What if all of one's alcohol units are in one night of a week? Or occasionally two? And then it is alot? Like a bottle of wine and liquor etc. I am not sure how to count that. I guess it is still 15 or so units a week.

From my own experience I know that I'd find it very difficult to count drinks accurately if I was out drinking with others and ordering different types of alcoholic drinks. I can keep a mental count of how many drinks of one type I've had, but if I mixed various drinks and wasn't sure how much volume was in each serve, or how strong each type was, I'd get confused. I usually know how much I drink because I usually drink at home and measure out whatever I'm drinking and keep a tally of it (and next day I can see how much is gone, if I remember how much there was before I started!). All I could recommend would be some way of keeping a tally of how many serves were drank, how much volume (roughly) each one was, and what type (concentration) of alcohol it was. If you drank two or more separate types of alcoholic drink on the one occasion, do that for each type. Obviously it would be embarrassing to write this down in a notebook while drinking in company but maybe you could keep a rough mental tally and write it down once every time after you have had a few more drinks during your drinking episode. It sounds like you are doing really well anyway, on an overall weekly basis.

Thank you for the reply. I am doing what some would call ok but sometimes my physical health says otherwise. I do like your suggestion of keeping a sort of tab going. I am a major math person. So funny, I apply it to everything else. Why not this? It just shows me how, for me, it is so much emotionally and psychologically driven. Thanks.

For all you major math people (you've probably guessed I'm one), Marbella inserted this link to an international drink calculator in an earlier post:

http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/ccalcoh1.htm
or
http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/ccalcoh3.htm

With these tools, you can quickly figure out how many units you've drunk, in whatever country you choose to drink in! Isn't that empowering (it beats programming a TI-83 calculator)?

Also, if you find yourself bored and looking for something mind-numbing to do (besides drink), the same website has lots of "specialist" calculators to play with: http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/index.htm

Cheers!

In tracking my progress I have decided to focus on the end result: how drunk do I get? I don't know how much alcohol is in a beer vs a shot vs a wine bottle, etc. But I do know that if left to my own devices, with plenty of money and no obligations the next day, I will drink the amount of "whatever" that gets me drunk. And that amount is pretty consistent. Using a 16 ounce beer (PBR) as the standard, that amount is 12 drinks.

Here is what it takes to get me there:
12 PBRs over a long afternoon and evening = 12 drinks
2 little (750ml) bottles of cabernet sauvignon + 2 PBR tall boys = 12 drinks
4 tequilla shots (they pour 'em nice at my bar) + 4 beers = 12 drinks

If I have to work the next day, I'll have a 10 drink drunk. A bad night might be a 14 or 15 drink drunk.

so my chart is:
1 beer: 1 drink
1 shot: 2 drinks
1 little wine bottle: 5 drinks
1 big wine bottle: 10 drinks
mixed drinks count as shots

This is making me thirsty; good thing its only 11am

Thanks for the links Netty, Cool! Different units than me though entirely. But I will muck around with it.

Whatever works for you FB- you are only comparing against yourself, so as long as your tracking is consistent, it is good

Your craving scale looks like progress to me Marbella. I remember when you were very sick before. It seems to me you are better. That is good to see. I hope you feel better too. Keep going FB.. My amounts are usually the same but the cravings are what get to me. My amounts are usually one 750ml bottle of wine and 2 beers and I am passing out. On occasion on a bad day, 2 bottles of wine and if I haven't passed out I am incoherent and should not be speaking to anyone. Cravings seem always huge but on non drinking days they are non-exsistant.