How to stop drinking alcohol
So you’ve come to the decision to stop drinking alcohol. Maybe you’ve tried a few times to just cut down, and drink more sensibly like others around you seem to.
But you’ve had limited success, perhaps you manage it for a week or so, then you’re drinking more again. Then the blackouts and awful hangovers start. Finally you decide its time to quit.
So how do you stop drinking? The first thing is to -
Consider your motivation for stopping
Weigh up the pros and cons of your drinking, the costs versus the benefits.
(write them down here)
- What are the good things about your drinking right now, what does it do for you? This is important to consider, because you need to find other ways to achieve this.
- Then what are the bad things about your drinking? Really dig deep with this – look at your relationships, your health, job, self-esteem, depression etc.
- Next what are the good things you expect to happen when you stop drinking, how will your life be better?
- Finally what are the negative bits about quitting? What is putting you off the idea? Again, this is important because you will have to find some way to solve these concerns.
You need to be reminding yourself about this list of your motivations every time you think about having a drink. The next stage is to find out -
Are you physically dependent on alcohol?
If you are, then you will need some sort of medical supervision to help you through the detox. You might have experienced D.T.s before (the shakes, or Delirium Tremens to be precise), but full scale alcohol withdrawal can be an unpleasant business. Hallucinations, seizures, it can even be fatal. So for the sake of safety, if you are drinking all day from the moment you wake up in order to avoid your hangovers, you should see your doctor before you plan to stop drinking alcohol. They can help you with medication, or even a short stay in hospital to get you over the first week. If the thought of that scares you to death, then you MUST try and cut down a bit before you stop completely.
So you’ve worked out why you want to stop, and if you can stop safely. Now what? You need to -
Develop a plan for how you can avoid those urges to drink.
Read our earlier article on coping with alcohol cravings first. It will give you a few techniques to help you. One thing’s for sure, will-power alone is not enough to stop you from drinking.
You need to work out what are your ‘high-risk’ situations, what are your ‘triggers’ that make you want to drink? Some of these can be avoided, so make plans as to how you can avoid them. For those that clearly can’t be avoided, you have to start thinking about how you can deal with them differently. Make your own relapse prevention strategy.
Now sit back and wait for sobriety.
Ok, so it might not be as easy as all that (of course not), you may well slip and have a drink, you might even relapse in dramatic fashion and wake up in a ditch somewhere. Don’t laugh, it might be you. You haven’t failed, you just let that old habit sneak up and catch you unawares.
This obviously isn’t going to change over night. And realistically, this is where you might need the help of a professional. You will need to replace all that drinking with other activities, which means you need to set yourself some achievable goals.
The same goes for your feelings, learning how can you cope with difficult feelings without alcohol will take some time. Alcohol has been your way of dealing with everything difficult in your life, so you are going to have to find some other ways to cope, basically.
You should regularly review what is working and what’s not, what things are still tripping you up and most importantly, what benefits you are seeing. Remind yourself of your original reasons for wanting to stop drinking alcohol. And of course, if you find that you need some help, try a counselling session.
Hi all, Sorry for being simple, I’m not trying to belittle anyone, but sometimes things are a lot clearer when put simply…..
I just want to bring attention to the old phrase “you drive me to drink”, which is often used in jest. People can drive you to the shop to buy drink, they can also buy the drink for you, but they can’t make you drink it unless they force it down your throat (which isn’t very nice and probably illegal).
What I’m trying to say is, don’t blame anyone else for you drinking, it’s YOUR choice. You have chosen to react to a certain situation by drinking. These situations are called triggers. I have/had many triggers, which I learnt to look out for, so I could react differently to them, rather than drinking. Some triggers were harder than others and these might need different reactions i.e. My reaction to my trigger for being stressed and needing a drink would be to excercise. My reaction to my trigger for being at a party would be to have a non-alcoholic beer.
So, you can choose to react differently to the trigger/situation by doing something other than drinking. Over time you can learn to replace the old drinking reaction with a number of new reactions.
Sorry for blurbing on, but I had a trigger last night that I haven’t had since I gave up drinking and I didn’t know how to react to it, in the end I just sat there thinking about it and came up with all the blurb I just bored you guys with lol.
