Can Alcoholics Quit Drinking On Their Own And How?
Many alcoholics feel reluctant to admit their problem with alcohol dependence to others and seek help. It is quite common for someone suffering from alcohol use disorder to try to tackle their drinking problem by themselves. Typically, they will try to go cold turkey long before they will even consider support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous in an effort to curb their drinking habits. In this article, I explore the question “Can alcoholics quit drinking on their own, and how?”
As a clinical hypnotherapist, I have helped many people over the years with addiction problems and I’ve discovered a surprising ingredient for success which I will reveal below.
Understanding Alcohol Abuse
Millions of people throughout the world suffer from alcohol problems. This is where the amount of alcohol is regarded as excessive and has begun to cause health problems, relationship problems or has begun to affect their job in some way. Here are some of the signs that you may be heading in that direction, or are there already:
- Needing More: If you’ve noticed that you need more alcoholic drinks to achieve the same “buzz”.
- Cravings: Finding yourself wishing for a drink at times when you are not drinking. These are called alcohol cravings.
- Prioritizing Alcohol: When you find that Drinking alcohol becomes more important than family, friends, work, etc.
- Failing To Cut Down: Have you tried a number of times to reduce your alcohol consumption and failed to control alcohol use?
If you are a friend or family member of someone who is a heavy drinker, you may have brought it to their attention before. Many alcoholics have family members that have noticed their symptoms of alcohol withdrawal and are worried that’s become a very real problem. You might think that just bringing it to their attention will help them to make positive changes but in many cases, alcoholics deny their problem initially.
The most important first step is to get them to admit that their heavy alcohol use is a problem. In many cases, this may be something that requires professional support or even a rehab program. It can take a while for the person to realize that their heavy drinking is actually alcoholism.
Self-Hypnosis Audio To Overcome Alcohol Addiction
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to help you visualize your new sober future and get excited about it.
Pros and Cons of Self-Recovery
As with every treatment option, there are some pros and cons. I always suggest, at the very least, having an accountability partner that you can trust to share your progress with. You need to be brutally honest with yourself in order to undertake a self-regulated sobriety program. Your accountability partner needs to tell you when something is not working and you need to listen. As with any decision that could affect your health, it is always adviseable to seek medical advice before embarking on any program.
The pros of self-recovery are:
- You’re In Charge: You set the pace, you are in control of the milestones you set and the timescale within which you achieve them.
- Confidentiality: Doing it this way reduces the amount of people who have to know you have a problem with excessive drinking.
- Costs Much Less: Addiction treatment can be expensive, especially if, for instance, you need to see a therapist for one-to-one cognitive behavioural therapy sessions.
- More Flexible: Self-administered therapy (for instance, self-hypnosis recordings) can be listened to whenever it suits you. This avoids the need to turn up at a clinic or a therapist’s office at a certain time. This may appeal to you if your work does not allow you to take time off, or if it would be potentially embarrassing to have to give the real reason why you need this time off.
The cons of self-recovery are:
- Lack Of Expert Guidance: An alcohol addiction therapist can help you with specific coping mechanisms, they can help you work through issues from your past that cause your drinking, and they can help by being someone you have to be accountable to. With self-recovery, this expert isn’t available to you.
- Falling Off The Wagon: Research has shown that when a therapist or counselor is not at your disposal, there is a higher risk of long-term recovery not being successful.
- Risk Of Isolation: We need emotional support when we are tackling an issue as big as this. This is why I mentioned earlier that it is really important to have an accountability partner that you can open up to and be honest with. Otherwise, you can find yourself isolated from your old social support (the people you used to drink with).
- Severe Cases: if you have a severe case of alcohol misuse, then self-recovery may not be an option for you. It is much better suited to those whose excessive alcohol use isn’t too excessive.
Success Stories - Brad's AA Journey
I regularly tell people that a support group like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) should be part of your success plan. They can provide what no counselor or treatment program could ever aspire to provide. You get a dedicated sponsor who you can contact any time if you are struggling. That is a fantastic resource to have available to you. I know some people struggle with the religious aspect of AA – the idea of handing it over to a “higher power”.
