Setting targets

It's the first of a new month, so I'm going to try and stick to the upper end of the guidelines on units of alcohol (ie 21 a week). That might sound like a cop-out, but actually it will probably halve my weekly intake. If I manage that, maybe I'll aim for a more conservative 14 units a week, but already in my mind I'm rejecting that as being not enough. I can at least contemplate aiming for 21 units a week.

I was going to go out for a drink with colleagues at lunch-time, but cancelled at the last minute. I would only have had one - either one large glass of wine or a single measure of spirits - but I'm beginning to realise it's not the amount I have that's the trigger, it's the time I start. If I wait until around 7pm for my first drink, then I physically can't have enough to make myself ill before I go to bed and sleep the units away. If I start at lunch-time, I want another as soon as I get home in the evening, which is around 5.30.

Someone gave me a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates yesterday as a late birthday present. I didn't open the chocolates (too many calories!) but I did open the wine when I got home around 8pm. I had about 2/3 of the bottle, so about 6 units and there were probably fewer calories in the wine that there would have been if I'd had the chocolate instead. Funny how I never think 'too many calories' when it comes to opening a bottle of wine! Anyway, those 6 units were part of August's units. Tonight I'll finish the bottle, which will be about 3 units. I have a very strong feeling that I'm going to go and get a bottle of Bacardi or similar on the way home from work and have some of that, too, after the wine.

Tomorrow I'm going out for a meal with a very dear friend I haven't seen since Christmas, as she lives so far away. Her partner's going to be there. He's a sh*t and makes her unhappy, and that makes me unhappy, and the only way to ignore all that tension and unpleasantness is to have a drink. Another friend is joining us and she annoys me a lot at the moment, and she'll drink too much and be stupid. I could offer to drive, that will keep my drinking down to just one glass, but I don't think I can spend the whole evening with all of them and stay completely sober, there's just too much 'stuff' going on.

If I'm definitely aiming for 21 units a week this month, that's 3 units a night - that's the large glass of wine I have left in last night's bottle, and no more! That is definitely not going to be enough for a Friday night!

This is going to be a lot harder than I thought ...