Is it possible to quit drinking and still keep your beer-swilling friends?

In the past 3 years, since I hooked up with this partying crowd, I have gained 50 pounds despite having an active lifestyle. On Monday morning I did a little calculating, and found out why:

Average 6 light beers a night = 660 extra calories

Per 30-day month = 19,800 calories

Based on a 2,400 calorie per day diet, that's a bit more than 8 DAYS EXTRA worth of calories per month. In other words, every 30 days I was taking in 38 days worth of calories.

Also, a 2,400-calorie per day diet = 72,000 calories per month. Adding 19,800, it's 91,800. So simply cutting out the beer means a rounded 22 percent reduction in monthly caloric intake.

Needless to say, after these calculations, I have not had a beer or other alcoholic drink since Sunday. But neither have I been around my tippling friends in that period. Which brings me back to my question:

Is it possible to quit drinking and keep your beer-swilling friends? I like the guys, just don't want the beer in my own body anymore.

A second query: What are some good nonconfrontational ways to demur from drinking when the inevitable pressure is on to have a beer?

There are many reasons why I started to drink pretty heavily and gained these 50 pounds and 8 inches of waist girth over 3 years. Chief among them was the death of my mom, which started a cascade of not wanting to put the effort into working out anymore, is that all there is to life, and etc. Combine that with my addictive personality type, and there ya go. But now I really want to shed those extra pounds and get back in the shape I was in 3 years ago. I know I will feel much better for it, I felt great when I was working out back then.

All opinions (even snide ones..heheheh) and help appreciated!

Switch to hard liquor. Same buzz, fewer calories.

I'm wanting to trade in that tolerance-level induced buzz for the old one I had, which was endorphine-based! Heh.

Seriously, though, tell your friends what's going on. Real friends should respect you efforts, even if they give you static about it for fun.

Barring that, you can tell your friends that you are on medication that interacts poorly with alcohol.

Just tell them that you enjoy their company, but in case they haven't noticed you have put on a few pounds and you're trying to work them off.

...I rummaged in the fridge for a beer. Heheheheh!

tHaT iTSeLf wAs aNd iS MOTIVATING!

drinking problem and want to try to hold off for a while. After a while, they will quit pressuring you into having a beer. You can keep your friends, whether you drink or not. It worked for me. I didn't drink beer, but liquor. I would assume it'd work the same way for beer drinkers...

is a good option,but don't mix with soda. Also if you want to keep drinking beer,upgrade.Don't drink swill beer - learn to appreciate quality over quanity. Choose higher alcohol content beers and drink less.
edit- It' really hard to hang w/the friends if you want to stop drinking all together.

I am worried my presence will make them feel self-conscious about their own daily consumption, to where they would prefer I not be around. Sigh.

It's really easy to say "just stop being around them and find new friends," but these guys have helped me out in lots of ways when I need it. It would be cool if it could work out. But I have serious doubts, and wondered if anyone here had maybe made it work.

it was nearly impossible to hang w/my drinking buds. I quit for a while (give the body a rest) and found the only way to do it was change people and places. Enviroment made all the difference. Now I have friends that drink good beer and they are much more intelligent about it.

friends. :shrug:

this is coming from a confirmed dyed in the wool falling down drunk, if you want to quit drinking you can't stay in the same environment. It's like hitting yourself in the head and expecting it not to hurt, sooner or later all of your buddies cmons have a beer, just one beer will get to you. I've never met anyone who could drink just one beer, if there was less than a twelve in the fridge I wouldn't even start.
If you don't want to drink you've got to hang out with a different crowd, being the only sober person in a roomfull of drunks sucks big green ones.

When I quit drinking I went to the bar the next night with a friend that I drank with regularly and had iced tea. Years later we do the same whenever we can. He been an encouragment in sobriety for me.

On the other hand, I had other friends who couldn't accept it and who I stopped hanging out with.

Good luck, if you think you have an addictive personality and are uncomfortable with how much you drink then you are making the right choice.

Oh yes, I have an addictive personality. Tobacco I have wrestled with and won. I went stone cold sober for about 5-6 years before mom died. I simply switched my addiction to bodybuilding. At the height of that, I had a 38-inch waist, 42-inch biceps and 48-inch chest. Now I have a 46-inch waist. Classic pear shape! Heh.

I am not uncomfortable with how much I drink at all...hell, I love to drink...I love the buzz, that laid-back carefree feeling, etc. But I know if I lug around 50 or even 60 extra pounds in middle age, I am looking at having my chest cracked open sometime...if I make it to the hospital in time.

