How To Stop Drinking Alcohol And Change Your Life For Good

How To Stop Drinking Alcohol

I stumbled into the restroom like a shambling zombie starving for human brains. It was a Monday morning, and I 'd been out for a "couple of quiet drinks" the evening before.

Blurry, red eyes gazed back at me in the mirror, set deep in an ashen face shimmering with cold sweat. I felt like I 'd been run over by a lorry.

As I looked at my anemic reflection, I recall thinking: "I've essentially poisoned myself. I am approaching middle age. Why am I still doing this to myself?"

We all know drinking is a huge mistake but...

We understand intuitively that drinking is dreadful for our overall health. Never is this more acutely experienced than in the initial struggles of a particularly ferocious morning after.

As your liver gets to work degrading the alcohol, it creates a substance called acetaldehyde. Recently a brand-new report by Cambridge University disclosed for the very first time precisely how this compound may cause cancer, by perpetually modifying the genetic code of your stem cells.

Drinking is a proven variable in over 13,000 malignant tumors diagnosed every year in the United Kingdom, and now we know why.

Alcohol is proven to cause cancer

However, recognizing the harm it causes isn't sufficient to prevent the majority of people consuming alcohol again as soon as the memory of the last hangover dims.

I never awoke in a police cell or an emergency room stretcher. I didn't lose my wife, career or house due to my alcohol consumption. I was considered a "regular", socially restrained wine-drinker. But my use had been sneaking up insidiously throughout the years.

I frequently awoke feeling terrible at 3 am, my heart pounding, reliving a fight I had with somebody 5 years ago.

I had a spare tire around my waist, a puffed up crimson face, I often lost my wallet, ate junk food and ran up credit card debt. Consuming alcohol was straining my time, cash and vitality in exchange for make-believe entertainment I could hardly recall.

I didn't like the person I had turned into.

I must not be the only one that's had enough, because the most recent formal numbers reveal that Europe has a spreading and expanding teetotal community.

Around 21 percent of European men and women reviewed in 2016 stated they do not consume alcohol, and this number climbs to 27 percent for 16 to 24-year-olds, up from 19 percent 10 years back.

I started by doing what everybody does when they do not genuinely intend to find out how to stop drinking alcohol.

I attempted restraint.

I made up irrational rules - zero consuming alcohol in the working week, just lager, no greater than a couple of glasses of red wine, absolutely no vodka.

Then afterward I broke them all because after a single drink I really did not worry about the rules any longer.

I once saw on a sobriety weblog: "if you need to moderate your drinking, you cannot moderate your drinking."

The recommendation that it may be much easier to find out how to stop drinking alcohol completely, instead of attempting to regulate it all the time was a real eye-opener.

So I attempted that.

But at the first indication of difficulty, I was right back to my only problem management system. It wasn't until I identified superior techniques to take care of tension that my phases of sobriety started to get longer.

I worried a great deal about what other drinkers thought in the initial days, and it was difficult. I started to encounter the judgment about teetotalism and the presumption, in some cases unmentioned and, incredibly, often not, that I must be an alcoholic.

At a household get-together, I revealed that I needed to feel better and get more done, holding my mineral water white-knuckled. A family member eyed me askance over her berry cider and inquired loudly before everybody: "Do you have a problem or something?"

I question she would have embarrassed me like that if I 'd give up smoking cigarettes. Our culture worships the nasty, habit-forming drug, and then pillories you if there's even a trace of a hint that you might have become hooked on it.

Everyone must drink the addictive poison, but don't you dare get addicted to it!

I had been embarrassed by my drinking and now I was being made to feel embarrassed by my teetotalism.

Often other individuals believe you being on the wagon is an attack against them, and they feel intimidated and judged. The people who act most horrible are people who have a real need to feel defensive about their own drinking.

At a wedding, a blind drunk friend giggled nastily, straight to my face, "People who do not drink are weird and wrong."

Being on the wagon feels lonesome initially, due to the fact that drinking oils the wheels of virtually every get-together.

1. Celebrating =  drink.
2. Grieving or commiserating = drink.
3. You're heading to a concert = drink
4. Eating out = drink.

Every birthday card in the store includes a one-liner about wine.

However, there are methods you can make use of to get through those initial moments until your self-confidence develops and you figure out who you are as a clean and sober individual. Indeed, you'll most likely waste less time in pubs, yet you'll still have a good time.

Quitting drinking alcohol is the best thing I have ever done for myself. The self-esteem I recovered was a potent countermeasure to the persistent stigma that came along with drinking more than I wished to.

I'm now a couple of years alcohol-free, and what I believed would be a plain old dull way of life is in fact not dragging at all: it's tranquil. When you eliminate the drinking, space opens up for greater things to come inside.

Find out how to stop drinking alcohol today

If you need some help to get back in control of your drinking or to learn how to stop drinking alcohol completely.

Click here for more information on the Stop Drinking Expert program and live Quit Drinking Bootcamps.

It's a lot easier than you may think!