The majority of clients that we see in our office are able to stop drinking
all on their own without having to go to like big time treatment like 30 60 or
90 day treatment I'm talking about the vast majority of clients that come to our office
and honestly it's not that complicated and I'm going to tell you how to do it in this video
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down
I'm Amber Hollandsworth and this YouTube channel all about helping you understand
the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your family and your life back
on track get back out there and live the life that you want to live
I want you to know you are not powerless you do not have to hit rock bottom and
there are many things you can do to help an addictive loved one if you want to be
back in control of your life subscribe to this channel and I'll make sure
you are always five steps ahead of addiction and don't forget hit the little bell
if you want access to the bonus episodes
now when it comes to quitting alcohol the very first thing you need to think about
is whether or not you need like a medical detox from the alcohol because believe it
or not stopping alcohol cold Turkey is one of the more dangerous things to stop
so before you implement any of the other techniques that I'm about to tell you
it really is important to have a good thorough like assessment medical assessment
for can you stop drinking especially if you've been drinking daily for quite a long time and
you haven't gotten more than a couple of days sober in a really long time that's when I think
it's important to get one of these evaluations now I'll link up a video at the end of this video
that talks more on how to know whether you need that medical detox or whether you can skip it
but once you have that figured out here are the key
pieces to doing this on your own without going to like big cat daddy treatment
the first thing that I want you to do is I want you to do everything you can to make
drinking a non option so let's talk about ways in order to do that what do I mean by non-option
I mean make it easier on yourself for example one really obvious thing is
take the alcohol out of your house now if someone else in your house drinks I
still say take the alcohol out of your house at least for the first little while and probably
eventually after you're stopped for quite some time that's not going to bother you anymore
if someone else has a drink every now and then but in the beginning I want you to remove it
because you just don't need that temptation you'll be trying to sleep in your bed at night
and you'll hear the beer bottles in the fridge talking to you and
you sleep and you're going to think it going crazy so just make it easier and take it out
now I know you can always go to the store and get more cuz a lot of families say well they
can get it if they want it and I say well that's totally true but in your own home you should be
able to kind of relax and be comfortable and not have to have your guard up all the time
take it out now the next thing you need to do in order to take off the option of drinking alcohol
is tell the really important people around you that you're not gonna be drinking anymore
because that way if you're at a restaurant with a friend or you're hanging out at a work function
and the temptation is there if there's someone there that knows
that you're not supposed to be drinking then you're less likely to cave into that pressure
and again it makes it easier now this third way of taking alcohol off the table is probably
the most effective way and that is actually to use a
sober link now you may have heard me talk about Soberlink before for two reasons
one because they sponsored this channel and two because I freaking love Soberlink we have been
using sober links in our office since way before we had a YouTube channel way before
they sponsored us and I am a huge fan in fact most of the people that come see me for alcohol
this is one of the big reasons why they're able to stop without having to go away
so you're thinking well what the heck is a Soberlink a sober Soberlink is an alcohol
monitoring device it's a breathalyzer but not just any breathalyzer it's a fancy sophisticated
kind of breathalyzer what happens is you can set up a schedule for when you want to
be tested so for example for clients who come to my office we decide on a schedule of tests
usually they get tested about three times a day I'm not trying to catch them I'm trying
to prevent them so they know when the tests are coming usually first thing in the morning
somewhere in the middle and last thing before bed and when they're supposed to take these
tests they actually get a text message reminder 15 minutes before they're supposed to take the test
it says Hey you have a test at six o'clock or whatever time you
and your support person has come up with for you to take the test
and then you usually have like an hour window after that so I know if you're worrying like
what if I'm in a meeting what if I can't like what if I'm in the middle of something
they text you 15 minutes before and you have a whole hour after
so you really have like an hour and 15 minutes before you're even late so
it's completely doable in fact I've had a lot of really high level professionals
use Soberlink and the people around them never even knew it's about the size of your cell phone
it comes in a case that kind of looks like fancy sunglasses case so if you had it like sitting in
your car or something or in your pocketbook no one's really going to think a lot about it now
let me tell you why I think this is so effective number one you have these scheduled test number
two it has facial recognition software in it kind of like your phone won't open without your face
when you first get a Soberlink it takes your picture they call that the master picture
and it matches up makes sure it's you taking it so you can't sneak around get someone else to take it
do something sneaky by having some kind of other air source
blowing into it none of that just forget it I've seen it all
it's not going to work so it kind of makes it full proof now if you miss your test or you're late or
you get a positive your support person can get a text message show in the case of my clients those
messages usually come to me and sometimes even to another person like um their sponsor recovery
coach or family member if they so choose you can set up that accountability however works best
now really really the reason why this is so effective is that it makes drinking a non-option
it doesn't leave room for all those sneaky little thoughts like well my spouse is gonna be gone from
the house for a couple hours I can drink just one she'll never know to be out of my system
or um I'm out for a business lunch meeting you know my it's not gonna hurt anything
you know all those little sneaky thoughts it kind of does away with it because you're not
going to get away with it so why do it people that use Soberlink is actually a thousand times easier
because you make the decision one time which is the time when you make the decision you're on the
Soberlink and then the decision's made you don't have to fight for yourself a thousand times a day
doing this whole back and forth thing where you feel like you're white-knuckling at
