No matter whether you are thinking about giving up alcohol for a year, or for good, this blog post has some help for you. We know that it can feel incredibly difficult to stop drinking alcohol, especially in the current day and age whereby it seems to be at the center of a lot of social activities. Therefore, if you want to stop drinking, it can feel like a massive challenge that is impossible to achieve. It does not need to be this way, though. Read on for some great ideas and suggestions that can help you in this area.
Start Off By Trying To Give Up Alcohol For A Year And See The Difference It Makes
Give up alcohol for a year and you may just change your life forever. It is no exaggeration: even taking a short break from the beer has a very positive effect on your body and mind. The longer the break, the better the effects, and the less likely you are to return to the same old destructive habits.
One of the first things you will notice when you are giving up alcohol is how much fresher you feel in the morning. Gone is the furry tongue, the banging head and the feeling of lethargy that have become your companions. You will also find that you sleep better. While alcohol helps you to fall asleep faster, it prevents you reaching the stage of deeper, restful sleep that you need. While the first few days might be a bit rough, especially if you drink every day, you should soon see your energy levels improving generally throughout the day.
Aside from more energy you should soon begin to find that the pounds begin to drop off too. Alcohol encourages the body to store fat around your middle, particularly in women, and this puts you at increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. As your weight drops, you will also notice that your skin health is improving and so too is your ability to think and react quicker. Your decision making will improve and you may even find that you start to question other bad habits; maybe even taking up new sports or increasing your levels of activity. This is the why, now let’s move onto how to stop drinking.
Letting Your New Habit Take Root
New habits take time to take root and become second nature in place of the old habit. When learning how to stop drinking you need to understand it in these terms; if you can break the habit, you can stop drinking. It is generally understood that new habits take around a month to become second nature. This is the point where you automatically respond in the new way, rather than going back to your previous ways. So, for example, if a tough day at the office led to you opening a bottle of wine, and you replaced this action with going for a run, it would take a month for your brain to automatically respond to a bad day by wanting to go for a run, rather than wanting a glass of wine.
So, is a month-long enough when you are considering how to give up alcohol? That depends a great deal on what you want to achieve in the long term. A month is long enough for you to feel the benefits of your new habits, and to reassess your relationship with the drink. It is even long enough to undo some of the damage you have done to your body. But, if you start drinking again, there is always the possibility of falling back into your bad habits, especially without support. You should consider medication-assisted treatment for successful recovery if you feel that you simply cannot stop drinking. Giving up for a month is not long enough if alcohol has gotten to the point whereby it is an addiction. Later in this guide, we will provide you with further information on finding a good treatment clinic if you feel that your ability to control your alcohol cravings has gotten out of control.
Overcome The Fears Associated With Not Drinking
How to stop drinking alcohol naturally is not all about herbal potions and chanting, although it can be if that’s for you. It is about understanding the role alcohol plays in your life and who has control. The one thing that stops most individuals in their tracks is fear, and that needs to be dealt with first.
So what has fear got to do with how to stop drinking? The answer is everything. Drinkers become afraid that taking alcohol out of their lives will change them and their relationships, leave them unable to cope with stress, and destroy their social lives. The problem is that there will be changes in all these areas. The solution, however, is that far from the changes being things to fear, they will in fact be positive ones. If you worry about not being funny anymore, start by getting an honest opinion from a friend about just how funny you really are when you’ve had a drink. You may be surprised at the answer.
If you worry about the effect it will have in a work context, then consider just how much more energy and focus you will have when you quit drinking. This is even without mentioning how much more of the conversation you will remember from a working lunch, and that has to be something every client will appreciate. One of the other main concerns people have is how to give up alcohol without becoming boring. Think about that for a moment. When was the last time you did something exciting that didn’t involve the pub, or a can and the TV?
Seek Help If You Need It
In this post, we have provided you with some actionable tips you can use if you want to stop drinking for a set period of time or simply reduce your alcohol consumption. However, if you feel like you rely on alcohol and you cannot control your urges anymore, you should start looking into help options. We know that the thought of inpatient alcohol rehab can be daunting, but it will be the best decision that you have ever made.
By visiting a rehab clinic, you will be able to get the help and assistance you require. They will be able to help you to get to the bottom of why you turn to alcohol and what sort of triggers result in you drinking. They will then give you different approaches and treatments that can be used to help you overcome your addiction. You will well and truly be able to get your life back again. It is incredible how much of a difference you will feel, but we cannot lie; it does take hard work to get to this stage. You will need to put in the required effort. However, the end goal is certainly worth it.
So there you have it: everything that you need to know about the different strategies and approaches you can use to drink less in 2021. We hope that the tips and guidance that we have provided above will help you to see out the rest of the year by giving up alcohol. Of course, if you have a slip-up, don’t beat yourself up about it. Tomorrow is a new day and you can keep on going in your attempt to reach your goals.
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