How To Cut Back on Drinking Alcohol Without Quitting

They may have a mild-to-moderate substance use problem without being chemically dependent. Still, they may need to consider cutting back for other physical, mental, and social health reasons. Overstimulation in your nervous system can affect important unconscious functions like your heart rate, blood pressure, and electrical impulses. This is why you can experience seizures and heart failure during alcohol withdrawal. Central nervous system depressants are a class of drugs that includes several prescription medications like benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and sedative-hypnotics.

Myths About Drug Detox

This depends on several factors, including how much alcohol you typically consume, how long you’ve been drinking, and your overall health. For some, the process might take a few days, while others may need several weeks to safely taper off alcohol. It’s important not to rush the process and to adjust your plan based on how your body responds. A healthcare provider can give you a better idea of the timeline for your specific situation. If you find that you cannot stop drinking, even if it is obvious that it is negatively impacting your life, you may need to seek help for alcohol use disorder. There is no shame in this — a chemical dependency on alcohol can cause severe withdrawal symptoms, and seeking medical attention is important to ensure recovery.

Effects of Tapering Off Alcohol

We’ll help you learn that the opposite of addiction is connection. We’ll give you skills to discover your self-worth and show you the tools for a life of hope and promise. These are offered to patients with moderate to severe Alcohol Use Disorder, having the goal of reducing alcohol comsumption and achieving abstinence.

It can lower the severity of symptoms, and it can make you more likely to meet your goals. Tapering off alcohol helps some people start their recovery journeys. It can also be a good idea for people who don’t want to, or can’t, attend any type of full detoxification program. Contact emergency health services if you or someone you know experiences more than one symptom of severe alcohol withdrawal.

Cold Turkey Method

While this might work well for some, it can be just as dangerous as cold turkey for others. When someone stops drinking alcohol, they’ll likely experience at least some withdrawal symptoms. This goes for any form of heavy consumer, whether they drink on a daily basis or binge on alcohol every weekend. Moreover, substituting one kind of beverage for another does not help you taper off alcohol if you consume the same number of standard drinks as you usually have.

Xenia Ellenbogen (she/they) is a journalist specializing in health, mental health, and wellness. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Everyday Health, Well+Good, Rewire News Group, Prism, and more. It’s common for the first symptoms to appear within a few hours after your last drink. Excessive drinking can weaken the immune system, increasing the body’s likelihood of developing an infection. Diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis are more frequent in individuals who chronically drink. BetterHelp offers affordable mental health care via phone, video, or live-chat.

If you drink heavily on a regular basis, it can be dangerous to stop alcohol cold turkey. For this reason, you should not suddenly quit drinking without talking to your doctor. The consequences of quitting alcohol cold turkey can be serious and lead to alcohol withdrawal syndrome, which can be fatal in severe cases. Creating a tapering schedule you can stick with is a crucial part of weaning yourself off alcohol. The best schedule varies based on how much you drink each day and your overall health.

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It is a crucial step in breaking the chains of alcohol dependency and moving towards a healthier future. Abstinence, or total and lifelong avoidance of alcohol, is the best treatment for those who have gone through alcohol withdrawal. Licensed medical professionals review material we publish on our site. The material is not a substitute for qualified medical diagnoses, treatment, or advice.

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Actionable goals can help you by giving you exact data on your drinking habits. Pick a number of drinks per week as part of your plan to cut back on drinking, and be sure to keep track of this sober house data. After reading this article, you might be wondering whether an alcohol taper or quitting alcohol in general could be in your future. As we all know, alcohol doesn’t exactly do wonders for our physical or mental health. Even in small doses, alcohol is a toxic substance, and drinking will further damage your well-being. While they might partially complete their tapering schedule, they can soon find themselves drinking again for a number of reasons.

Alcohol dependence can lead to fatal outcomes, with rising death rates linked to excessive alcohol use, as reported by Psychology Today. This condition not only affects individuals but also has profound social and economic impacts on families and society at large. Tapering can be a long process that takes weeks or even months to finish.

• You can enter in the type of drinks you consume and when you drink them to determine the total amount of alcohol you consume each day.
• This lengthy process can take weeks or months depending on the individual’s severity, how long they’ve been drinking, and the alcohol percentage of their usual drinks.
• Fortunately, there’s a whole world of resources, both in person and online, that can help you gain clarity on whether your drinking is a cause for concern.
• Some people choose to taper more quickly by cutting the amounts in half–for example 20, 10 5, 2, 0.
• You may find success decreasing your number of drinks by a set amount each day.

Withdrawal symptoms can vary in severity and depend on many factors, such as drinking history, metabolism, age, medical condition, what other substances or medication you take, and more. Because everyone’s body reacts differently, there’s not a lot of research that proves tapering can decrease the effects of alcohol withdrawal. Slowly tapering your alcohol use can help you manage mild withdrawal symptoms and decrease the risk of AUD. However, you may experience withdrawal symptoms https://appsychology.com/living-in-a-sober-house/ or relapse if you’re not tapering correctly and safely. In contrast, those who taper down their drinking may have fewer severe withdrawal symptoms because they are easing themselves into sobriety.

• In this schedule, the biggest drop occurs during the first couple days.
• However, even the best-designed tapers can put you at risk for alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
• This might include using a benzodiazepine regimen to substitute the effects of alcohol, or anticonvulsants to minimize the risk of seizures.
• There is no shame in admitting this — the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 28.9 million Americans suffered from alcohol use disorder in 2023 alone.
• This might involve attending a local Alcoholics Anonymous group, regularly checking in with a doctor, or keeping loved ones in the loop and nearby during the early stages of detox.

The alcohol withdrawal symptom delirium tremens (DT) is estimated to kill up to 5% of those attempting to quit suddenly after chronic usage. This is a staggering number considering that many other drugs do not even have the possibility of lethal withdrawals. For this reason, experts advise that alcohol cessation be monitored safely with steady effort between oneself and a physician. Telling your close friends and family about your plan to taper off alcohol can provide you with a strong support system.

For others, simply cutting back the number of drinks can bring on alcohol withdrawal symptoms, making it more difficult to stop. If you regularly drink a handle of liquor (around 40 standard drinks) or more per day, please seek professional help. But you’ve been drinking so much you likely have other severe physical health issues going on other than just standard withdrawal, and your risk for severe withdrawals is much higher than most. You should also consider an alcohol withdrawal taper if you’ve ever gone through withdrawal from alcohol, or any other depressant, in the past. Alcohol withdrawal can cause something called kindling to occur in your brain.