How To Safely Stop Drinking Alcohol?

What is the best and safest way to stop drinking?

Normally, we would recommend getting professional support before you try to cut down your drinking. Our free and confidential services are open as usual and can help you detox safely. Use our service finder to find a service near you or talk to us online for advice.

1. Alcohol detox: what to expect If attending a service isn’t possible, perhaps because you are isolating, you can use this advice on safely detoxing from alcohol at home.
2. Make sure you read and follow the advice carefully, and always be prepared to call an ambulance in an emergency.
3. If you’re dependent on alcohol, it can be dangerous to stop drinking suddenly.

Instead, you should try to reduce the amount you drink slowly, over a few weeks. This takes a bit of preparation, but it’s much safer than stopping suddenly. And after cutting down slowly, you’ll find it much easier to stop drinking when you’re ready. Here’s a process we recommend:

Will my life get better if I stop drinking?

3. Your Physical Health Will Likely Improve. – It’s no secret that drinking in excess can cause great damage to the liver, kidneys, intestines, and other vital organs. However, people often don’t think about long-term damage when they drink, making it easier to write off.

1. Alcohol has short-term effects on physical health as well.
2. Drinking heavily for a few years can lead to weight gain.
3. It can also affect your complexion, making you break out or have a yellowish tint to your skin.
4. Hangovers are another short-term effect of alcohol that people often write off as the price to pay when it comes to drinking.

Hangovers are actually withdrawals from alcohol, and they can be debilitating for some people. When you stop drinking, you have the ability to reverse these short-term effects. You’ll find that you have more energy and likely even a better diet. Your sleep schedule will probably be more consistent, which also helps when it comes to energy levels.

How long after you quit drinking do you feel better?

How long does it take to feel better after quitting alcohol? – Whilst physical withdrawal symptoms are likely to be at their worst during the first couple of days and are usually very much improved in a couple of weeks, emotional issues may remain for longer.

1. There are many other stages of recovery after drinking and the timeline for those will be very dependent on the individual.
2. The Jellinek Curve, a tool that outlines signs and symptoms of alcoholism and indicators of addiction and recovery, details some of the other formative milestones people may experience as they get well.

These milestones are hugely important and knowing that they will come is hugely reassuring to people in recovery. In the early stages, these milestones are things like reaching the point of honestly desiring help, beginning not to obsess about alcohol and improved thought processes.

1. Later they’ll include moving towards feeling hope, returning self-esteem and may include creating new circles of stable friendships or reviving and rebuilding relationships.
2. Recovery is not one smooth upward curve.
3. Almost everyone will have moments of feeling worse before they feel better, experiencing a sense of being stuck or of relapsing either emotionally or physically, but everyone has the capacity to move forward.

With the right support, you can feel better, you can leave alcohol and addiction behind and you can create a new, healthier, happier future.

What happens if you don’t stop drinking?

14. You may feel more productive. – One of the unexpected benefits of giving up alcohol is that you may find yourself more productive than before, This is because alcohol can cause fatigue and decreased motivation, so when you stop drinking, you may find it easier to get things done.

Why is it scary to stop drinking?

2. You Have A Love/Hate Relationship With The Vino – And You’re Afraid Of Losing The Part You LOVE. – Does life without alcohol seem entirely unimaginable, yet you wake up some mornings and ask yourself, “Why do I keep doing this?” Hip Sobriety founder Holly Whitaker said it best: “My life was BUILT around alcohol.

I didn’t have a single sober friend, I made it a point of avoiding dry events and dry people, my dinner reservations were conditioned on the wine list, vacations were excuses to be day drunk. On the other hand, I LOATHED what it was doing to my looks, my self-esteem, my time, my world, my mental health, my maturity, my emotional balance, my wallet, etc.

But living without it seemed like the end of the world. Or at least the end of my world.” She goes on to state what so many of us do; we try to prove to ourselves that we can moderate it so we can keep it in our lives. We love putting these little “drinking rules” on ourselves to see if that might fix the problem.

