8 Tips for Quitting Alcohol in the First Few Days

Below are samples of e-health tools developed with NIAAA funding. Each of these fee-based tools has a research base that shows its potential to help people cut down or quit drinking. The three-step road map outlined in the NIAAA Alcohol Treatment Navigator offers expert guidance to focus and support your efforts.

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Regular check-ins with healthcare professionals or support groups can be valuable for ongoing guidance and monitoring. The first and most crucial step is acknowledging the need to stop drinking. This may come from a personal realization or be prompted by external factors such as health concerns, relationship issues, or the desire to regain mental how to quit drinking clarity. Admitting to yourself that alcohol is no longer serving you is empowering—it shows that you’re ready to make a positive change. It’s important to be honest with yourself about the impact alcohol has on your life and well-being. By avoiding alcohol, you’re taking a big step toward improving physical health.

Find Out if You’re Misusing Alcohol

However, when alcohol makes up part of your typical routine, drinking can become something of an automatic response, especially when you feel stressed or overwhelmed. Learn more about the health effects of drinking alcohol. If you’re having trouble doing the same things you used to do, try new hobbies to fill your time. Join a gym, learn a new skill, or find sober social groups you can enjoy. There’s a reason you’ve reached the decision to quit or cut back. Whether it’s improved relationships, better health, or weight loss, keeping the “why” in sight can help boost Substance abuse your motivation.

• Certain medications have been shown to effectively help people stop or reduce their drinking and avoid a return to drinking.
• Most importantly, don’t berate yourself if you slip up and have a drink.
• Once you’ve made the decision to change, the next step is establishing clear drinking goals.
• Alcohol artificially boosts dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain, creating an imbalance.

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• Learn factors influencing stay length, what to expect, and how to achieve lasting recovery.
• Talk with a healthcare professional if you’re concerned you may experience detox symptoms when quitting drinking or cutting back.

Willpower is the hard way to quit drinking and not the Easyway to quit drinking. According to Drinkaware, 6 per cent of UK adults are either drinking at high risk, or possibly dependent on alcohol. “Many people have some of the best times of their lives when they are consuming alcohol. But in order to accept this we also need to be aware of the harms it can cause. Dependence is when your alcohol intake becomes so normalised that your body can’t function without it,” she adds.

Use the NIAAA’s drink size calculator to determine the amount of alcohol in various drinks. A standard glass of wine is 5 ounces, which contains about 12% alcohol. A shot of distilled spirits like vodka is 1.5 ounces and equally 40% alcohol.

• Once identified, individuals avoid or develop strategies to manage these triggers.
• Receive encouragement from people worldwide who know exactly what you’re going through!
• When you drink, sip slowly and take a break of 30 minutes or one hour between drinks.
• Evaluate the coverage in your health insurance plan to determine how much of the costs your insurance will cover and how much you will have to pay.

So, you’ve got to gradually correct this behaviour as you along and it’s not going to happen overnight, days or weeks, this is going to take months. When you quit drinking alcohol, there isn’t any way around feeling like you’re missing something. Talk therapy is an important part of treatment for alcohol use disorder, but Dr. Streem https://dev.ccit.ro/mm/2023/05/22/how-to-taper-off-alcohol-risks-of-quitting-alcohol/ says just about anyone who is making a life change, like quitting drinking, can benefit from therapy. Laying it all out in black and white can take time and some serious self-examination.