Author: Alex Thompson
How to Wean Off Alcohol & Safely Taper Drinking
It teaches you healthy ways to cope with stress and techniques for overcoming the underlying causes of alcohol addiction. If you find that you are one of those drinkers who cannot taper their alcohol consumption consistently or if you find that you begin to experience withdrawal symptoms by merely cutting back, don’t give up. If you’ve become dependent on alcohol, cutting it out of your life may produce withdrawal symptoms, such as a rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, sweating and shaking.
Alcohol withdrawal is potentially fatal, especially for people with an alcohol addiction. Sometimes, they may experience seizures and delirium tremens (DTs). Talk to a medical professional if you have any concerns about tapering off alcohol. They can provide recommendations to help you avoid harmful side effects. For many other drugs, tapering is actually a standard treatment during medical detox.
If your body is used to a certain amount of alcohol, you may feel certain effects when you stop. How you feel when you stop drinking is largely based on how often and how heavily you drink. People who only drink occasionally probably won’t notice any physical or psychological symptoms. People who have a severe reaction to quitting alcohol should seek emergency treatment.
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. Depressants are so-called because they depress activity in the central nervous system. In other words, they slow down chemical communication in the brain and body. This is what causes many of the positive and negative effects of drinking, and it causes the effects of prescription depressants.
Be aware of your triggers
Talk with a healthcare professional if you’re concerned you may experience detox symptoms when quitting drinking or cutting back. Before beginning a tapering schedule, speak with your doctor about the risks of detoxing at home. Tapering off alcohol may complicate other medical conditions or co-occurring mental health disorders. If you’re unable to reduce how much you drink, you may have a disease called alcoholism that requires professional addiction treatment. Alcohol rehab helps you taper off alcohol, and it treats other side effects and causes of alcoholism. If you’ve been unable to quit on your own, you should consider attending an alcohol rehab center.
Maybe you’ve never been interested in logging your innermost thoughts, but journaling can be a great tool to track your feelings as you work on quitting alcohol. By avoiding alcohol, you’re taking a big step toward improving physical health. As you begin to notice those health benefits, you’ll likely feel more energized and inspired to keep up your progress. Family and friends can provide encouragement and support when you stop drinking. By opening up about your relationship with alcohol, you might also encourage others to explore their own drinking habits.
How to safely taper off your alcohol consumption
Experts at The HAMS Harm Reduction Network, which comprises doctors, social workers, therapists and other experts, recommend using beer to taper because it’s easier to get drunk from liquor or wine. You may not need to completely reinvent your life to quit drinking, but making a few changes in your surroundings to help avoid alcohol triggers can make a big difference. Obviously quitting cold turkey from a 12-beer-a-day habit is going to be more stressful than tapering off slowly.
- In January 2020, more than 6 million people reportedly participated in Dry January, a campaign to reduce alcohol consumption organized by Alcohol Change UK.
- Our knowledgeable and compassionate team is available 24/7 to help get you or someone you care about into treatment and answer any questions or concerns you might have.
- You can use the guidelines to get an idea of how many standard drinks you’re used to.
- By Buddy TBuddy T is a writer and founding member of the Online Al-Anon Outreach Committee with decades of experience writing about alcoholism.
Alcohol impacts our sleep, relationships, weight, risk for serious chronic conditions and more. There are several ways to taper your alcohol consumption without therapy. There is also the matter of the specific type of alcohol in question. Dependence is often accompanied by tolerance, which is when it takes more and more alcohol for you to achieve the same effects that you experienced when you first started. Another sign that you might need to taper is morning alcohol cravings. Overstimulation in your nervous system can affect important unconscious functions like your heart rate, blood pressure, and electrical impulses.
What happens to your body when you stop drinking?
One 12-ounce can of beer contains about 5% alcohol, and a standard glass of sherry is 3 to 4 ounces and contains about 17% alcohol, according to the NIAAA. You’ll get a 100% custom plan, then use daily texts to track your progress and help you stay on target. When you consider how to go about giving up alcohol, account for factors like how much you drink and your reasons for drinking. Generally, light to moderate drinkers should plan to taper for a week or more. It also can reduce the risk of relapse by not trying to attempt too much too soon, failing, and then going back to regularly using alcohol to cope with the feelings of failure.
These can indicate a life threatening condition called delirium tremens. It’s important to seek urgent medical care if you experience any of these symptoms. Most people experience the most severe symptoms from about 36–72 hours after stopping drinking. If you feel comfortable doing so, discuss your challenges with your primary healthcare professional. Finding a therapist can also be a great starting point if you’re uncomfortable opening up to your healthcare professional.
Regardless, The initial detoxification process may take several days. One of the main reasons that alcohol has such a high relapse rate is that, like the majority of central nervous system depressants, it has some of the most uncomfortable and potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms. The symptoms of alcohol withdrawal can be more than enough to drive people back to drinking to find relief. When you quit alcohol cold turkey, you quit drinking completely and suddenly. Early symptoms of alcohol withdrawal usually start about six hours after the last drink.
For one thing, it creates tangible goals for the person tapering to reach, helping to build their confidence in themselves and the belief that they can eventually stop drinking completely. Alcohol tapering is definitely possible, but the question of whether or not it works is not quite as straightforward. In the same way that everyone person is unique and their experience with addiction is going to be unique, the most effective method of recovery is also going to vary from person to person.
The typical warning signs that someone is going to experience Delirium tremens include tremors, an extremely elevated heart rate, and a drastic increase in body temperature. This is because Delirium tremens is caused by hyperactivity in the nervous system, which is now without the depressant effects of alcohol and is instead going into overdrive. As you navigate this question, it can be helpful to think about how you typically prefer to approach change. Metaphorically speaking, do you like to dip your toe in first, or cannonball right in? As long as safety precautions are taken, there’s no wrong way to begin a sobriety or moderation journey. This journey is often non-linear, and your goals can change over time.