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.

Alcoholics are passionate people. They love to get drunk and they love the way it makes them feel and it becomes the purpose of their life. The problem is that it eventually quits working as their tolerance increases and it becomes impossible to “get happy” anymore. Because alcoholics are filled with passion, they need to find passion in their recovery as well. If you were to remove the drugs and the alcohol from their life then the alcoholic is left with nothing; they can’t become excited about living without resorting back to drinking.

Because of this enthusiasm, it goes to show that any drunk who has learned how to stop drinking must be doing so with passion. This is the answer. Not behavior modification or counseling on Tuesdays and Thursdays or even 12 step programs, but passion.

Passion is what fuels the success in a life of sobriety. Passion is the key to living sober.

Realize that 12 step fellowships do work really well for some people, but only if they have a real passion for the program and for their life in general.

Do this test: ask any successful recovering alcoholic if they are as passionate about life in recovery as they were about drinking. They will of course tell you that they are. Otherwise they would not still be clean and sober. They would be drinking.

To the normal person who is not suffering from addiction, this sort of question might seem ridiculous at first. This can be a tough question however, because some people are still at the stage of drinking where they are enjoying themselves and they are not yet getting into too much trouble with their habit.

In some circumstances, there are drunks who can go for long periods of time without drinking anything at all, but then when they do get drunk they tend to go overboard. So this could be tricky to diagnose by yourself, because the binge drinker often goes for long periods of time without having any problems at all.  In such cases the person might not realize that they should in fact stop drinking.

So how can you know for sure?Here are some ways that you might go about learning more:

1) Try to control the amount you drink. Set a limit on the amount of drinking and cut it down to one beer or shot or glass of wine per day, maximum. Maintain this for at least one year.

2) Diagnosing yourself. This is the only way. No one else can tell you that you are an alcoholic. You have to accept it for yourself. Merely admitting to it is not helpful enough. You will need to come to full acceptance of your condition without any reservation about it.

3) Consider this statement: “I didn’t get into trouble every time I drank, but every time I got into trouble, I had been drinking.” Is this the case for you? If so then that is a huge indicator that you might be alcoholic.

4) Consider this statement: “When I control my drinking, I don’t have any fun. When I have fun with my drinking, I tend to lose control.” Another strong indicator if this rings true for you.

So take these ideas into consideration and think about them. Make an effort to cut down drastically on the amount of liquor that you consume over about a six month time frame and notice how you feel about limiting your drinking.  If you come to the conclusion that something needs to change then you might want to start exploring how to stop drinking.

If you tend to drink large amounts but can basically go without booze for long periods of time when you want to, then you are likely just a problem drinker.If you don’t have the ability to walk away from alcohol for long time frames without going nuts about it then you are probably addicted.If you don’t know whether or not you just have an alcohol problem or a true alcohol addiction, then you can always do the following 2 challenges to find out:

1) Have one drink every day for the next six months; never to exceed the amount of one drink per day. {No days off or cheating allowed}.

2) Abstain from alcohol entirely for 6 months. No sneaking an extra drink in here or there allowed.

If you can get through both of those experiments without cheating at all then you are probably not addicted to alcohol. But if you realize that you resent these limitations and obsess over them then you are probably an alcoholic. If you are a problem drinker then you will fail on the first experiment and not be able to control your intake at some point. If you are an alcoholic then you will fail at the second experiment and not be able to abstain for six months without some sort of recovery program.

If you decide that you have a drinking problem of some sort then you should ask for help. If you happen to be suffering from alcoholism then you should find a rehab with a medical detox area to help you through it. This is recommended because alcohol withdrawal is extremely dangerous and can actually kill you.

On the other hand, if you have a drinking problem, then you might seek counseling or therapy in some way. This can help you identify if you want to take steps to reduce or stop your alcohol consumption.

You might also consider what the Mayo clinic has to say about it.

Just realize that actually quitting drinking is pretty dangerous from a medical standpoint and can be life threatening, so be sure to find a full medical treatment center if you really want to stop. It is actually safer for someone to keep consuming alcohol than it is for them to stop suddenly because it is in suddenly stopping that seizures can occur.

If you do decide to give abstinence a try then one of the best breaks you can give yourself is to find a local treatment center to check into. There are a number of positive aspects to going the route of rehab:

1) Medically supervised detox

2) Residential program – this is the inpatient program that consists of group therapy and other activities to teach people about recovery

3) Peer support – you’re with other recovering alcoholics so you can draw support from this group

4) Professional help – The trained professionals at a treatment center can help you work through issues and guide you in your early recovery

5) Medical help – the medical staff might help with medications for overcoming addiction (such as Campral for alcohol cravings, etc.)

6) Aftercare – they can set you up with long term support and programs that can help sustain you on the outside.

So do consider treatment if you are truly want to stop drinking.

Remember if you are not sure about the whole thing to go try some more moderation. There is nothing terrible about doing so as long as you put your safety first and be careful with it. But be true to yourself when you question how well you are able to control your drinking over the long run. If you can limit your alcohol intake for a week or so then this is not really an accomplishment. If you can control it for a year then that is real progress.

There is a ton of information to be learned on your journey to getting well and if you are motivated about stopping then I would encourage you to explore some more as the upside of quitting is just enormous.

1) Willpower – This is essentially the same as not using any technique at all, but only relying on one’s own willpower to avoid picking up another drink. Now this idea has been tested a million times over by virtually every alcoholic who has tried to beat the problem of drink, and the consensus is that it is never a sustainable method for anyone. Ever.

2) AVRT – this stands for “Addictive Voice Recognition Technique,” so this is essentially an example of a cognitive therapy for quitting drinking. The trick is to realize when your “addictive voice” kicks in and realize that it is only your addiction talking to you and not your true self. The you can deny the addictive voice once you are aware of it and can actively respond to it.

There are other cognitive therapies as well, all of them intending to restructure the way we think in order to overcome alcoholism. These kinds of cognitive techniques do work well for some alcoholics, but for most of us in recovery, these types of mental gymnastics are not really enough to completely solve our drinking problem.

3) AA – Twelve step programs are probably the most widespread solution for alcoholism, and because of this, they offer the most amount of hope and the most realistic solution for most people in most situations. Of course there are some pitfalls and downsides to Alcoholics Anonymous as well. First of all–while it might be tricky to prove a stat like this due to the anonymity factor–most studies over the years have shown that the success rate of AA and NA usually is around 5 percent at best. To be fair, though, no other treatment method seems to offer substantially better numbers than this, and AA certainly has helped a lot of those who wanted to know how to stop drinking.

AA is not ineffective for quitting drinking, it is merely an incomplete solution. Perhaps the most effective recovery strategy is in a holistic method that treats the disease of alcoholism from multiple perspectives. This is known as the creative life in recovery. Finding your way to this solution requires a holistic approach if you want to stop drinking.