How Do I Stop Drinking
Overcoming an addiction to alcohol can be a long and bumpy road. At times, it may even feel impossible. But its not. If youre ready to stop drinking and willing to get the support you need, you can recover from alcoholism and alcohol abuseno matter how heavy your drinking or how powerless you feel. And you dont have to wait until you hit rock bottom you can make a change at any time. Whether you want to quit drinking altogether or cut down to healthier levels, these guidelines can help you get started on the road to recovery today.
Most people with alcohol problems do not decide to make a big change out of the blue or transform their drinking habits overnight. Recovery is usually a more gradual process. In the early stages of change, denial is a huge obstacle. Even after admitting you have a drinking problem, you may make excuses and drag your feet. It’s important to acknowledge your ambivalence about stopping drinking. If you’re not sure if you’re ready to change or you’re struggling with the decision, it can help to think about the costs and benefits of each choice.
Icipate In A Treatment Program
Speaking of treatment programs, Sobriety Solutions has years experience helping people successfully get sober. We are committed to helping you or your loved one achieve and maintain lifetime sobriety.
Participating in the Sobriety Solutions outpatient and PHP program gives you access to additional support and provides you with a chance to surround yourself with positive influences. Youll also be able to separate yourself from many temptations and triggers physically.
Sobriety Solutions accepts most insurance policies, and we have options in place for those who might not be able to afford treatment on their own. Dont let a lack of funds stop you from seeking help.
Find Ways To Cope If You Get Thrown Off Your Schedule
Relapse prevention techniques always include creating a schedule. Routines are important during addiction recovery, as a chaotic or disorganized life can encourage you to turn to old habits. Get up at around the same time every day, go to bed around the same time every night, schedule calls with family members, and take a bath or shower to unwind every evening.
Not only is it important to develop a routine that works for you, its also important to find ways to cope if you get thrown off your schedule. Whether its the holidays or a loss of employment, reaching out to your family, attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or increasing your meditation schedule can all help you cope if you find yourself off schedule.
Recommended Reading: Side Effects Of Meth Addiction
Set Up A Designated Driving Plan
Though we tend to associate designated drivers with alcohol, these programs can be useful for anyone who consumes mind-altering substances, Balasanova says.
Talk to your loved one about how they plan to get around when they’re under the influence, and offer yourself up as a designated driver if appropriate.
Manage Physical Pain And Symptoms
You also ought to make sure you have options available to help you deal with physical pain and other symptoms of withdrawal.
Talk to your doctor about medications that can help to ease withdrawal symptoms. Managing withdrawal is not something that should try to accomplish on your own. Sobriety Solutions is here to help you navigate a successful detox from alcohol.
Read Also: What Is It Called When You Help An Addict
Useful Contacts For Alcohol Problems
- Drinkline is the national alcohol helpline. If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s drinking, you can call this free helpline in complete confidence. Call 0300 123 1110 .
- Alcoholics Anonymous is a free self-help group. Its “12 step” programme involves getting sober with the help of regular support groups.
- Al-Anon Family Groups offers support and understanding to the families and friends of problem drinkers, whether they’re still drinking or not. Alateen is part of Al-Anon and can be attended by 12- to 17-year-olds who are affected by another person’s drinking, usually a parent.
- We Are With You is a UK-wide treatment agency that helps individuals, families and communities manage the effects of drug and alcohol misuse. If you are over 50 and worried about your drinking, call 0808 8010 750
- Adfam is a national charity working with families affected by drugs and alcohol. Adfam operates an online message board and a database of local support groups.
- The National Association for Children of Alcoholics provides a free, confidential telephone and email helpline for children of alcohol-dependent parents and others concerned about their welfare. Call 0800 358 3456 for the Nacoa helpline.
- SMART Recovery groups help people decide whether they have a problem, build up their motivation to change, and offer a set of proven tools and techniques to support recovery.
Caring for an alcoholic? Find out where you can get support.
How To Help Someone Stop Drinking
Alcohol abuse and addiction doesn’t just affect the person drinkingit affects their families and loved ones, too. Watching a family member struggle with a drinking problem can be as heartbreakingly painful as it is frustrating. But while you can’t do the hard work of overcoming addiction for your loved one, your love and support can play a crucial part in their long-term recovery.
Talk to the person about their drinking. Express your concerns in a caring way and encourage your friend or family member to get help. Try to remain neutral and don’t argue, lecture, accuse, or threaten.
Learn all you can about addiction. Research the kinds of treatment that are available and discuss these options with your friend or family member.
Take action. Consider staging a family meeting or an intervention, but don’t put yourself in a dangerous situation. Offer your support along each step of the recovery journey.
