What are the Various Strategies to Stop Drinking Alcohol?
For the true alcoholic, the idea that they can just stop drinking is no light matter. Because there are a bunch of different ways to get sober out there, which techniques prove to be the best and which ones don’t work so well?
1) Willpower – This is essentially the same as not using any technique at all, but only relying on one’s own willpower to avoid picking up another drink. Now this idea has been tested a million times over by virtually every alcoholic who has tried to beat the problem of drink, and the consensus is that it is never a sustainable method for anyone. Ever.
2) AVRT – this stands for “Addictive Voice Recognition Technique,” so this is essentially an example of a cognitive therapy for quitting drinking. The trick is to realize when your “addictive voice” kicks in and realize that it is only your addiction talking to you and not your true self. Then you are able to tell this addictive voice that you do not want to drink when it starts to get active with you.
There are other therapies out there that are similar to this, each with the concept that we can change up our thinking in order to change our behavior. These kinds of cognitive techniques do work well for some alcoholics, but for most of us in recovery, these types of mental gymnastics are not really enough to completely solve our drinking problem.
3) AA – Twelve step programs are probably the most widespread solution for alcoholism, and because of this, they offer the most amount of hope and the most realistic solution for most people in most situations. Of course there are some pitfalls and downsides to Alcoholics Anonymous as well. For starters–while it is very hard to prove statistics regarding this fellowship–the rate of sobriety in 12 step programs likely runs around the rate of 5 to 10 percent. To be fair, though, no other treatment method seems to offer substantially better numbers than this, and AA certainly has helped a lot of those who wanted to know how to stop drinking.
It is not that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a good solution for recovery, the problem is that it is just not a complete solution for most people. The real solution for recovery is a holistic approach that addresses all aspects of the recovering individual. This is what’s known as the creative life theory of recovery. Finding your way to this solution requires a holistic approach if you want to stop drinking.
