How to stop drinking

How to stop drinking

how to stop drinkingDrinking isn’t a scary thing until it becomes a problem. It gets especially scary when you find yourself drinking even when you don’t want to. It can seem impossible to overcome your drinking but there are actually steps you can to stop drinking. As long as you haven’t reached the point of no return you can do what you need to rewind and stop your problem drinking in its tracks.

How to stop drinking: acknowledge why you do it

Why do you engage in your drinking? You have to be able to answer that question in order to stop drinking. Is it to help you with anxiety and stress? It may be hard to admit why you have you are drinking but you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge exists. Admit why you engage in the problem drinking to yourself and you are on your to stopping drinking.

How to stop drinking: Think rational thoughts instead of sitting in denial

You probably understand at a conscious and intellectual level that your drinking is unhealthy yet you keep on using or drinking and this baffles you. If you are in denial about your drinking this is probably why. If you can’t get through the day without a shot of vodka, you may be self-medicating and if you have reached the point of knowing its bad and can’t stop you may need outside help from something like a drug rehab to stop drinking. Realizing this is a rational thought.

How to stop drinking: Using coping skills

People never break bad habits they merely replace them with new ones. Recognize that you get a reward of some sort from smoking, using drugs, and drinking. Find something else to give you that reward and you have found new coping skills and have stopped the drinking. If you have reached the point of no return and need to attend rehab it is still a very good idea to find new coping skills for life for when you are out of rehab. Finding new coping skills can stop drinking in its tracks. And if you can stop drinking then you can begin to live a healthy life again. You have the ability to quiet yourself without drugs and alcohol; without your alcohol. You also have the ability to reduce stress without drugs and alcohol. Find new things to use to stop drinking instead of drugs and alcohol which fuel it.

How to stop drinking: Have a support system and become accountable

If you truly want to stop drinking and get clean then you are going to need help from people and you are going to need to be accountable to those people. Accountability means showing up when you say you are going to and no longer engaging in alcoholic drinking behaviors like being flaky. The support system you have is meant to help you stop drinking by telling you the truth about yourself when you want to go into denial about your drinking. Your support system will also help you to find new ways to be healthier and do those things with you. Support and accountability can also come in the form of rehab to stop drinking.

 

 

If you need help with your addiction give us a call now at 1-800-984-4003.

5 Signs Your “Party-Animal” Friend Might Be an Alcoholic

Party Animal Personality

5 Signs Your “Party-Animal” Friend Might Be an Alcoholic

There is a group of you. Maybe it is a group of three, possibly four. You all work different jobs, maybe two of you work the same job and you enjoy going out for drinks on the weekend. And you all love having a good time, I mean that is what life is about right? Fun with friends? But there is that one person, that one friend in your group on the weekends that you would consider the “party-animal” and their drinking is turning into a head tilting, embarrassing mess. You and your friends have begun having conversations with each other about the “party-animal” friend’s drinking and you begin to wondering if they might be an alcoholic. They quite possibly could be but you don’t know what an alcoholic is. You know the homeless drunk that you see when walking down the street but that isn’t your “party-animal” friend. Maybe your friend just needs to grow up? Or maybe it something more serious? Well, here are some signs that may help you to figure out what is really going on with your friend.

5 signs that your “party-animal” friend might be an alcoholic:

  1. Pay attention to your friend’s tolerance for alcohol. An increased tolerance for alcohol is a big indicator that your party animal friend might be an alcoholic. Overtime their system doesn’t respond to the same amount you would probably drink while out. As a result of this they drink more and more frequently.
  2. Look at how your friend considers drinking as a part of their daily routine. An alcoholic person often sets up a schedule for their alcohol. For instance if they visit a bar or liquor store daily after work your party animal friend may be an alcoholic. You will also notice that your friend makes excuses just to go get a drink.
  3. Passing out or blackouts are severe indicators that your party animal friend might be an alcoholic. Passing or blacking out can happen to anyone and everyone but it is unlikely and is unusual if it happens more than once. Someone who blacks out or passes out from drinking too much could very well be an alcoholic or be on their way to being an alcoholic.
  4. Bring up your party animal friend’s drinking to them and see what happens. Usually someone who might be an alcoholic responds very negatively and defensively. They will constantly deny or lie about the issue and never face the facts about their drinking.
  5. Keep track of how often your party animal friend becomes drunk whenever alcohol is available. Ordering “doubles” of drinks, gulping, or becoming quickly intoxicated are all indications that your party animal friend might be an alcoholic.

