Abstinence or moderation? Choice by alcoholics

The group gave her ideas for ways she could take a few days away from all of it – the stress, the husband and the drinking – and suggested more therapy to deal with the psychological triggers of her drinking and depression. Whether via self-talk or a conversation with a trusted friend, family member, or healthcare professional, it’s important to talk about your urges and remind yourself why you chose to moderate your drinking in the first place. Learning to accept these feelings, and finding healthy ways to distract yourself from them, will also go a long way toward helping you to handle any urges to drink.

• Are you someone who likes to ease into things, or do you prefer an all-or-nothing approach to change?
• Men should not exceed four drinks in one sitting or a total of fourteen drinks in one week.
• Alcohol is a substance that can have significant withdrawal symptoms for a person who is physically dependent on it; therefore, it should never be stopped “cold turkey” without a professional medical detox protocol if dependence is present.
• She lives on a working cattle ranch in Ohio with her family and is an active part of the farm in her spare time.

Speak with a alcohol abstinence vs moderation provider and get your questions about rehab answered today. While it can seem daunting to practice abstinence, limit your alcohol use, or seek treatment, you can find comfort in the fact that there is no definitive “correct” way to get where you want to be. The best course of action is the one that will work the best for you. You can receive 24/7 text support right away and at your convenience. There is no obligation to enter treatment and you can opt out at any time. Abstinence gives you a chance to break old habits, experience a change, and build some confidence. Are not currently grappling with severe life problems such as divorce, job loss, bankruptcy, debilitating or life-threatening medical illness, death of a loved one, depression or other psychiatric illness, etc.

Can You Take Spironolactone To Treat Alcohol Use Disorder?

Moderation Management is a non-profit organization that helps members prevent the harm that excessive drinking can cause. It is the most well-known program using moderation management as an alternative to abstinence.

And that’s why this focus on restraint, that’s why so many people give into their desire because all they know how to do is to grit their teeth and say no, or give in and say yes. Now, I’ve talked about abstinence on the podcast before, and you know if you listen to the podcast that I think it’s really important sometimes to just look at how a word is defined.

Reflect on the alcohol use disorder criteria

Alcohol had taken its toll—her job, friends, family and health had all suffered—and she wanted it out of her life. Her counselor agreed that abstinence was a good solution and they took steps to help Reagan achieve this goal. These individuals may be naturally finding ways in their environment to help them reduce or abstain (e.g., seeking social support), for example, or automatically using cognitive strategies to help them stick to limits on days they drink.

Contact us tohttps://ecosoberhouse.com/ to learn more about us at Vertava Health Ohio and take a step toward life-long recovery. Severity of alcoholism is the most generally accepted clinical indicator of the appropriateness of CD therapy . Untreated alcohol abusers probably have less severe drinking problems than clinical populations of alcoholics, which may explain their higher levels of controlled drinking. But the less severe problem drinkers uncovered in nonclinical studies are more typical, outnumbering those who “show major symptoms of alcohol dependence” by about four to one .

Observing and Learning

They’re just looking for someone to say, hey, here’s the magic number. Just never have more than two drinks in a sitting and here’s how you do it. I don’t teach that because that is straight up diet culture. Trying to settle on some magic number that is right for you is the problem of moderation.

Finally, people don’t typically find it very hard to avoid that first step toward relapse. You can take a route to work that doesn’t go by your old bar. You can stop yourself from calling an old drinking buddy. These peripheral things in themselves aren’t too tempting.

Reducing or Quitting Drinking? An Extensive Review of Health Benefits

If you want to drink, you have to be willing to listen to your body and what it’s actually asking for. But moderation disconnects you from all of that because it focuses on a number instead of tuning into your body and how it feels. Because what you try to do with moderation is you try to follow a rule rather than listening to your body’s response in the present moment. So whether it is the CDC issuing health guidances or Weight Watchers telling you, hey, this is how many points you can spend on alcohol without gaining weight, we are constantly bombarded with this information about the right amount. And when you try to moderate, what does your brain do? It seems like it makes a lot of sense because we are constantly bombarded with information and guidelines about how much is the right amount to drink. All of those thoughts, most people are completely unconscious to.

• Moderate drinking requires specific practices and beliefs.
• By quitting drinking completely, your body can begin to repair the damage caused by alcohol.
• How much desire you feel and your choice to drink are not one and the same.
• Many people think that abstinence is the only solution for problem drinking.
• Some pregnant women might think that moderation management is a way for them to consume alcohol.
• Given the field’s historical emphasis on abstinence-based approaches, key individual factors to treatment outcome remain more of a mystery when it comes to moderation-focused treatment, sometimes called “harm reduction”.