Not boring at all! You are right though. It is easy to blame other people and situations for our drinking. But in the end we are the only ones to make that final decision to take a sip. Glad you thought your way out of it and didn’t give in!
Hello everyone. First time on here today. Really great site, I can see how useful it could be. I really hope it will be able to help me. I’m in my early thirties and have been a reckless drinker since my teenage years. I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom a few times and that worries the hell out of me because it doesn’t seem to have successfully detered me yet. I’ve read quite a few of the comments on here today and it’s helped me get through the day (yet another day 1.) I did six months sober last year and, like so many others, thought I’d be able to control myself when I drank after total abstinence for half a year…the very next time I picked up a drink I was back at sqare one – one drink is too many and a thousand aren’t enough. When will I learn?. Don’t these days seem to drag? It feels like it will never end. Strange how you spend so much time drunk and don’t remember what’s happened and then the God-awful hangovers and recovery time are spent climbing the walls and wishing the minutes away whilst waiting to feel better – why do we want to keep spending our lives like this? It’s the worst of both worlds.
Anyway, sending out best wishes. Stay strong, one step at a time.
Jen.
That’s a great post Jen and totally hits the nail on the head. This site is great as it seems to attract like minded people, but is also a place where no one knows you personally, but they get to know the real you without you feeling too exposed (if you know what I mean).
It’s like a haven that people stumble across when searching the Internet for help on giving up Drinking. Welcome.
You both totally hit the nail on the head. I think most of us did not know where else to turn and googled “how can I stop drinking”. I know this sounds like an absurd thing to say, but all of the functioning alcoholics that I know are highly intelligent people. I think it takes a certain level of intelligence to be able to pull of our lifestyle. Why we can’t figure out how to quit or how to drink responsibly is the real mystery. But as they say, misery loves company and I think that is why this sight can be so very helpful. Peace
Hi all,
So many good and inspirational posts! I love the give and take flow of the comments. Bravo to the ones reaching out and much gratitude to the ones with the words of hope and experience.
It’s funny, I haven’t been counting the days without alcohol anymore. But out of curiosity I just did-tonight will be 40 days. I have had a couple of small slips–a few sips one night on vacation (trigger=stress) and one night last weekend (trigger=really good wine/social). But I stopped myself, thought of the list of reasons why I stopped (thanks Royboy!) and how good I feel. Social situations are really hard for me! I have been trying to avoid them to some degree but I can’t do that forever. I am still looking for a way to deal with them better. The craving for that glass of wine is just so intense when I am out with friends. I have realized that I deal with stress so much better sober. My life is much more organized and I can’t believe how clear my head is now! I have finished a project at work in one week that I have been struggling with for 6 months plus!
Keep trying everyone. It is not easy but it is soooo worth it! Hope everyone has a peaceful, sober day and sending strength to everyone for the weekend!
Hi first time for me on here tonight, I am feeling better after reading all the comments, I am day three
ey John thanks for your words, yeah those dreams i get are intense like very unpleasant and violent what is the deal with that? my eye keeps twitching and when i get home at night from work im just thinking about going to the corner shop and buying some sweet gorgeous cold beer, its incrediable the effect alcohol has one me im now on day 4 im avoiding going out cause im scared ill cave in but i dont want to loose my social life i wonder if ill be able to go out and not have a drink, but iv heard your appearence gets better if you stop drinking is this true?but whats the deal with the sleeps why will it take so long to get a good nights sleep why does quitting drinkking make u sleep deprived? my main reason for quitting was that is was taking over my life i kept wondering where my next drink would come from if i knew i had 2 beers in the fridge i would plan my night around getting to the shop before it closed to by another 6 pack. i think about my ex when i was drunk wondering what i could of done different for her to of stayed then i hit the scotch and it feels ok till the next morning i could not carry on with that, during the day i feel good abit more confiedence its when i get home thats when the cravings kick in. please tell me does it get better do u feel and look better do the syptoms get easier i still have a cloggy head i take nightol just to try to sleep, why the halluciations whats that all about and why does it come?
anyway any response would be great cheers?