How to stop drinking, and stay stopped
In short: Stopping is rarely the hard part. Staying stopped is. Below: how to stop safely, what to do when a craving hits, what to change around you, and how to deal with what keeps sending you back.
You’ve probably stopped before.
For a week. For a month. For the whole of January. Maybe after a bad night, with a promise you really meant. And then, somewhere along the line, you started again, and you’re still not completely sure how it happened.
That’s a pattern I hear a lot. So this covers both: how to stop, and how to stop starting again.
First, do it safely
Before anything else, please read this part.
If you drink heavily every day, do not just stop. Alcohol is one of the few substances where withdrawal can be life-threatening. If you get shaky, sweaty or anxious when you haven’t had a drink, or you need one in the morning to feel normal, see a doctor before you stop. They can help you come off safely.
That isn’t weakness and it isn’t an excuse to delay. It’s the first step.
Why willpower keeps running out
If willpower were enough, you’d have done this already. You’re not short of determination. You’re up against how the brain works.
- Your reward system has been retrained. Alcohol produces a far bigger hit than ordinary pleasures, so over time a drink starts to feel like a need, not a want. Everyday things can feel flat for a while after you stop. That improves as the brain heals.
- Your brakes are worn. The part of the brain that weighs consequences and controls impulses is weakened by heavy drinking. It recovers, but it takes time.
- The habit is a well-worn road. Every repeat has made the path stronger. Stress, boredom, a bad day and even good news now lead to the same place, before you’ve really thought about it.
That’s why “just don’t drink” isn’t a plan. You need to know what to do in the moment, and what to change around you.
A craving is a wave, not an emergency
This is the single most useful thing I know about cravings: they’re temporary. They start, build, peak, break and fade, like a wave.
Most people never find this out, because they give in before the wave breaks. It feels as though it will keep climbing until you drink. It won’t. It has a ceiling. Every craving you’ve ever had ended, including the ones where you drank. The drink didn’t end it. The wave broke on its own.
A few other things people believe about cravings that aren’t true: that you need a drink to function, that it never gets easier, and that having a craving means you’re failing. Cravings are a normal part of stopping. What matters is what you do with them.
Six things to do when a craving hits
- Delay. Don’t promise yourself you’ll never drink again. Promise yourself you won’t drink for the next 30 minutes. When that’s up, do another 30. You’re waiting out a wave, not deciding the rest of your life.
- Slow your breathing. A craving switches on the body’s stress response: racing heart, shallow breath, fuzzy thinking. Slow, deliberate breathing calms it down and brings your thinking back.
- Move and shift your focus. The more attention a craving gets, the stronger it gets. Leave the place you’re in first, then do something that takes up your body or your mind: a walk, a shower, a call, a task.
- Tell someone. Cravings grow in secret and shrink in the open. Try to reach a safe person within the first 15 minutes, and say it straight. You’ll feel a strong pull not to. Do it anyway.
- Challenge the thought. “Just one to take the edge off.” “I can control it this time.” Those aren’t insights. They’re the craving talking. Test them against your own history. How has “just one” actually gone?
- Say it out loud. A short, honest sentence about why you’re doing this, spoken aloud. Not a slogan. Something true about what’s at stake for you.
Every craving you ride out without drinking is evidence that you can, and the next one tends to be a little weaker.
Know when you’re most at risk
There’s an old recovery shorthand: HALT. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These are the four states where cravings are most likely and your resistance is lowest.
Skipped meals, a stewing resentment, an empty Sunday afternoon and a run of bad sleep will do more damage to your plan than any bottle store. Eat properly. Deal with anger before it sits. Don’t isolate. Sleep. It sounds too simple to matter. It matters a lot.
Change the people, places and routines
Your brain has tied drinking to particular cues: the pub you pass on the way home, the friends you drink with, the chair, the time of day, payday, the rugby. Walk past the cue and the craving arrives on its own.
So in the early months, make it easier for yourself. Get the alcohol out of the house. Take a different route home. Change what happens at six in the evening. Tell the people you drink with what you’re doing, and take a break from the ones who can’t respect it. You’re not avoiding life. You’re giving your brain time to rewire.
Deal with what’s underneath
Picture an iceberg. The drinking is the part above the water. Underneath is everything that keeps sending you back to it: the stress you don’t know how to carry, the feelings you never learnt to handle, old hurt, shame, loneliness, the things you believe about yourself.
If that part is never dealt with, it simply waits.
Lasting change means building things as well as stopping something: new ways of thinking, new ways of handling emotions, different relationships, a reason to get up in the morning. That’s what our 8-month REBUILD Programme is for, and why it runs for months and not days.
Don’t do it alone
Very few people think their way out of this on their own, and plenty have tried.
You need at least one person who knows the whole story, not the tidy version, and who’ll tell you the truth. A group of people on the same road helps even more.
- Free Monday groups. Every Monday, 19:00 to 21:00, in Centurion or on Zoom. No booking, no cost, no pressure to speak. See the details.
- An assessment. R750, about 45 minutes, in person or on Zoom. We look at the whole picture and recommend the right path for you. Book one here.
- You can keep working. Outpatient recovery fits around a job and a family. Read Do I need rehab, or can I get better at home?
If you slip
A slip isn’t the end and it doesn’t wipe out what you’ve done. It shows you what still needs attention.
Relapse almost never starts with the drink. It starts earlier, in the thinking: “I’ve been doing so well, I deserve a break.” Then the behaviour drifts. The drink comes last. If you learn to spot the early part, you can catch it long before you’re holding a glass.
So if it happens, tell someone the same day, work out where the drift began, and start again. Don’t let one bad night turn into a bad year.
Take the Alcohol Dependence Audit or WhatsApp Steven on +27 76 402 7083.
