Why Do I Drink More Than I Planned?

Nov 6

Written by karl elliott

You tell yourself you are only having two.

Maybe three.

Definitely not staying late.

You might even believe it completely when you say it.

Then somewhere during the evening, the rule changes.

One more will not hurt.

You are already out.

Everybody else is still drinking.

You will be good tomorrow.

Before you know it, the plan you made earlier has disappeared.

If that keeps happening, the useful question is not:

“Why am I so bad at sticking to rules?”

It is:

“Why do I keep making the same rule when I already know what usually happens?”

My rules sounded completely reasonable

I made rules around drinking for years.

I would only have one.

I would leave early.

I would not drink tonight.

I would wait until the weekend.

I would make sure I was home by a certain time.

The problem was not that I did not know how to make a sensible rule.

I was brilliant at making them.

I was far less successful at keeping them once the situation changed.

That became exhausting.

Because every new rule felt like proof that this time I was finally going to get a handle on it.

Then I would move the rule and start again.

The decision often starts before the first drink

It is easy to think the problem begins when you order the second, third or fourth drink.

For me, it often started hours earlier.

I would be thinking about drinking during the day.

Planning when I could go.

Telling myself how many I would have.

Imagining how the first one would feel.

By the time I actually ordered it, I had already spent hours negotiating.

The first drink did not begin the conversation.

It ended one part of it.

Then a new negotiation started.

Should I have another?

Should I stay?

Does tonight really matter?

Can I make up for it tomorrow?

That is why focusing only on the number of drinks can miss something important.

The decision-making around alcohol can take up far more space than the drinking itself.

Why does the rule keep moving?

There can be lots of reasons.

The people around you are still drinking.

You are enjoying yourself.

You do not want to be the first person to leave.

You have already broken the original rule, so another drink feels less important.

You tell yourself the week has been difficult.

There is always a reason available.

And once the original boundary moves, it can become very easy to keep moving it.

Two becomes three.

Three becomes staying until somebody else leaves.

Then the next morning becomes another promise that next time will be different.

The problem is not always how often you drink

This matters because people often dismiss their drinking by comparing frequency.

I only drink at weekends.

I do not drink every day.

I can go several days without it.

Those things may all be true.

But they do not answer this question:

“When I do drink, does it regularly become more than I intended?”

You do not have to drink every day to be tired of repeatedly breaking promises to yourself.

You do not need to reach somebody else’s idea of a serious drinking problem before you are allowed to change something.

If your own pattern is bothering you, that is enough reason to look at it.

Moderation can become a full-time negotiation

For some people, moderation works perfectly well.

They decide to have two drinks and have two.

Then they go home.

There is no argument.

No endless rule-making.

No Monday morning reset.

But if moderation has become something you repeatedly have to manage, monitor and renegotiate, it might be worth asking whether the effort itself is telling you something.

How much time are you spending thinking about alcohol?

How often are you setting rules?

How often are you changing them?

How many times have you said, “This week will be different”?

That was the part I eventually had to look at.

Not just what I was drinking.

The amount of mental space it had taken over.

What happens if you stop negotiating completely?

One of the things that changed for me was removing the daily decision.

I was no longer trying to decide whether tonight was a drinking night.

Or whether two would be enough.

Or whether I deserved one because the day had been difficult.

The decision had already been made.

For a set period, alcohol was off the table.

That did not solve every problem in my life.

But it removed one argument I had been having with myself again and again.

And that gave me space to see things I could not see while constantly trying to manage the next drink.

You do not have to decide forever

This is the part people often misunderstand.

Questioning your drinking does not automatically mean deciding you will never drink again.

There is another option.

You can take a defined period away from alcohol and find out what happens.

Not forever.

Not as a label.

Not because somebody else told you what you should be.

As an experiment in your own life.

Ninety days gave me enough distance to stop measuring success by whether I managed to stick to another drinking rule.

Instead, I could look at what life actually felt like without alcohol constantly needing to be managed.

One important safety point

If you drink heavily every day, need alcohol in the morning, or experience symptoms such as shaking, sweating, sickness or feeling very anxious when you go without alcohol, get medical advice before stopping suddenly.

The NHS warns that suddenly stopping can be dangerous for somebody who has become physically dependent on alcohol.

NHS alcohol support:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/