Alcoholism is no joke.
It can sneak up on you when you least expect, but often times, you can see it coming from a mile away.
Even if you won’t admit it to people around you yet, there’s probably a little voice in your head that knows things have gotten a little out of hand.
Plus let’s face it. The people in your life probably knew there was a problem before you even realized there was a problem.
We’re talking about drinking, and how to give up drinking.
That’s easier said than done, but that’s no reason to give up. Each year, many people give up drinking once and for all, and they are so happy that they finally did it.
For some of you, this task will be easier than it’s going to be for other people reading this page right now, but that’s okay, you need to focus on yourself and overcoming your own struggles – don’t compare yourself to other people.
If you compare yourself to the most hardcore alcoholics in the world, it’s easy to think that maybe you’ve got it under control and maybe things aren’t so bad. So, what’s the plan, just waiting until things get out of hand? There’s no better time than right now to turn things around.
How To Give Up Drinking: Proven Strategies
Here are a few rapid-fire things you can do to help yourself give up alcohol for good. Some of these strategies are based on advice from Harvard Health (source).
Write Down Your Reasons For Giving Up Drinking
Writing down the ways that alcohol is interfering with your life, and your reasons to stop drinking, gives you something tangible and concrete that you can refer to for motivation. Remembering why you started is a great way to keep going.
Also, you can keep a “diary” of your drinking patterns. When you’re dealing with a substance that can impact your memory and your perceptions, you may not even realize how much you drink. Just keep a piece of paper nearby, and make a tick for each drink. You can tally this in a book, and then look back and see just how much you’ve really drank over the course of a night, a week, a month…
Set Goals
… and then set goals to lower those amounts of drinks. Going cold turkey is a viable option for the type of person who binge drinks on the weekend and wants to cut back, or wants to cut back in general – but it’s not a good idea for people who have conditioned their bodies into drinking daily, to a point where they’ll shake or feel bad withdrawals if they don’t drink for a day. At that point, it is not a good idea to stop drinking cold turkey (which means suddenly, at once, you just cease to drink.) The sudden cessation of drinking, in someone who is a severe alcoholic, can lead to a number of very serious health complications. Please consult with your doctor or a rehab specialist for guidance on this.
For people who recognize they drink a bit too much, but that aren’t several alcoholic with physical dependencies for alcohol, it’s still important to try to set goals for cutting back – and to keep track of how it’s going.
Recognize Peer Pressure
If there are certain triggers, like your drinking buddy texting you, or getting into a fight with a loved one, or a bad day at work – you need to recognize these triggers so you can stop them before you end up on another binge. If there are people in your live that you feel are enabling your drinking, or making it harder to quit, you need to talk to them about this and let them know your intentions to cut back or to stop drinking altogether. If they are people that are worth caring about, they’ll accept this and they’ll be supportive. If they can’t support your efforts, then do you really want someone like that in your life, anyways?
We will be constantly expanding this list with new ideas, techniques, and ways to give up drinking, along with linking to other useful resources.