Everyone has that one friend that likes to get a little bit out of control and they are fun to be around and they are our friends. But if you think your party animal friend might be an alcoholic it is best if you care about them and talk to them about cutting back or quitting all together.

Sources:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2046129_recognize-signs-alcoholism.html

If you need help with your addiction give us a call now at 1-800-984-4003.

The Other Hangover

The Other Hangover

Everyone knows what a hangover feels like. The parched mouth, aching muscles, and splitting headache are all unfortunate consequences of a hard night of drinking. “The Other Hangover” is less easily explained. It sometimes starts with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You wake up and realize that something is wrong, but you can’t remember what it is. Slowly, flashes of what you did the night before begin to play in your head. Maybe you got in a fight; maybe you danced topless on the bar. Whatever it was, you begin to realize that your overindulgence the night before may have cost you a lot more than your bar tab.

This is what’s known as “The Other Hangover.” It’s the embarrassment, guilt, or shame you feel due to the dumb decisions you made under the influence of alcohol.

The Other Hangover: Anti-Drinking Campaign

“The Other Hangover” is a concept developed by University of Minnesota undergrads. This semester, the campus has been plastered with posters and ads that try to convince students not to overdo it at the bar.

The idea came from a group of advertising students tasked with creating a responsible-drinking campaign for a national competition last year. The students surveyed their peers and found that the threat of most negative consequences (DUI, alcohol poisoning, and death) was not enough to scare them into drinking responsibly.

The ads feature things like women dancing provocatively at a bar with the caption “Reputations Aren’t Drunk Proof”  and a guy with an arm around a girl and the other hand holding a drink which read “Before you got wasted, you weren’t known as ‘The Creep’”.

Some have praised The Other Hangover Campaign for relating to college students on a level they understand. Since young people tend to think they are invincible, traditional campaigns focused on the dangers of drinking don’t seem to do much good.

Critics of the campaign call it “drunk shaming” and say that it reinforces sexist stereotypes (i.e. if you are a woman and you make out with a guy at a bar, you’re a slut.) The message, they say, is don’t get to drunk, or you’ll do something stupid and everyone will hate you. They claim that there are better and more effective ways to teach college kids responsible drinking.

However, maybe the ad will work where others have failed. It is no secret that campaigns like “The Faces of Meth,” which show the physical deterioration of people who have been arrested for multiple charges of possession, has been more effective on teenagers than more traditional campaigns. Some think this is because it shows teens something that they actually care about – i.e. the erosion of their physical appearance, rather than something that they think could never happen to them-i.e. car crashes or overdoses. Similarly, The Other Hangover ads play on the social consequences of drinking rather than the physical or legal consequences. According to its creators, it targets the things that young people “truly care about.”

http://www.theotherhangover.com/

http://jezebel.com/the-other-hangover/

If you need help with your addiction give us a call now at 1-800-984-4003.

Hangover Movie: Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

Hangover Movie: Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is a classic hangover movie that every college kid and stoner has seen. It is very much a remake on the very classic Cheech and Chong movies with its ridiculous antics, drug use, sex, and drinking.

Harold Lee and Kumar Patel play the parts of two stoners who end up getting the munchies and decide they want to go to White Castle. Harold is the more introverted awkward character and Kumar is the more outgoing and spontaneous one setting this hangover movie up for some interesting situations. Harold and Kumar’s journey to find a White Castle because of the relocation of the old one; turns into an entire movie.

