me last June when I realized that I was teetering seriously on the edge of a real problem. I had tried to control my drinking last summer by having a goal of no more than 3 drinks a day or 21 total in a week. It didn't work - I rarely managed under 25 a week, but writing down what I drank every day was a start of sorts. Among my mistakes were: not including any AF days; counting "half" drinks that were more like 3/4s; thinking more about the weekly total than the daily limit so if I had only 1 or 2 for a couple of days, I would make up for it other days.

My goal when I came here was this: 2 AF days a week and no more than 2 on the other days; I would forgive myself if it turned out to be only 1 AF day and 3 any other day. What I've found in the past 4 weeks is that, although it's still a bit of a struggle, I am now AF more days a week than not, and have (drum roll please) not been "under the influence" since joining MWO and paying attention to what I'm doing. I quite pleased, but still vigilent as I still have certain times of day when I crave. I figure if I still want a drink that much, it's still a potential problem. I don't drink when I crave - that's a rule for me.

So my goal for August is to continue this. I love the Drink Tracker, and also am happy to be able to say that I am not a drunk anymore. I'd like to get to a place where I don't have the urge to drink in the late pm, but maybe I will always have to exercise control then. ODAT.

KTAB - nice to see you join here too. I don't know if any of my baby steps would be helpful, but I've found the following:

If I can't have "just one" then I can't mod. But having one and only one glass of wine with dinner has brought me back to enjoying the wine's taste and enhancement of the food. Knowing that I am only having one makes me sip and enjoy. The alcohol has no effect, so I don't reach that place where I forget my plan and get another. My absolute limit is 3, but so far always decided beforehand.

Drinking slowly is a absolute necessity

If I crave a drink, I don't have one. I have lemon fizzy water if it's before dinner; chocolate mints if it's mid-pm or evening. I'm a wine drinker and lemons, chocolates, and peppermint do not enhance wine!

One trick I've found (tricking myself in a way) is to procrastinate. Maybe I'll have a drink, but right now I'll have a glass of water. Often by the time I've finished the water, the urge has passed. I'm sort of doing that today. I was AF yesterday, so I might have a glass of wine with dinner, but ... then again... I might not.

Sorry, after saying I won't go on and on - I did!!
:thanks: for listening

[Eve11]

Mod Squad August Thread!

DeeBee;679992 wrote:
I have noticed quite a few posts from newbies who's goal is to mod, I urge you to seriously consider doing 30 days AF (or more) before making any decision.
Their are a few of us here who's goal is to have a AF August please feel free to join us.

The 30 days is always a question by newbies so I wanted to clarify more about that...
great post btw DeeBee!

Most beginners here start with AF (alcohol free) day one, then two and three and so on and so on until day 30. As we do this we monitor our triggers, challenges and environments along the way. Through this journey I have learned that my environment (drinking alone in my movie theater room is not a good idea), etc.

We find that we sleep better, think better, etc. Probably get more done and possibly focus on other passions in our lives than alcohol (like Sunbeam doing gardening, Delta having her show gig, Eve11 doing her research on alcohol abuse) etc.

After the 30 day abstinence which is very eye opening to most we then evaluate if we want to bring AL back into our lives with moderation in mind.

The guidelines of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse are:

For Men
No more than 4 drinks in any given day
No more than 14 drinks per week

For Women
No more than 3 drinks in any given day
No more than 7 drinks per week

We at MWO don't request moderators follow any guidelines but their own but we share info from many sources of what moderation is considered. Moderation Management allows 9 drinks per week for women so they're a little more lenient than the NIAAA.

It is up to us to decide what works for us. And to our lurker who wondered if we were spinning our wheels, yes moderating is more work than going AF with tracking, monitoring, discussing, etc. But to those of us who enjoy that glass of champagne at weddings and New Years, or the best glass of red with a steak or the perfect white with seafood it is worth it to us. The trick is to keep it within safe limits.

Gang, I discussed in a recent post that I was going to get serious with no more going over 7 drinks per week. My new goal is to stay within the guidelines of the NIAAA. Went to a fun girl's only party last Monday and it was a wine tasting affair as well as other things so I have to honestly say it was 3 that night (2 1/2) but that's not on the drinktracker so I claimed 3. So 2 last night for dinner which leaves me 2 for the week. So, I pact (thanks Kid!~thinking of you!) that I will do no more than 2 the rest of the week-end and am bound and determined to meet my goal every week. Another vacation around the corner (6 days in San Juan Capistrano, CA)...so if I get back into the "I'm on vacation! thinking...then only 1 drink a day!!

Too easy to fall back into bad habits if one isn't monitoring enough. So, I'm focused, I'm back and I'm bad!!!

Addendum: DancingGirl, I just read your thread as I responded to DeeBees first post here today and hadn't read the others yet. You are doing awesome with your plan. You had many good ideas, procrastination, drinks and foods that don't enhance the flavor of wine, etc. You've got it!! You go girl!!!
Big hugs friends,
Eve11

[DancingGirl]

Mod Squad August Thread!

Hi Evie,

You must be psychic! After posting my last verbose post, I went surfing through some of the LTMods' threads and looked up the very information on weekly limits you just put here!

Thanks! Happy to say I'm now well within them - now to stay there is the goal.

[DancingGirl]

Mod Squad August Thread!

:blush:Sorry, Eve11, I got your name wrong

[DancingGirl]

Mod Squad August Thread!

And I just read your addendum (sorry - tend to speed read sometimes).

Thank enormously for the encouragement; I needn't tell you how much it means.

[Eve11]

Mod Squad August Thread!

DancingGirl;680399 wrote:
...now to stay there is the goal.

DancingGirl,

That's why we come here. The encouragement really helps us to focus on our goals. Have any of us ever failed? Probably most of us have but folks fail many times when they're trying to abstain as well. Everybody just picks themselves up and gets going again. We're all here for you and we welcome you and the others who posted here so far.

We are the mod squad here and we're proud of who we are!
:welcome: