In early sobriety we might struggle just to stay dry for another 24 hours at a time. We might have a hard time staying dry for a single day at a time and just to make it without drinking we will have to use our friends and support from the meetings. This is OK but as you stay sober for longer you’ll realize that you are becoming more reliant on your self and on your level of growth. This is not to say that you are eventually cured or that you do not need other people to stay sober, but only that there is a shift in focus on these priorities. Long term sobriety is about passionate living, while early recovery is about support and fellowship and learning. Both stages have all of these attributes in them, but the focus is a bit different for those who are successful in living a sober life. If you want to know how to stop drinking then you will have to master both stages.
So you want to know how to stop drinking alcohol? My first piece of advice is that you seek out a professional facility to dry out in. This is crucial because not consuming alcohol can actually kill a person if they stop it abruptly and without supervision. There is also the added bonus that if you go to a treatment center to detox then you will also receive a ton of support from doing so. The networking that you get from your peers in early recovery is of vital importance, and going to a treatment center will automatically introduce you to these types of connections. Because of these 2 reasons I highly recommend attending a treatment center if you are serious about quitting drinking.
Now at this point many people think that their job is done when they walk out of the treatment center but in fact it has not even started yet. The real challenge in recovery is in living your life sober without resorting back to resentment and anger and eventually relapsing. It is not always the drinking that got us in trouble but also the lifestyle itself. If you leave rehab and try to remain sober but go back to the same old life situation then you might have a hard time with sobriety. We have to make large, sweeping change in our daily routine if we are going to maintain recovery. This is not impossible but it does require action.
So many people who leave treatment do not follow up with the action required to stay sober. If you want to make recovery work for you then you need to approach it with overwhelming force. We put a bunch of time and energy into our drinking so we have to put an equal amount of energy into getting well. Most people underestimate what it will take to stay sober. The answer is to go further than what you think it will take in order to remain sober.
And that is the bottom line right there: If you want to how to stop drinking then you have to take action. At first your goal in recovery will be very concentrated on staying sober one day at a time and figuring out how to live again without drinking. But as time goes on in recovery your actions must shift towards those of personal growth and development. In early recovery the support you get from other people is really important. In long term sobriety your drive for personal growth and holistic health is what is key.