Don’t make excuses for your loved one’s behavior. The person with the drinking problem needs to take responsibility for their actions. Don’t lie or cover things up to protect someone from the consequences of their drinking.
Don’t blame yourself. You aren’t to blame for your loved one’s drinking problem and you can’t make them change.
Read Also: What Are The Effects Of Addiction
How Long Does It Take To Get Sober In The Long
PAWS symptoms may last several months or years. Depending on the severity of your addiction, your symptoms will appear and disappear without warning. Usually, they are less intense than in the early stages of recovery. When you enter our detox center here at Coastal Detox, you will receive assistance managing post-acute withdrawal. You will learn how to deal with symptoms so that you have the knowledge and the tools to continue the fight.
After you have finished detoxing and have started on the road to recovery, cravings are still challenging. Although they lessen with time, it will take many years to shake them completely. Like some individuals, your cravings may never disappear. However, relapse-prevention skills are essential to learn and to execute so that you do not fall victim to old bad habits. If you have a severe problem, your cravings may last longer than with a mild problem.
Throwing Up: Is It The Fastest Way To Sober Up From Alcohol
When someone wakes up drunk, and they have important meetings lined up in a couple of hours, the one question on their mind is: How to sober up in an hour? Will throwing up help? Is there an effective medicine for the hangover? The truth is vomiting does not help.
Throwing up may help indirectly by relieving nausea, which is a common symptom after too much alcohol. Self-induced vomiting is not a good idea, however, because exposure to stomach acid can damage the esophagus .
Don’t Miss: Licensed Addiction Counselor Billings Mt
Focus On The Positive Benefits Of Sobriety
Before heading out to any social function, perform a quick inventory of your life. Focus on the many positive benefits of sobriety, from better relationships with your friends and family to regaining your self-respect, feeling healthy, and being able to achieve whatever future fills your dreams. Once you examine all youve gained, you will remember that losing all those benefits of sobriety just to get drunk at a party is not worth it.
How To Get Sober Fast
If you have recently found yourself asking how you can sober up quickly, theres every chance you could have a problem with drinking or addiction.
As outlined above, engaging with a professional treatment program gives you the surest route to sobriety with your health and welfare placed uppermost.
While you may read about quitting drinking cold turkey, stopping abruptly can be potentially dangerous if you have a more severe alcohol use disorder and can even lead to death in some cases.
Maybe you dont have a drinking problem at all, but you got unexpectedly intoxicated and wake up needing to at least appear more sober than you feel. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to reduce your BAC levels. Also, there is no evidence-based cure for hangovers.
What counts is doing what makes you feel better, whether thats drinking a strong espresso, eating a light breakfast, or taking a long soak in the bath.
Also Check: What Does Nicotine Addiction Feel Like
How To Get Sober: The Bottom Line
The decision to get sober is a difficult one, but an admirable one. Deciding to get sober will give you your life back. All alcoholics in recovery have had to take the first steps that youre taking, like detoxing and going through a treatment program. Having a core group of sober friends, going to regular AA or support group meetings, getting mental health counseling, and managing stress are key to maintaining your sobriety in the long run.
Research Alcohol Rehab Programs
The type of treatment that will be most suitable for your loved one may be determined by several individual factors such as any previous attempts to quit, current alcohol use and corresponding level of physical alcohol dependence, any co-occurring medical and/or mental health conditions and any additional substance use.
Regardless of their level of alcohol misuse and whether theyre in denial, seeking the guidance of addiction treatment professionals can help you better understand how treatment works and what that may look like for your loved one.
Alcohol.org is a subsidiary of American Addiction Centers , a leading provider of addiction treatment services across the U.S. The admissions navigators at AAC are here to answer your questions about treatment 24/7 and all calls are confidential.
Read Also: Addiction Treatment Center Columbus Oh
Learn About Alcohol Addiction
Without fully understanding alcoholism or AUD, it can be hard to talk about it with your loved one whos struggling.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, an alcohol use disorder is when one can no longer control their use of alcohol, compulsively use it despite its negative ramifications, and/or experience emotional distress when they are not drinking.1
AUD is a chronic, relapsing disease that is diagnosed based on an individual meeting certain criteria outlined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders .
Additionally, according to the DSM-5, alcohol use disorder is believed to have a strong heritable component. Between 4060% of the variance of risk is attributable to genetic factors.2
However, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to understanding alcohol use disorder. It is a multifaceted and complex disease, so while someone may inherit a predisposition to it, genes do not fully determine a persons outcome.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine also explains that because alcohol use disorder is a disease, it is an involuntary disability.3 This means that although people choose to drink initially, it may be out of their control to quit once they become addicted.