it simply makes it a non-option which is why it makes it a bazillion
times easier so remember do anything you can to make drinking alcohol a non-option
don't have it around you tell the people that are important to you and close to
you that you're not drinking and even go to the links of getting a Soberlink
I'm telling you without the Soberlink so many of my clients would've ended
up having to go away to the treatment they would've to take off time from work
miss school be away from family all that stuff and because of that cuz they've
done these things that I'm telling you they're able to do it on their
now another piece to this idea of how to quit drinking alcohol all on your own is
you have to stop trying to convince yourself that you can drink differently
what I mean by that well if you're like an old school you're ever into 12 steps or something then
what you would say here is it's not manageable
it's unmanageable when you start drinking it doesn't end so stop trying to convince
yourself that you can somehow do it differently as you can just drink beer and not hard liquor
or you can just drink on the weekends or you can just drink on special occasions like vacations
or you won't drink more than three or four or whatever it is
how many times have you done that already a lot I know you're not watching this video
without having done all that already right you've got to this point you've
tried to cut it back you've tried to manage it I'm certain of it it's just
not gonna work now I'm not telling you it will never work ever at all
not even one time yeah you may be able to manage it a time or two
but eventually, what happens it always gets back outta control
so you have got to rid yourself of the sneaky thought of trying to do it manageably trying
to keep it into your life but not have all the problems it just flat out ain't going to happen
that is the biggest reason why most people have a hard time stopping alcohol not because they can't
stop but because they kind of like convince themselves this time will be different and
it pretty much always ends the same how many of you have tried to manage it cut it back
do all those things I call it bargaining
how many of you have tried that what have you tried has it worked
let me know in the comments because maybe someone else reading those comments you
can help them avoid the pain and mistake of making the ones you've already made
moving on our list you have figured out whether or not you need a detox you have taken alcohol
out of the equation, it is now a non-option you have decided for sure that you are not going to
convince yourself that you can just drink a little because you've tried that and it
hasn't worked now the next thing I want you to do is I want you to change your habits
now this one may seem kind of like simple and silly but this one is actually super helpful
if you always stop and buy alcohol at the store on the way home from work go a different
way home from work doesn't stop at the gas station where you always stopped and
got it or the liquor store or wherever it was if you always sat down on after work
watch basketball and drink don't come home from work and sit down and watch basketball
if there's a high-risk time where you normally would drink make sure you plan an activity for
during that time the reason is that it's become such a habit and we have all experienced this
before we don't even mean to be drinking but we get into this sort of set routine
where we're kind of like an autopilot and the next thing you know we're just back doing it
not because we wanted to because like literally we just did it on autopilot and we completely
blanked out and then you're like what the heck am I doing another way this is helpful is by changing
all those little day-to-day habits you actually are less likely to trigger cravings because when
you do all the things you used to do that were associated with alcohol it triggers more cravings
so then again changing all this makes it easier let me tell you this story
about how this has worked for a client of just here recently so this client who came in um
I'm going to say like a little bit over a year ago and he had really kind of hit the wall with his
wife I mean it was kind of like either you get it under control and you stop this mess or you're out
so he knew he had reached the point of some decision-making by the time he came to my
office he was like you know what I have to stop doing this is silly I'm going to lose my
whole family what can I do and I talked to him about doing these exact things I'm telling you
now in his case we determined that he probably didn't need detox cuz he was already like four or
five days sober before he came in to see me which told me he was kind of outta that detox window
but what he did do is he decided okay I will do all the other things that you're telling me
to do I'll change my routines and habits I'll get a sober link I'll let people around me know
that I'm not going to drink anymore and you know what
that person has not had a drink since they stepped foot in my office
they've literally just celebrated their one year and everything in their life is better
their relationship's better their work is better their relationship with their kids is better
they feel about a thousand times better they have more energy and motivation
they're looking forward to things they get excited about things
their whole life is different and the biggest reason is is that this person was willing to
make these changes and they're not even that huge of changes but if you're willing to do these small
things the chances that you're gonna have success go way way up now the last thing I wanna tell you
about how to get sober and stay sober all on your own is that I want you to stay focused on what you
do want because you're sobriety and don't let your mind go into the deep dark rabbit hole of
what you can't have or what other people are doing let me tell you what alcohol is a poison
and it doesn't serve anyone well I promise you and if you put it in your body long enough
it's going to cause you problems it is literally poisoning your body so don't
allow yourself to have this thought of like why me or why can everybody else do this
and I can't instead of thinking about what you can't have it's much more effective to
think about what you want instead you want to feel better when you wake up you want to have a better
relationship with someone in your life you want your career to take off maybe you want to lose
a little weight or something but focus on what you want from this decision not what you don't
want and not only what make it a lot easier but you'll feel a lot happier in the process as always
I'm going to put links in the description for you for additional resources including
Soberlink if you want to check that out and up I'm going to put this
video up here for you about do you need detox or you don't need detox
not only that but the entire playlist focus on alcohol I'd like to send a big heart bet
thanks to all of you who help support this channel your likes shares and donations are
helping us spread the message of recovery and without you, this wouldn't be possible
now this next video has been hand-selected to go right along with
this one and don't forget to check the description for additional resources