Harold and Kumar set out to get White Castle and in the process of trying to get some delicious hamburgers to satisfy their munchies, Harold gets bitten by an animal and ends up in the hospital. After getting out of the hospital Harold and Kumar continue their hunt for White Castle and then the car breaks down. After their car breaks down they meet a nice man named Randy who takes them with him to his house to fix their car. At Randy’s house, Randy offers to let Harold and Kumar sleep with his beautiful wife Liane. After this debacle, Harold and Kumar end up picking up a hitch-hiker, who when they stop at a gas station steals their car. So now Harold and Kumar are walking and end up jay walking. After jay walking they get stopped by a police officer who just likes to pick on minorities and ends up arresting Harold and holding him in a cell. Harold and Kumar escape and both run to hid in the bush and come face to face with a cheetah. And the antics go on and on.

Eventually Harold and Kumar find themselves at a raging party that they stop by for a minute and they also in the end make it to White Castle after being up all night losing their car, walking, hitting a party and going through everything they have to get it. While at White Castle the hitchhiker returns the car. And while Harold and Kumar are eating the White Castle it is an epic moment for them because what was supposed to be a quick trip to White Castle had turned into an all-night debacle of sex, drugs, music, and drinking. The classic hangover movie: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

If you need help with your addiction give us a call now at 1-800-984-4003.

How many drinks are too many?

How many drinks are too many?

How many drinks are too many?

“I usually have about three glasses of wine every night,” Laurie tells me. “I never really think about it. It’s an automatic thing when I get home, and I don’t get drunk.”

“My husband has three or four beers when he gets home on weekdays, and he drinks more when he doesn’t have to work the next day.” Michelle says. “Is that too much?”

Sometimes it can be hard to judge your own alcohol consumption, or even to judge the alcohol consumption of a loved one. It may be difficult to know how many drinks are too many.

How many drinks are too many? Factors

There are a lot of factors that determine how many drinks is too many including body weight, body fat, hydration, initial blood sugar, stomach content etc. Typically a “serving” of alcohol is 8 ounces of beer, 4 ounces of wine, or 1 ounce (one shot) of liquor. Once alcohol is absorbed, it enters the blood stream and is distributed in the body’s tissues. Alcohol is broken down by the body at the rate of 0.5 OZ per hour in the average person. This translates into about 1 drink per hour.

Alcohol use affects a person’s behavior and functioning. When a person begins to consume more alcohol than their body can eliminate (i.e. more than one drink per hour) their Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) begins to rise. Most people are fairly functional at .08 BAC however some will have noticeable impairment. Generally a night of “Heavy drinking”, or to the point where a person blacks out, generally is from a BAC around .18-.22. Most people will become unconscious at .22-.25 BAC. A BAC over .25 can cause long term loss of brain function, induce heart attacks, and so on.

How many drinks are too many? Individual Concerns

However, that is just the science of drinking. What also determines how many drinks are too many depends on what you are most afraid of. If it is alcoholism, than limiting yourself to one drink per night will keep most women out of the danger zone. If you are pregnant, than total abstinence is the way to go.

This is not to say that if you have, say, two drinks a night, you are alcoholic or slightly alcoholic. For some people, two drinks a night isn’t a big deal, for others, the same amount can compel them to overindulge.

The key to recognizing a problem with drinking is deciding whether it has a detrimental effect on your life. That is the important part in determining how many drinks is too many. If you find yourself habitually making inappropriate comments, acting out sexually, driving dangerously, blacking out, or waking up with a hangover, these are signs of a problem, no matter how infrequently you drink.

Alcoholism is usually diagnosed by control, compulsion, and consequences. If you find yourself drinking more than you intend do, are preoccupied with drinking, or suffer negative consequences from drinking, then you probably have a problem that requires professional help.

If you need help with your addiction give us a call now at 1-800-984-4003.