I'm just facing the facts, is all. And now, 3 years after losing mom, I think I am strong enough to face them.

But I'd hate to lose my friends. I might, but I'd hate it. That's why I am asking.

Well that is a hard one to beat. I still haven't stopped smoking and I tried twice. Maybe 3rd time is the charm. However I'm not much of a drinker so I won't ever have to wrestle that one.

What about wine? I'm not sure about the calories but red wine does show some benefits for the heart. Still a nice light warm buzz.

Thing is, it takes like an average of 3 tries or so to quit smoking for any real length of time. I found in my failures, I would go right to either-or thinking (a hallmark of addictive prsonality).

"Oh shit, I just smoked a cig...that's that, then! Might as well buy a carton!"

When I succeeded, if I broke and smoked a cigarette, I would say, "Well, that means I start all over again frm here," as soon as I stubbed it out.

But the "just not right now" approach in #23 worked extremely well for me. It breaks down the larger goal into smaller and more manageable periods.

Good luck.

My mom had died a few years before, I had quit my career as a performer and moved out of NYC. Didn't realize how much exercise just living in NY and being a performer was. After four years, I had gained 80 pounds. When I realized how far I had let myself go, I turned everything around. I cut out every bad habit I had and started running again (which I had also done regularly before and had stopped), and I ate a mainly vegetarian diet and cut out most drinking.

After 8 months, I had lost 90 pounds and was in better shape than I had ever been (I was 36 at the time). Since then, I have maintained a better lifestyle... however, a year and a half ago, I moved to a new place and the relationship I was in started to go awry, and I found myself gaining weight again. I knew what to do this time. :)

One can use an addictive personality in one's favor.

As for the drinking, I think you can remain friends with your buddies, unless being with them tempts you to do something you don't want to do.

Good luck! :thumbsup:

I still meet up with the booze-hounds of old but not always in bars. If i do go to a bar I find that after a couple of hours i start to get bored with the repeated conversations and unfunny jokes and head for home. my friends have got used to this and it works for me.

Also I lost about 40 pounds in a couple of months once i stopped and i've no regrets.


I'm now halfway through my plan to give up smoking i'm down from 2 packs a day to one, but the next step is going to be the hardest.

I was a 2-pack man too. I finally beat it after several tries of varying lengths by going cold turkey and just saying, "I know I want one now, but I'll just wait awhile til I smoke" when the urge came on me. Deferring it just for "a while" got me through. I never said, "I quit." It got to where I never even told anyone when I did try to quit, as for me, I learned telling people set me up to fail.

The same thing works for alohol. I'd really like a beer or six right now...heh...but I just say, "No, I will wait a little bit before I have one," and then I go on to other things and forget about it.

I did it with cigs, did it with alcohol for 5-6 years. The longer I defer, the easier it gets as the urges slack off and lose their power over me.

but you probably wont want to.

you gonna get a haircut . . .

come here to party..sometimes at odd hours. Last night we were all out early in the afternoon for St. Patrick's Day, I got in at about 1220 am and by 0130hrs a buddy dropped in with a 6 pack and decided he was hungry. I defrosted some chili and we ended up watching WC Fields on the tube until he has his fill. No wonder I never get any sleep he left at 0330 hrs.

On a drink note switch to Bacardi and Diet Coke...66 calories and no carbs. Friends wife did and she has lost 40 pounds since Nov.

...with fewer calories, but the question was, "Is it possible to quit drinking and keep your beer-swilling friends?"

See, that's what my friends are gonna do...tell me how to keep on drinking and still lose some weight. Heh.

Yet I know for a solid fact that the bodybuilding route I am again beginning to pick up will not yield the results I want if I drink. A weightlifter who drinks regularly is instantly recognizable...he is the one with the big arms and pot belly. Heh.

After I quit drinking I began to notice that the only thing I had with my "partying" friend was just that, partying. Being sober at 1:30 in the morning in a bar with everybody around you hammered just doesn't cut it anymore.

We drink the redneck way...in somebody's shop building, watching NASCAR on TV or working on mechanical stuff. That's why it would be tough to lose my friends, we have lots of other interests together.

But to be honest, I think, "No you can't" is likely true.

I'm still trying to decide whether to sit out going to Billy's shop for this Sunday's race.

you're with them. If they give you grief over it, they're not your friends. Grief = serious ridicule, not teasing.