Brad came to see me about five years ago. He was sober for about ten years at this stage. He told me the reason he was coming to see me is because he was starting to struggle. He was having more and more thoughts about falling off the wagon. Rather wisely, he decided to take some action to stop this thought pattern before it got out of hand and caused a relapse.
I asked him how he felt about sobriety. Did he like it? His answer is really illuminating. He said, “No, I find sobriety boring!”. I smiled and told him that’s exactly why he was struggling. I explained by giving him an analogy. I said “You have just broken up with a girlfriend called Mary and you’ve formed a new relationship with Caroline. You find Caroline ok, maybe a bit boring at times, but Mary is much more exciting to be with. How long before you contact Mary and ask her to sneak away with you for a night?”. He smiled and said “Probably not long.”
Then I said, “However, if this girl Caroline is the love of your life, she’s amazing, much better than Mary – now how likely are you to cheat on Caroline?”. He answered “Probably not that likely at all.” I explained that sobriety is Caroline. If you find her boring, you’ll go back to your old love as sure as night follows day. Once the realization sank in, Brad really committed himself to falling in love with sobriety and, within a short space of time told me that he was feeling better than at any time during the 10 years.
Self-Hypnosis Audio To Overcome Alcohol Addiction
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to help you visualize your new sober future and get excited about it.
Strategies for Self-Guided Recovery
Here’s a rough guide as to what you should be paying attention to in order to make self-guided recovery a success:
- Learn: You need to become like a sponge and learn everything you can about alcohol addiction, alcohol detox, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and, most importantly, coping mechanisms that others have used. Get your hands on any books you can find about alcohol addiction. Find YouTube videos that give advice, or videos made by addicts who have succeeded.
- Goal To Fall In Love: You need to set yourself the goal of falling in love with sobriety. Remember, that is not just being grateful for it. It’s falling in love with it. You need to find sobriety so attractive that alcohol always seems like a very unattractive choice next to it.
- Support Options: Get the right support system in place. Identify the people who you can depend upon for non-judgemental support and surround yourself with these people. This is vitally important, especially in the early recovery phase.
- Lifestyle Changes: Don’t just stop with cutting out alcohol. Get yourself a healthier lifestyle. Take up some exercise regime or focus on improving your physical health in some way.
- Keep A Journal: Write down the successes you have had, even the tiniest little ones. Also, write down any challenges you have, but always remember to write down a couple of possible solutions. Focus on feeling more positive emotions each day. Maybe you could write down one example every day of how you are starting to practice more positivity.
- Get Absorbed: Find something that keeps your attention. Maybe that’s a new hobby or an online course that fascinates you. It can be anything but remember, it’s got to be something that prevents you from feeling you are at a loose end. Boredom is one of the major reasons for relapsing.
- Be Kind To Yourself: None of us are perfect. We all criticize ourselves a bit at times. When you are doing your utmost to beat an addiction problem, you simply cannot be hard on yourself. The supportive arm around your shoulder has to come from within you. You’ve got to talk nicely to yourself inside your head, so you have to eliminate that negative internal voice. Whenever you hear it, tell it to f**k off. Immediately replace it with a kind voice that reminds you how well you are doing.
Setting Realistic Goals
If you set unrealistic goals, you’ll probably fail. I regard goals as like the steps of a stairs. If you were a carpenter, would you make the steps so big that people would have to jump from one to the other? If you did, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have many calls asking you to build stairs in a person’s house. Each step has to be comfortable to climb, otherwise going upstairs would be a nightmare. With your stairway to sobriety, each of those steps has to conform to the following rules:
- Specific: Anyone in business or sport will tell you that if you set a vague goal, you are setting yourself up for failure. So, if you say “I am going to quit drinking”, I could say “When exactly? For how long? Every day of the week? Or certain days of the month?”. There are simply too many questions that could be asked. That’s what makes a goal vague. Instead, maybe say “I am sober today and I’m going to be sober every moment of every day of my life for as long as I live”. Now that is much more specific.
