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Ways to Cut Back Your Drinking

If you're concerned about your drinking, you may want to try cutting back. Depending on the severity of your drinking habit, you may be able to shift to more moderate, less risky drinking habits without foregoing alcohol completely.

Get sober safely.

If you have a long-term or serious drinking habit, you may have developed a physiological dependence on alcohol. Consult your doctor immediately if you experience withdrawal symptoms when you cut back on or stop drinking.

Withdrawal symptoms, when they occur, typically begin 6 to 48 hours after the last drink and last for one or two days. Withdrawal symptoms aren't a reason to avoid or delay quitting, but serious withdrawal symptoms may require medical attention.

Mild withdrawal symptoms may include

• Headache
• Anxiety, agitation, or restlessness
• Shakiness
• Sweating
• Nausea or vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Rapid heartbeat and elevated blood pressure

More severe withdrawal symptoms may include

• Hallucinations
• Seizures
• Withdrawal delirium

Ways to Cut Back on Your Drinking

• Write down your reasons for cutting back. Consider the benefits of drinking less: how the change might improve your health, relationships, and school or work performance. Put your list of reasons somewhere you'll see it often as a reminder—in your wallet, on your refrigerator, or pinned up where you work or study. This is a way of making a commitment to change and maintaining your motivation.
• Set realistic goals. Decide how much you want to reduce your drinking—what level of drinking you'd like to be your upper limit. Your goal might be a maximum of one drink on any single day (perhaps two drinks for a special celebration) and a limit on the number of days each week that you have a drink. Most countries have official guidelines for what is considered moderate drinking, and it makes sense to set your goal within those limits. Write down your goal, adding it to your reasons for cutting back.
• Keep track of your drinking. You might keep a tracking card in your wallet, add a check mark for each drink on a calendar, and make notes on your phone. As you track, use a standard for what counts as a drink. Most guidelines for moderate drinking define one drink as
  • A 12-ounce bottle of beer (5 percent alcohol)
  • A 5-ounce glass of wine (12 percent alcohol)
  • A 1.5-ounce shot of liquor (40 percent alcohol)
• Pace yourself. Drink slowly. Don't guzzle. If you have more than one drink, space them at least an hour apart. Drink water, soda, or juice between alcoholic drinks as a way to slow down your drinking (and stay hydrated). Eating while you drink or between drinks can also help slow your drinking pace—and it's never a good idea to drink on an empty stomach.
• Know your triggers. As when making a change to any habit, one key is to understand the triggers that make you want a drink and either avoid them or substitute a different response. Relying on willpower alone will rarely work. Common triggers for a drinking habit include specific people, places, and activities. You can avoid many of these by making a conscious effort to spend time with people who don't drink or in places and activities you don't associate with drinking.
• Plan how you will handle urges and cravings. Some triggers, including times of day and feelings or moods, can't be avoided. Instead, you can anticipate them and plan to have a different response when they trigger an urge to drink. That response might be having something to eat (something healthy, like a snack of fruit or vegetables), having a drink of water or soda, going for a walk or run, or learning new ways to calm yourself when you are anxious or upset. The idea is to "overwrite" the response of your drinking habit with what can become, over time, a new habit. When you're experiencing an urge or craving, that's also a time to remind yourself of your reasons for cutting back. Look again at your list of reasons and envision your life with less—or without—alcohol.
• Eliminate temptations. Don't keep alcohol at home or in your room. Make it easy to access your new trigger responses by keeping healthy food on hand, a water bottle with you, and your walking or running shoes by the door. Make it harder to access alcohol by keeping it out of easy reach.
• Fill the gap with new activities. As you cut down on drinking, you'll free up time in your life—time when you're sober and not hungover. You'll also free up the money you once spent on alcohol. Fill that time with new activities. That might be making new friends, exercising more, taking up a hobby, spending more time with family, or making an extra effort at work or school. Use the money you're saving to have a meal out, see a movie, and enjoy life without alcohol.
• Learn to say, "No." You can't avoid all situations where alcohol is available. When you're out with friends who drink or are offered a drink, you'll need to develop a new habit of politely saying, "No thank you." One way to do this gracefully is to ask for something else instead, such as a glass of sparkling water. Learn how to say "no" nicely and firmly, so that you don't back down. You might practice ways of saying "no" so that you're ready the next time you're offered a drink.
• Don't give up. Changing a habit can be hard. You may not stay within your goal at first, or you may slip up after weeks of doing well. Those aren't failures. They're lessons you can learn from. Think about what trigger caused you to want a drink too many or why you weren't able to say "no." Plan what you'll do differently in the future to avoid that trigger, respond differently, or say "no" with more conviction.
• Get support. If you find that you can't cut your drinking back on your own, ask for help. You may need the support of friends and family, the professional guidance of a mental health or addiction counselor, or the encouragement of a support group. Talk with your doctor, your school's health service, or your workplace's employee assistance program (EAP) to learn what help is available to you. It's not a sign of weakness to seek help, but rather an indication of your courage in making an important change for the better.

For More Information

Alcohol Screening (an online self-assessment tool), Link opens in a new windowhttps://alcoholscreening.org

AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), Link opens in a new windowhttps://auditscreen.org/check-your-drinking

"Dietary Guidelines for Alcohol," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Link opens in a new windowhttps://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/moderate-drinking.htm

College Drinking: Changing the Culture, Link opens in a new windowhttps://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Link opens in a new windowhttps://www.niaaa.nih.gov