How To Stop Binge Drinking: 7 Tips To Break the Habit
Support can come from family members, friends, counselors, other recovering alcoholics, your healthcare providers, and people from your faith community. Once you’ve made the decision to change, the next step is establishing clear drinking goals. The more specific, realistic, and clear your goals, the better.
Identifying Drinking Habits
With that in mind, try planning alternative activities in place of drinking. For example, rather than going out to a bar or party, ask some of your closest friends if they’d like to have a movie night or game night instead. But it doesn’t have to be if you implement these four strategies for avoiding relapses.
Create a Support System
After the last drink, a person may experience mild or more severe symptoms. Self-affirmation is a powerful strategy to help https://www.georgiaphonecase.com/mash-policy-minnesota-association-of-sober-homes-2/ motivate people to change their habits and behaviors. Self-affirmation exercises, such as recognizing self-worth, can allow an individual to focus on their important values.
Replace Drinking Alcohol With Other Activities
Lean on close friends and family – Having tips to quit drinking the support of friends and family members is an invaluable asset in recovery. If you’re reluctant to turn to your loved ones because you’ve let them down before, consider going to couples counseling or family therapy. Whether you choose to tackle your alcohol addiction by going to rehab, getting therapy, or taking a self-directed treatment approach, support is essential. Recovering from alcohol addiction or abuse is much easier when you have people you can lean on for encouragement, comfort, and guidance.
What is a relaxing drink to replace alcohol?
That means looking at your relationship with alcohol so you can understand why you drink, when you drink and how much you drink. Some people think tapering can be a safer way to finally get your heavy alcohol use under control. But even if you try it, you may still have withdrawal symptoms. Eating healthy foods, trying to get exercise, and getting enough sleep can help reduce some withdrawal symptoms, such as mood swings. If you take prescription medication, continue to take it as directed.
- Get support from your doctor, friends, and family when you’re ready to stop drinking.
- This rare, emergency condition causes dangerous changes in the way your brain regulates your circulation and breathing, so it’s important to get to the hospital right away.
- When operating on fear alone, the focus is on avoiding the consequences rather than maximizing the benefits.
- Avoiding triggering situations and developing healthier coping mechanisms will help you stay on track toward your goal of giving up alcohol.
Professional resources and helplines for alcohol treatment and recovery
Start by eliminating all alcoholic beverages, barware, and reminders of drinking from your home. This not only reduces temptation but also helps to establish a fresh atmosphere that supports your commitment to sobriety. Taking a deeper look into how drinking every night could be affecting you is an act of self-care. You can break a nightly drinking habit, and you don’t have to do it alone. The clinicians at Monument, such as myself, are here to support you at every step. The alcohol recovery timeline takes time and patience, but it works.
Handling setbacks in your recovery
If your family and friends are particularly unsupportive (which can happen), it’s especially important to Sober living house lean on your sobriety network. If you’re in a situation where people are not entirely supportive or it’s complicated, it’s time to have some difficult conversations. Not everyone is going to be thrilled that you’ve decided to quit drinking.
Know Your Reasons For Quitting
- It is helpful for individuals to understand their motivations and goals behind it.
- Engaging in hobbies and social activities that don’t involve alcohol can help fill time previously spent drinking and build a supportive environment.
- It’s common to experience difficulty when making big changes, but good self-care practices can help you manage overwhelming feelings and take care of your mind and body.
- It’s easy to fall into the trap of peer pressure, regardless of your age group.
Try to remain neutral and don’t argue, lecture, accuse, or threaten. It’s much easier to avoid drinking if you don’t keep temptations around. Numerous options exist for individuals grappling with drug or alcohol addiction, ranging from inpatient and outpatient rehab to various therapies and ongoing support groups. In addition, alcohol is a known neurotoxin that changes the structure and function of the brain. Research indicates multiple neurotoxic effects on the brain as well as neuroinflammation that can lead to the degeneration of brain tissue and reduced brain volume. With even our bodies confused about the effects of soda, I had to add clarity.