- Sub-Goals: Now that you’ve stated your overall goal, break it down into weekly goals for at least the first six weeks. Write out six goals and entitle them “Week One”, Week Two”, etc.
- Measure Your Goals: You’ve got to have some measure. A suggestion would be to form a chart and tick it off each day. Or you could get an old-style printed calendar and mark of the days you spend totally sober.
- Set Deadlines: Maybe you could mark on your calendar certain dates by which you will have achieved a certain target.
- Be Realistic: When you are setting goals, always take into account times when you’ll be working, out of town, have other commitments, etc.
- Set Up Rewards: Part of building a good goal is deciding how you will celebrate it once you achieve it. When you reach that day and achieve that target, allow yourself permission to feel great for having achieved it. Those that genuinely celebrate tend to stay on track better than those that don’t.
Self-Hypnosis Audio To Overcome Alcohol Addiction
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to help you visualize your new sober future and get excited about it.
Building a Support Network
Remember that a support network needs to fulfill one major task. It’s got to be a support to you. When you build your support network, it’s about identifying people who are actually supportive and getting rid of people who aren’t. An important criterion to remember is that being well-meaning does not necessarily mean you are being supportive. Many family members and friends simply do not understand very high levels of alcohol intake because maybe they have never done that themselves.
Take out an A4 page and write the heading “My Support Network”. As you choose from each of the groups listed below, ask yourself the question “Are they capable of being non-judgemental and non-directive?”. In other words, can they just accept your problem and not try to tell you what you should do? Here are some of those people to choose from:
- Family Members: choose only people who don’t need to give their opinion or think they have the right to tell you what to do.
- Friends: A true friend has got your back and asks you what you need from them.
- Colleagues: Is there one colleague you might confide in that you know you can trust?
- Neighbours: Is there anyone who has some experience of addiction (not active addiction, obviously) who might be helpful to know?
- Social Media Interest Groups: Are there any groups that focus on addiction that might be of help to you?
- Support Groups: The most obvious one is Alcoholics Anonymous, but maybe there are other, smaller groups in your locality.
Developing Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Succeeding at being sober long-term involves developing a plan that includes some of the areas I’ve touched on earlier in this article, but it also includes knowing exactly what to do in a moment of high stress, strong emotion, or at those times when the cravings are strong. Knowing what to do at those moments is a really good idea and can help you to stay on the wagon. Here are some suggestions but feel free to develop your own:
- Self Hypnosis: Listen to a self-hypnosis mp3 specifically for your problem, for instance, “Overcome Alcohol Addiction” which you can download right now.
- Exercise: Get involved in some regular exercise program. At the start, it’s better if that is as part of an organized activity with other people as they will keep you accountable for showing up on time.
- Ongoing Support Network: You need a couple of people close to you who will act as support when you need it. At the very least, you need one person.
- Support Groups: Many alcoholics have found that going to AA meetings or contacting their sponsor has kept them from relapsing.
- New Interests: Find something that interests you that will keep
Self-Hypnosis Audio To Overcome Alcohol Addiction
Self-hypnosis can be a great tool to help you visualize your new sober future and get excited about it.
When to Seek Professional Help
If you are going to try the DIY route, by all means, do. For some people, that can work out really well. I think it is a very wise idea to have a time constraint. Give yourself a set period of time within which you must have made significant progress. Write down specific goals for your DIY attempt. Set specific target dates by which certain targets must have been achieved. The deal should be that if you fail to hit those targets, then you are going to get some form of professional help.
Many people wonder where they should start in looking for professional help. I always suggest to start with your doctor. He or she will guide you in the direction of whatever is suitable for you. Depending on your level of alcohol use, an alcohol counselor may be suitable or you may need to attend a residential treatment program. Remember that your doctor is familiar with helping people at varying stages of alcohol addiction and will know what is the appropriate route for you.
Author: Paul Hunter
Although thousands of people read his blog every month, Paul's path to success was not an easy one. Click here to read his amazing story "From Unwanted Baby And Adopted To A Respected Self Help Blogger". If you want to send Paul a quick message, then visit his contact page here
