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Should you take regular breaks from drinking alcohol throughout the year?

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“When we work through and tap into each component, break down the drives and processes, we can make choices that support our priorities (like hanging out with friends) without feeding the habit (polishing off a bottle of wine).” I’m the creator of 30 Tips For Your First 30 Days – A Guide For Busy Women Quitting Drinking and The Sobriety Starter Kit – the complete sober coaching course to help you quit drinking without white knuckling it or hating the process. I host the top rated Hello Someday Podcast, to teach you the tried and true secrets of breaking out of the drinking cycle and creating a life you truly love.

5 Things That Happen When You Take A Break From Alcohol – Men’s Health

5 Things That Happen When You Take A Break From Alcohol.

Posted: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 07:36:33 GMT [source]

Becoming more aware of your alcohol triggers and reasons for drinking can help you plan ways to help manage the urge to drink. Knowing why you drink is essential, says Cyndi Turner, LCSW, LSATP, MAC, a Virginia therapist specializing in addiction treatment and alcohol moderation. Maybe you don’t think you depend on alcohol exactly, but you still wonder whether you might be drinking too much. SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.

Exactly what to do differently so you stop the exhausting cycle of stopping drinking and then saying fuck it and starting again

So, what do you think about this, how to take a break from drinking alcohol without being noticed. So, for example, when I used to try to quit drinking, usually it was only a few days or maybe a week or two. When I stopped drinking, I was still going to bars back then, I was still going to parties, I was still hanging out with a bunch of people that drank. So, commonly, not only was I at events and places where everyone else was drinking, but I would commonly get asked questions.

For more ideas to help you explore your relationship with alcohol and tips for cutting back, visit NIAAA’s Rethinking Drinking website. If you think you have an alcohol problem and need support for cutting back or quitting, visit the NIAAA Alcohol Treatment Navigator. I don’t need anything else to talk about. There’s a couple other little things, but we kind of already covered them. So, yeah, to sum it up, folks, thank you so much for listening. Hope this gave you some extra ideas, some extra inspiration and confidence in yourself and your ability to continue to improve your life, continue to learn more and more, continue to implement and embody more and more.

I help successful women drink less + live more

Another thing too has to do with the will and has to do with the hermetic principle, one of the seven hermetic principles. This one is gender, the principle of gender. I think the principles are something like mentalism, these are laws of the universe, mentalism rhythm, cause and effect, vibration, polarity, gender, generation, and I’m forgetting the seventh one. Anyways, not important, but when it comes to mental gender, this doesn’t have to do with sexual organs, but mental gender, specific type of gender of energies, there’s a masculine gender and a female gender.

how to take a break from drinking

If you’re living with alcohol use disorder, quitting drinking is important for your health. But quitting on your own can pose risks to your health and is unlikely to be successful. Rehabilitation facilities can help you on your path to sobriety by addressing alcohol withdrawal symptoms and becoming involved in sober living support groups, like AA.

Here are some ways to learn from this episode:

They can refer you to alcohol support groups and for courses of therapy. They can also perform health checks to assess the effects of drinking on your body and help you cut down safely and effectively. I’m glad you brought up harm reduction, and yeah, I only have one or two quick things I want to talk about, but I’m glad you brought up harm reduction too. That’s something that I’m a huge proponent of. Let’s say this person, this example, someone’s 30 years old.

how to take a break from drinking

Therapy can help you understand why you drink and learn new habits so you can live a healthy lifestyle that doesn’t rely on alcohol as a crutch. It can also help you gain a new perspective as you consider how your life will change without alcohol. Unfortunately, sometimes those same people can feel judged by your changing relationship with alcohol, which is why it is important to begin by setting boundaries with the people in your life who still drink. Ultimately, this is your life and your decision, so “it’s important to consider setting boundaries, honor your recovery goals, and prioritize your needs,” says Ellinwood.

Dry January: How to take a break from alcohol so you’ll actually stick with it

Typically, they wish they could drink, but just drink responsibly. So, I mean, at the end of the day, alcohol is a toxin. It’s how to take a break from drinking not something that’s required by anyone. You have all of the feel-good chemicals that you need in your brain already.

  • It doesn’t have to be alcohol, but I showed up selfishly with a six-pack of root beer for myself that I was going to try to white-knuckle myself through, and that was a stupid non-plan that didn’t end up working out, and I had confused other people and I had confused myself.
  • At the end, 82% said they felt a sense of achievement.
  • But you don’t have to wait for a designated month to take a break from alcohol.
  • You might not think about alcohol as a glaring problem in your life, but it’s still a great idea to assess your relationship with alcohol from time to time, says Ruby Mehta, LCSW, director of clinical operations at Tempest, a digital recovery program.