The Best Way To Stop Drinking
Going cold turkey, toughing it out and using self-discipline to quit drinking, even for a brief time, is not typically sufficient to get the happy sober outcome you desire. Avoiding temptation uses up a great deal of mental capacity, and ultimately your mind burns out and surrenders to the cravings.
So what is the best way to stop drinking or take a breather from the bottle?
Monitor your alcohol consumption
Recognizing just how much you are drinking might be a valuable incentive to make changes. It may also assist you in preparing for circumstances where you’d typically be consuming alcohol.
You may be shocked at how much or how frequently you’re consuming alcohol and what circumstances. Specific individuals, locations, or feelings might raise or reduce your alcohol use.
Before your intended ‘time out’ from drinking, allot a week or more, keeping track of the quantity you consume and when.
Get crystal clear on your objectives and your commitment.
Consider why you are making alterations to your alcohol consumption. Why are you doing this? To shed a little weight, feel better, save cash, sleep better, or avoid increasingly common mornings of guilt and regret?
Will you cut down or give up?
If cutting down, will you drink less often or a lesser amount? For how much time will you stick to this plan? What happens later on? Do you just go back to how it was before?
It’s simpler to stay with your sober objectives if they’re crystal clear and attainable.
Make an effort to keep these factors in your mind when you have unavoidable moments of hesitation!
Set a date to quit drinking
Plan how you’ll inform your friends and family you’ve stopped drinking or at the very least cut down.
Establishing a quit date is often helpful in keeping you on track and committed to a specific goal. It helps you get ready and assess the factors around why you are going sober. You have to be very clear about why making a change to your lifestyle like this is beneficial.
It also gives you time to get whatever you need in a position to live a happy sober life.
There is no point in being a dry drunk, someone who is sober but miserable.
Preparing how you will inform others, thinking of how to decline an alcoholic beverage when offered, and figuring out which circumstances you may need to stay clear of or beware about, at least initially.
Get sober curious
Get some help online if need be. This is also a great way to convey to your colleagues your decision to stop drinking alcohol, so they can better help you.
If you’re participating in an activity like Dry January or Go Sober For October, urge your loved ones to back and support you. It will benefit the charitable organization you are helping, but it can make you more committed to the end goal.
Solo sober or with a friend? Sometimes it helps to make this decision with a fellow drinker and support each other on the journey. Individuals attempting to stop drinking who have personal encouragement are more likely to decrease their alcohol consumption.
The Stop Drinking Expert program has an extensive internet support group of over 200,000 people. It offers a variety of tools to help individuals who wish to cut back or stop drinking alcohol altogether. If you are interested in how it works, reserve your place on the next free quit drinking coaching session – that is the first step.
Current independent reviews of our how to stop drinking program, which includes individualized conversations with a sobriety coach, reveal it results in considerable decreases in alcohol consumption and enhancements in physical and psychological well being.
Be kind to yourself.
You may hear psychiatrists describe something called the “rule violation effect”. This is when you’re striving not to consume alcohol but eventually surrender and fall for the false belief that you can ‘just have one drink’, of course, you can’t, but then lose hope in your sober intentions entirely.
Rather than thinking, “forget it, I may as well keep drinking alcohol now,” try stating something positive such as: “It’s going to take a while. It was only one mistake. I can pick up where I broke off.”
Transforming any habits is challenging. Do not quit at the first oversight or mistake: get back on the horse and keep moving.
Don’t leave a vacuum behind.
In addition to existing non-alcoholic lager and wines out there, a variety of non-alcoholic spirits are also surfacing on the market. A good idea is to ask for these to be served in a standard wine or whiskey glass. This way, you are less likely to prick the interest of your drinking buddies, who will do anything to get you back into the alco gang mentality.
It can also be helpful to concentrate on hobbies and routines that do not typically entail drinking. Urge your pals to meet up in the morning for coffee, for instance, or propose healthier endeavours where drinking is less likely to be a part of the fabric.
Our alcohol-centric culture often feels awkward when everybody around you is imbibing, and you are not joining in. It helps to also have a glass in your hand but choose a better option like mineral water, soda or a mocktail.
The very best way to stop drinking
Courses like the Stop Drinking Expert program have helped tens of thousands of problem drinkers.
Nevertheless, bear in mind that these courses are targeted at social drinkers. Full-blown alcoholics might experience withdrawal manifestations when they go cold turkey. For some, this could be unsafe if not kept track of. Always seek guidance from a General Practitioner when making any dramatic changes regarding your health and lifestyle.
Some folks stress over “falling off the wagon”. Even if you don’t stay quit, we know that even taking on a month-long sobriety challenge often leads to drops in alcohol use of 6 months and sometimes up to a year down the road.
Tip 1: Mindfulness practice (like yoga and meditation) has also been demonstrated to assist problem drinkers in modifying their alcohol consumption.
Tip 2: If you suddenly have a craving to grab a beer, try doing some strenuous physical exercise or doing a thing you love as an alternative. These things discharge the same feel-good compounds in your mind as booze does. They will not make you feel drunk, but they might make you feel better and calmer.
Quitting drinking drawbacks?
In ten years of helping people to get back in control of their alcohol use, we have never once had someone regret the decision to go sober. The benefits of quitting drinking are enormous, and any drawbacks are nothing more than a small challenge to be overcome.
You will see dramatic improvements in health, relationships and career. So why not give it a go?
Ready to take action?
Are you ready to discover the best way to stop drinking without AA, rehab, or any usual struggle?
You have come to the right place; that is exactly what we teach people. The first step is easy, grab your spot on our next free quit drinking webinar and find out how this program works.
