Best practices for tapering off your drinking
when you first decide to quit drinking it is important to have an honest conversation with yourself about what your relationship with alcohol is and how much power it truly has over your life.
The path to sobriety is different for everyone, whether you decide to join a group for support or to go it alone through self-help, at the end of the day you can only lose to yourself. So it is best to start off on the right foot.
Quitting Cold Turkey Can drastically lower your chances of following through with your sobriety & have negative side effects on your health initially
“Cold turkey” is a quick-fix method to quitting alcohol or substances Rather than gradually tapering off the substance, you stop taking it right away.
Quitting cold turkey can actually be dangerous
Symptoms of alcohol withdrawal may occur from two hours to four days after stopping alcohol and are vastly different for everyone. So by tapering off your drinking, you can minimize these risks. Alcohol withdrawal can be overwhelming and can cause you to miss work or your performance at work can suffer, so it is best to plan this journey to start where you know you won't have to be around a lot of people, because the anxiety of such a big step could cause you to act weird towards people and then inadvertently effect your focus on the task at hand.
some symptoms of alcohol withdrawal can include headaches, nausea, tremors, anxiety, hallucinations, and seizures. These are most dangerous in the first 24 hours of your last drink. Best practices to combat these symptoms can be: A quiet place, Soft lighting, Limited contact with people, A positive, supportive atmosphere, Healthy food and lots of fluids
Seek medical attention if you find any of these symptoms overwhelming or if they do not lighten up over time. You may want to start this journey on the weekend, or when you have a few days to monitor yourself. There are also Detox centers that you may be able to check yourself into if you would like professional guidance in the early stages of your journey.
Quitting gradually lowers the risk of relapsing
building up small wins can be an amazing ego boost if you are finding the concept of quitting alcohol outright a daunting task. After years of abusing alcohol, you may not have the confidence you think you need to go all the way. But by quitting alcohol in planned strategic steps may show you that you do have the resolve to build upon these small wins.
Cutting yourself off at specific times of the day can prove to be a powerful option. Perhaps start with stopping alcohol consumption three hours before your bedtime and only consuming water. Not only will this help with hangovers the next day, but can help you if you are having trouble reaching those deeper levels of sleep that you need to feel rested throughout the day.
If you drink every day, try to focus on only drinking on the weekends. My alcoholism reached a point where I would wake up in the morning and have to drink to start my day, so not doing that was my starting point for tapering off, which eventually led to only drinking on the weekends and trying not to drink my self to the point of being completely trashed.
There are different ways to Taper
DIRECT TAPER is when you continue to drink your regular drink but slowly decrease the amount over time. Direct tapers work best for drinks that contain a low percentage of alcohol, such as beer.
SUBSTITUTION TAPER is when You switch your regular drink to a different one in a substitution taper. For example, if your standard drink is a strong liquor, a substitution taper would involve counting your daily drinks and switching to an alternative that contains less alcohol, like beer. You would then slowly reduce the amount of beer you drank over time.
For the last year leading up to quitting for good, I stopped drinking hard liquor completely. I would only drink Whiteclaw and wine, of course, I was still drinking a twelve-pack a day but the hangovers the next day were less intense. One thing to look out for if you switch to a lower alcohol content beverage such as wine, you might have trouble initially with consuming large quantities to reach inebriation.
In conclusion, Seek professional help if you experience severe withdrawal symptoms, do not force it if you feel like your health may be in danger. It is important to keep realistic goals for yourself and pick a plan that you think you can stick with. If you fail the first time that's okay, if you fail the first fifty times that's okay. Rome wasn't built in a day as they say, you can build your confidence by just starting on the path to figuring this out for yourself because everyone is different and there is no set way to do this. You can only lose to yourself so do not worry about anyone's opinion but your own. You’ve got this!
