Beating the Booze: 5 Tips For Drinking Less Alcohol

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Drinking less alcohol is no easy feat. Even if you don’t have a dependency, there are many social situations in which it’s commonplace to have a drink and you may feel pressured to join in. We can all benefit from drinking less alcohol whether it’s to save our body, save our mind or save money. Here are five tips for helping you to lower your alcohol intake.

Set your goal

First you need to set a clear goal and stick to it. This could be to only drink at weekends or to have a set amount of units a week. If you’ve got an alcohol problem, you may even be planning to go cold turkey. Whatever the case, you need to be prepared to stick to your goal.

Find a healthy replacement

Cutting out alcohol can leave you with a sense of emptiness. Filling this void with a healthy activity that you enjoy could stop you from feeling dejected. If you regularly drink when you come home from work, you could try substituting this with another activity such as going to the gym, taking a hot bath or taking up a new hobby. If you’d regularly socialise at the pub or go binge-drinking at the weekend, you could try different methods of socialising instead such as going for coffee or having a night in with friends.

Remove temptations from your life

You may find it hard to cut down on alcohol if you’re constantly surrounded by it. Remove any alcoholic drinks from your home so that you’re not tempted to give in. Similarly, try to have a no alcohol rule in the house and prevent friends from bringing booze around. As discussed already, it might be best to cut down on visits to the pub too. There may even be people who are a bad influence on you who are best avoided whilst you’re trying to cut down.

Get professional help

If you aren’t able to keep away from the bottle, it could be worth seeking some sort of professional help. You could try joining a counselling group or you could even try methods such as hypnosis. You may even want to consider alcohol rehab. Try different types of help to find the one best suited to you.

Stay positive

Seeing the positive side of giving up alcohol is essential. Rather than focusing on what you’re missing, try focusing on what you’re gaining. Consider the fact that you could be saving money and improving your physical health. Think about what you might be able to achieve without alcohol – if alcohol previously made you aggressive or made you neglect responsibilities, you may find that you’re able to build trust amongst friends and family member without it.