How to quit drinking in 5 short years
2012
You can have the goal, with absolutely no idea how to reach it.
I was an enthusiastic drinker. I loved it. I couldn't imagine a life without it, until it became more of a burden than anything else.
Just imagining your life without it is the start. And if the idea of NOT drinking fills you with fear, than you're on the right track to stop.
It took me 5 years to properly pull it off, and now I'm 6 years sober. It wasn't easy, and I'm not sure my way of doing it will work for anyone else, but I might as well share.
1. The thought.
Write down your imagined reality, as a list of goals or a 5 year plan. When your day to day, career, friend circle and partner all revolve around drinking, it seems impossible.
You have to start small. Write it on paper, along with other things you hope to accomplish. Some things you've always wished for: Picking up photography, changing your career, moving to a different city, breaking up with your drinking partner. Fold it up and stuff it behind a photo in a frame. You may stumble upon it later, or you may not, the point is it's made and its out there.
2. Buy the books.
You may not be a book person, but that doesn't matter. You'll have some free time on your hands if you actually do pull this off, and seeing them on the bookshelf (or avoiding them on the bookshelf) for a year or two is part of the process. Some books to buy (not borrow) are:
How to kick the drink easily by Jason Vale
Dry by Augusten Burroughs
The unexpected joy of being sober
This Naked Mind
Quit like a woman - she also has a great newsletter https://hollywhitaker.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=web&utm_source=subscribe-widget
How to stop drinking alcohol the easy way
How to quit drinking without AA
or any books that seem appealing on the topic
The ones that helped me the most*
3. Start a blog, anonymously.
You need an outlet to write through your experience, it's part of your "toolkit". There's a frame of mind that if you don't "do the work", what led you to drink in the first place will always come back. Wordpress has a pretty strong community of people doing the same thing, so that's where I did mine. The strangers wound up helping somehow, they made me feel less alone.
4. Do the big thing, that's holding you back.
The partner, the job that's enabling you, the apartment complex full of drinking buddies. Work towards changing that part of your life. This part might take months, or years, but once you start the process, follow through. Keep imagining the life you imagine for yourself, at the end. End an unhealthy relationship and have rules for the healthy relationship you want, and only start new positive habits.
5. If you don't think you can do it on your own, ask your doctor for a referral to an addictions counsellor, or go to the daily addictions drop-in program. Ask you doctor for those pills that make you sick if you drink. Get professional help if you think that will help. I did this for a short time.
6. Quit. You might last 3 days, maybe 4 weeks. You'll never know until you try.
7. Read the Jason Vale book (It's really the only way I could do it).
8. Meet new people that don't drink. Take classes, go to the gym, go to the movies. The Boring Little Girls Club in Calgary is a place where non-drinking women get together for activities. Do non-drinking activities to fill your time. You'll have a lot of free time for awhile, then it will become normal.
9. Don't do what you used to do, at least not until you're fully confident in your sobriety. Avoid the places and the people, while you're staying away from alcohol. Remind yourself who your safe friends are. Turn down the invites, just for awhile. Use excuses, lie, this is only temporary. After 2-4-6-9 months, you'll be able to go back to them. They'll be the same, you'll be different. You may learn that you don't enjoy it like you used to. Getting through that first 90 minutes is hard, but if you do it, you wind up on the other side of the evening and that's when it stops looking fun anyway. They start repeating themselves, and then you can walk home in peace.
10. I like to go to events that either have food or entertainment. I need one or the other if I'm not drinking. And if I'm not enjoying myself, I leave. Certain situations (and certain bars) are not meant to be sober in. Mostly, they stink.
11. If at a function, always have a non-alcoholic drink in your hand. Always. Sometimes two. It fills the void that is very real. Drunk people usually don't notice what's in your glass. Make it look like an alcoholic drink if you don't want anyone looking suspiciously at you. That's one of the hardest parts. It's so frustrating that it's the only drug you need an excuse or an explanation for not taking. Jason Vale has a bit about hating the term alcoholic. I also hate it. I am not one, I am simply not drinking. It's become a negative term in our society for someone who can't "handle" alcohol and it's total bullshit.
12. Floss. Wash your face. Do the things you never did while you drank. Create good habits, you'll feel excited about these small things.
12. Remember the AA saying: Hungry, thirsty, tired and lonely. If you're feeling the urge to drink, you're likely one of these things. Solve the thing, instead of drinking. Eat, drink, sleep or reach out to a friend.
13. Go back to the Jason Vale's book. Drinking is not fun for you, anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. This is the new way.
14.. Get through a year. You will lose your taste for it. It will be 1000x easier after that first year, I assure you.
This is how I did it.
I first started the blog in 2012. I went to the gym, I got through 6 days, I failed.
I revamped my life a bit, and started a new relationship.
I tried again in the spring of 2016, I failed again, but I got through 3-4 weeks.
By then, I had all the books.
I'd gone through 4 weeks of counselling.
When I almost lost everything in July 2016, my new life I'd created, I was determined that this time it was going to work.
I quit, once and for all on July 27, 2016.
To get through the first three days/3 months, I read all the books, I wrote in the old blog, I got pills from my Doctor (never took them). I worked through all the madness of the first year and it felt HARD.
I was so worried I was going to black out, for no reason.
I was AFRAID of it, somehow.
The first wedding I attended, the first Christmas/birthday, all the things that were impossibly hard that first year, I remember them vividly. I was in crisis without my crutch. But I didn't cave, I saw myself in 5 years.
By 2017 my life was vastly different, so in reality it took me 5 years to quit.
And I'd never go back.
I feel free of it, a burden I am now rid of.
A burden I wish others would learn to get rid of too.
I can't imagine the person I would be had I not quit when I did.
So please try, if you've read this far, you obviously want to.
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