Minding the drink: How one man's 'mindful' drinking led him to give up alcohol completely

Gerry Raftery: "For many years I have been teaching and practicing mindfulness." Picture: Brian Arthur

I have enjoyed drinking alcohol most of my adult life.

For many years I have been teaching and practicing mindfulness.

Six months ago, I tried to practice drinking alcohol mindfully. The outcome for me was to stop drinking alcohol completely.

I can hear many people say, “If that happened to me, I’d give up mindfulness!”

I was delivering a mindfulness course to a group of people living with cancer. The participants found meditation and other mindful practices helped them in managing their illness and coping with the challenges they faced.

I was reluctant to talk about alcohol and cancer.

However, one member of the group told us that he had to reduce his alcohol consumption in order to manage his cancer treatment. He now drinks two glasses of wine a week. He really looks forward to this weekly tipple.

This got me thinking that I would try to drink alcohol more mindfully. Having missed out on 'Dry January' and reading many newspaper articles about the dangers of too much alcohol consumption, I felt I should do something about my own drinking.

Like most people I didn’t regard myself as a heavy drinker or as “drinking hazardously” which is the new term for heavy drinking. But how much did I drink?

The result of doing an inventory of my weekly consumption of alcohol shocked me.

I drank alcohol four nights a week. I consumed two bottles of wine a week, and sometimes more. I drank five or six pints of stout a week, I took the odd glass of whiskey and sometimes a brandy and port.

When I honestly added this up, I realised that I was above the prescribed limit for healthy drinking.

I read a Health Research Board Report on Alcohol Misuse in Ireland. My age group, the over 65s, was identified as a problem group when it came to alcohol consumption. I realised I had to do something to reduce my intake.

Initially I said I would drink one bottle of wine a week and about four pints of stout. I would be careful about spirits. I tried to do this mindfully.

However, I realised that when I had one glass of wine it was difficult to resist the second or third.

The bizarre result is that the more alcohol you drink the more difficult it becomes to drink mindfully. When you think about it, this makes sense.

Mindfulness is about helping us to be aware of our thoughts, emotions and behaviours. This awareness helps us to understand and manage our lives more effectively.

On the other hand, alcohol can loosen our self-control, it distorts our emotions and often leads to crazy behaviour. Many of us have been there.

I then decided to stop drinking alcohol altogether. My non-drinking wife and my brother who is an addiction counsellor both thought I was foolish. They didn’t think I had a problem so why give up something which I enjoyed?

I decided to try it for a few weeks and see how I got on. Mindful awareness was helpful. I became aware of all the triggers I associated with alcohol.

Weekend nights were going to be different. I found some alternatives in that I drank more water and, surprisingly, enjoyed it. I also began to drink non-alcoholic beers.

I began to notice some benefits from not drinking alcohol. While I am generally a good sleeper, I found I slept much better. Oral hygiene improved; the red-wine mouth stains were gone. I didn’t need tablets to fend off heart-burn. I had a better sense of well-being.

There were financial benefits, I wasn’t spending money on alcohol.

In all honesty I reckoned I was spending more than €40 a week on alcohol. To many people this doesn’t sound much. But it’s over €2,000 a year — a substantial saving during a cost-of-living crisis.

As a “moderate drinker” I didn’t drink enough to give me bad hang-overs. But after a few glasses of wine, beer and spirits on a week-end night I could wake up next morning feeling quite muggy. This has come to an end.

Six months into my voluntary abstention from alcohol I have passed a number of tests. Going away for a short break or a holiday was always associated with drinking creamy pints of stout in congenial pubs. At first, I found it difficult. I had to practice a lot of mindfulness when it came to times and places associated with “having a pint”.

I have discovered the joy of coffee. The creamy latte has replaced the creamy pint. A good coffee shop can be as pleasant as a nice pub.

Perversely in Ireland, there can be a slight stigma associated with not drinking alcohol. I have been almost afraid to tell family or friends that I don’t drink anymore.

However, I would absolutely encourage people to think about their drinking. We owe it to ourselves and those around us.

Some 75% of Irish adults drink alcohol, 52% of these people drink hazardously. This means that one in three people are drinking more alcohol than they should.

It’s worth doing a personal audit of your drinking. You may not come to the same conclusion as I did. But you might begin to be aware of unhealthy attitudes and behaviours associated with your drinking.

We do need to have a national conversation on our use of alcohol. The current Citizens’ Assembly will not discuss alcohol as its remit is 'illicit drugs'. Perhaps it is time we had a citizens’ assembly on our use of alcohol.

For more information on alcohol use, the Alcohol Action Ireland website is www.alcoholireland.ie