Care For Your Mental Health
Your mental health can have a huge impact on your addiction. It can cause you to continue using, even though you know you shouldnt.
Either way, its quite common for mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction to go together. In 2014, over 20 million adults in the United States had a substance use disorder. Nearly eight million of those had both a substance abuse disorder and co-occurring mental illness.
If you dont care for your mental health before, during, or after you get sober, you can expect your addiction to rear its ugly head again and again throughout your lifetime.
Caring for your mental health and a substance abuse disorder at the same time might mean going to a mental health treatment center for help with staying sober. Its important to reach out to a health care professional and a substance abuse expert for help finding the type of mental health treatment thats right for you.
Also Check: How To Get Over Opiate Addiction
Helping The Other Person Help Themselves
When a loved one is struggling with alcoholism, youll need to help them help themselves. Here are a few things that you may do for them so that they do not spiral back into a relapse.
- Dont drink around them. You may be ok with alcohol, but all it will do is increase their cravings.
- Dont enable their behavior by finding excuses or getting them out of a tough spot. They will keep doing it because they believe theyll get away with it.
- Dont give ultimatums. In many cases, all this will do is cause your efforts to backfire and send your loved ones into a defensive.
- Try to speak with people who know more about dealing with alcoholism. For example, gaining insight on the matter from recovering alcoholics may help you help them.
Regardless of the circumstances, you need to be supportive. Show them that you are there for them throughout their journey and that you are proud of every achievement they make.
Examples Of Alcohol Treatment Programs
- Residential treatment involves living at a treatment facility while undergoing intensive treatment during the day. Residential treatment normally lasts from 30-90 days.
- Partial hospitalization is for people who require ongoing medical monitoring but have a stable living situation. These treatment programs usually meet at the hospital for 3-5 days a week, 4-6 hours per day.
- Intensive outpatient programs focus on relapse prevention and can often be scheduled around work or school.
- Therapy can help you identify the root causes of your alcohol use, repair your relationships, and learn healthier coping skills and how to deal with triggers that could cause you to relapse.
You May Like: The Abbey Addiction Treatment Center
Pros & Cons Of Detoxing At Home
Alcohol detox can be a dangerous process, which is why its typically best handled by a medical professional at a detox or rehab center. Alcohol detoxification involves withdrawal, and withdrawal involves physical symptoms. The symptoms of alcohol withdrawal can be severe. Ultimately, the severity of symptoms depends on a number of factors, including age, gender, and longevity of the addiction.
- Higher risk of unwanted mental health effects
- Higher risk of dangerous physical health effects
- Lack of medications means limited symptom relief
- Increased possibility of a setback occurring
- Possible harm to relationships during the discomfort of withdrawal
How Long After Quitting Drinking Does Fertility Come Back
If youve struggled with alcohol in the past, and you are trying for a baby, how long after quitting drinking does fertility come back?
There is limited research on this topic, but one study found that it took no more than three months for the return of healthy sperm production once men stopped drinking heavily. After three months, all men in the study had completely normal sperm parameters.12
The answer is less clear for women. However, we know that within one month of quitting, the liver begins to repair itself from alcohol-related damage, and the risk of alcohol-related cardiovascular disease is reduced. Our bodies have an incredible ability to heal themselves, and thats encouraging news for women concerned about alcohol and conception.
Read Also: Video Game Addiction And Mental Health
Open Up To Others About Your Struggle
There are a lot of reasons why people choose not to open up to family members and friends. Opening up is even harder if you drink alcohol and suspect you may have a problem. However, its extremely important to share your struggle if you want to get and stay sober.
Support is a key role in how to get sober. If no one knows that you want to quit drinking, it will be extremely easy to pick up your drink of choice as soon as times get tough. If friends and family members know about your struggles and your goals, they can help keep you accountable so you can stay sober in the long term.
Choosing who you confide in is important. Choose people you trust and who truly care about your well-being. It doesnt mean you have to tell everyone, either. Its perfectly fine to fill just a few key people in and talk to them regularly about your recovery instead of telling everyone you know.
Continue Going To Aa Meetings
Addiction recovery and addiction treatment is often a life-long journey. Although AA meetings are helpful early in your recovery process, keeping your support group strong and going to AA meetings regularly can help you maintain sobriety over the longterm. Having a core backbone of peers and mentors on the same journey can help prevent relapse.
Don’t Miss: Why Do Addicts Relapse When Things Are Good
Remove Yourself From Temptation
One of the most important things to do if you want to get and stay sober is to remove yourself from temptations physically.
For example, you can stay away from parties where you know alcohol will be present. Avoid spending time with friends or family members who consume these substances, too. You might even need to look into moving to get away from roommates who might tempt you .