We say we won’t drink on weeknights or that we won’t drink “Monday-Wednesday.” We say that we won’t do happy hour anymore and only drink wine at home. We say we’ll replace happy hour with exercise, and my personal favorite “we’ll do a sober month.” When you make this kind of commitment, ask yourself: are you obsessing over the decision? Are you finding it all too easy to make exceptions to the rules? Or are you completely going off the charts and then inevitably, filled with guilt the next day? Most people are terrified of moving away from alcohol because of the fear of losing “friends,” and because of the shift in their social lives.

It’s normal. At the end of the day, however, you have to be serious with yourself about what you can and cannot live with – and if alcohol is worth it. Triggers are triggers, and limiting your alcohol intake tends to trigger people to want to drink more (like the whole “grass is always greener analogy”).

What happens after 3 months of no alcohol?

How Long Will It Take To Feel Better? – It may take a full month of not drinking alcohol to feel better. Although positive changes may appear earlier, 3 months of not drinking can not only improve your mood, energy, sleep, weight, skin health, immune health, and heart health.

How much weight can you lose in 30 days without alcohol?

30 Days Without Alcohol – Going an entire month without drinking is a major milestone. Celebrate yourself! It’s not easy to go a full 30 days, which is why some studies suggest that as many as half of the participants in month-long “no drinking events” such as Dry January and Sober October find themselves failing to make it the entire month without having a drink. When you reach 30 days without alcohol, the benefits of not drinking are no longer subtle. Here’s a closer look at all the changes happening with your body and mind after a month alcohol-free: Weight Loss There’s no denying it now – if you wanted to stop drinking to lose weight, you should absolutely be seeing results after 30 days.

Depending on how much you drank, your starting weight, your age, and how you’ve treated diet and exercise since you stopped drinking, it’s not uncommon to lose anywhere between 6-15 pounds after a month without alcohol. Lower Anxiety While most people think of alcohol as a stress reliever, the science disagrees.

Alcohol is clinically proven in study after study to worsen anxiety. After 30 days alcohol-free, you may notice your general levels of stress and anxiety starting to stabilize. Incredible Sleep Sleep is a constant theme with quitting alcohol, because so few people realize just how badly it disrupts our rest.

1. While it may seem like you “pass out” right away after a night of heavy drinking, your brain is unable to get the same levels of deep sleep and REM sleep when intoxicated, meaning no matter how many hours you sleep, you’ll never wake up as refreshed or restored as you do when you sleep in sober.
2. Better Energy and Focus With better sleep and less anxiety, you’re naturally going to feel like you have increased energy and focus.

You may even feel yourself needing that morning cup (or cups, who are we kidding) of coffee less and less. Beautiful Skin Alcohol dehydrates your entire body, including your skin. Like all your organs, your skin needs water to survive. Water gives your skin its elasticity, strength, and glow.

After 30 days without alcohol, your skin will be radiant! Lowered Risk of Major Health Issues It’s no secret that alcohol is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the Western world. The NIAAA reports that an estimated 95,000 people die annually from alcohol-related causes in the U.S., making it the third-leading preventable cause of death in the country.

Of course, much of this is driven by accidents, violence, and other emergencies brought on by excessive alcohol consumption. But it’s also driven by the immense health problems caused by the substance, including cancer, heart disease, mental illness, liver cirrhosis, and diabetes.

After not drinking for a month, you’ve started well down the pathway of reducing your risk of all these fatal diseases. Of course, the most important benefit is the personal satisfaction you get from setting out on this journey and seeing it through to completion (or at least to this major milestone, if you intend to push past 30 days).

Quitting alcohol is hard. Even if you don’t believe you have a drinking problem, the multi-billion-dollar beer, wine and spirits industry has spent decades convincing you that alcohol is the fuel necessary for a good time. And without it, many can feel quite lost and lonely.

Can you drink a lot and not be an alcoholic?

Press Release – Embargoed until: Thursday, November 20, 2014, Noon ET Contact: pdf icon 9 out of 10 excessive drinkers are not alcohol dependent 89.8%: Excessive Drinkers Who are Not Dependent 10.2%: Excessive Drinkers Who are Dependent Entire Infographic pdf icon Nine in 10 adults who drink too much alcohol are not alcoholics or alcohol dependent, according to a new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

The study appears today in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease, Excessive drinking includes binge drinking (four or more drinks on an occasion for women, five or more drinks on an occasion for men); consuming eight or more drinks a week for women or 15 or more drinks a week for men; or any alcohol use by pregnant women or those under the minimum legal drinking age of 21.

Alcohol dependence is a chronic medical condition that typically includes a current or past history of excessive drinking, a strong craving for alcohol, continued use despite repeated problems with drinking, and an inability to control alcohol consumption.

“This study shows that, contrary to popular opinion, most people who drink too much are not alcohol dependent or alcoholics,” said Robert Brewer, M.D., M.S.P.H., Alcohol Program Lead at CDC and one of the report’s authors. “It also emphasizes the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to reducing excessive drinking that includes evidence-based community strategies, screening and counseling in healthcare settings, and high-quality substance abuse treatment for those who need it.” The study found that nearly 1 in 3 adults is an excessive drinker, and most of them binge drink, usually on multiple occasions.

In contrast, about 1 in 30 adults is classified as alcohol dependent. The rates of alcohol dependence increase with the amount of alcohol consumed. About 10 percent of binge drinkers are alcohol dependent, while 30 percent of people who binge frequently (10 or more times a month) are alcohol dependent.

Excessive alcohol use is responsible for 88,000 deaths in the U.S. each year (including about 3,700 deaths from alcohol dependence), and cost the U.S. $223.5 billion in 2006. These deaths were due to health effects from drinking too much over time, such as breast cancer, liver disease, and heart disease; and health effects from drinking too much in a short period of time, such as violence, alcohol poisoning, and motor vehicle crashes.

Excessive drinkers who are dependent often need specialized or more intensive treatment to change their behavior. People who drink too much, but are not dependent, can still be encouraged to drink less through state and local interventions that increase the price and limit the availability of alcohol.

In addition those who are not dependent may be candidates for other clinical interventions, including screening and counseling offered by doctors and other health professionals. CDC and SAMHSA scientists analyzed data on 138,100 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older from all 50 states and D.C. who participated in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) in 2009, 2010, or 2011.

The survey includes a wide range of questions on substance use, including current drinking, binge drinking, average alcohol consumption, and symptoms of alcohol dependence. The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends several evidence-based strategies to reduce excessive drinking, including increasing alcohol taxes, regulating alcohol outlet density, and holding alcohol retailers liable for harms resulting from illegal sales to minors or intoxicated patrons.

• The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening and counseling for excessive drinking for all adult patients.
• This service is covered by most insurance plans, and can also be delivered by computer or telephone.
• For more information about excessive drinking, including binge drinking, and how to prevent this dangerous behavior, visit the CDC’s Alcohol and Public Health website at http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/index.htm.

Members of the public who are concerned about their own or someone else’s drinking can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at1-800-662-HELP to receive assistance from the Treatment Referral Routing Service. ### U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES external icon

Who is the strongest drinker?

1. Polmos Spirytus Rektyfikowany Vodka – Courtesy of Polmos Spirytus Proof: 192 (96% alcohol by volume) The world’s strongest spirit is a rectified Polish spirit that is normally used for home distillers to create their own flavored vodkas at home. You can drink it straight, but since it’s almost pure alcohol, it’s got quite the kick and is generally not recommended.

What is the first step to stop drinking?

Recognizing you Have a Drinking Problem – Many people with drinking problems cannot tell when their drinking is out of control. You likely have a drinking problem when your body depends on alcohol to function and your drinking is causing problems with your health, social life, family, or job.