How to quitting drinking for good

If you’ve decided you want to quit drinking but aren’t sure where to start, this episode is for you. I’m breaking down different paths to sobriety, including AA, rehab, and how to get sober without either, plus the safety considerations to keep in mind before you stop drinking. I also talk through what those early days can really feel like and share practical tips for staying sober once you’ve made the decision to quit.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Sober Scoop. Today I am running through how to get sober because obviously that's one of the most asked questions I get. Whenever I post a video talking about my sobriety and all the amazing benefits, people are like, okay, but how do we get there? Like, how do you actually quit drinking alcohol? And while it may seem simple, oh, just stop drinking alcohol. As we all know, it's uh it's a little more difficult than that. So we're gonna run through different options for getting sober, and once you have quit, how to actually make it stick. So let's jump right in. A lot of people think that AA and rehab are the only ways to actually get sober, but I am proof that there are other ways as well. And I am not, you know, talking down on AA or rehab at all. I think they are wonderful resources. They're just not something that I have experienced, so I can't speak on them directly. But if either of those sound like a good option for you, like they are for so many people, then please do look into those. They are there for a reason, they're great resources, they provide you with that support system that you need in early sobriety. There's so many good things about them. But today I'm gonna be talking about doing it on your own because that is how I got sober. And I think that those are great resources, but a lot of people get intimidated by those things. For example, I didn't want to remove myself from my life to focus on my sobriety and go to rehab to like fully commit. I didn't want to disappear and have to explain myself and get time off work, and I just I didn't want to say that I went to rehab, which is so bad. Like, clearly it has a stigma around it, and I hate that I like fell victim to that, but I did. Like for me, it was really scary the thought of going to rehab. That would be telling everyone around me that like I have a problem, or at least that's what I thought. I thought that by going to rehab, it was like admitting to all my friends and family that I'm an alcoholic and I have a drinking problem. And I like wasn't ready to to do that. I was ready to admit to myself that I had a problem and I needed to change, but I wasn't ready to like come out to all my friends and family. And so rehab just wasn't for me. And as far as AA, I don't know. I just I wasn't into it. I was an isolated drinker. I experienced my drinking problem alone, and it's almost like I wanted to get sober alone. It was just something that I wanted to do on my own. So, again, those are great resources. Look into them. There are so many podcasts and books and meetings in person on Zoom. There's all sorts of amazing resources out there. And so I think like the first tip that I would say is to not be afraid to get help because I was I was afraid for sure. And the unfortunate thing about quitting drinking is that it can actually be life-threatening to quit, like to just go cold turkey. So getting help from a rehab facility or a doctor, um, or even bouncing ideas off of people in AA is a really smart choice. So don't be afraid to ask for help. That is my first piece of advice. Now, for me personally, the way I decided that I was finally gonna get sober was literally I woke up one day and I just felt it in my soul. There's no other way to explain it. Like I spent a year and a half thinking about getting sober, and then one day I woke up and I was just like, today's the day. I um I told myself that one day has to be someday. So why not make that day today? And I don't know where that quote came from, but it was just like playing in my head on that morning. I just thought, like, I keep saying one day, like I knew I needed to get sober. For a year and a half, I was like, I know I need to get sober. But then that day I just thought, that first day has to be someday. Why not today? And I think that mindset is really useful for more than just sobriety as well. Like if you're starting a fitness journey or you want to start eating healthy, like day one does have to come. You're not gonna get to that perfect physique that you're imagining. It's gonna take years, but you're never gonna get there if you don't start, like if you don't have a day one. And it's intimidating because day one doesn't always look pretty in the fitness world, in the sobriety world, it's not like you're instantly changed and you're this new person. But that first day has to come eventually, and it's like to get to that beautiful vision that you see, that years of sobriety, that beautiful fit physique, you do have to start somewhere and just slowly, slowly chip away at it. So for me, I felt it in my soul, and I knew that that was the day I was gonna quit. And I gotta say, I personally don't believe that anybody else can get you sober. I know a lot of people talk about like interventions and um rock bottoms and all sorts of things that got them sober, but I think that to be successful in sobriety, you have to want it within yourself. I couldn't have been told by anybody else to get sober. In fact, um, you know, my family said to me, is there anything we could have done or anything we could have said? They say that about my really toxic relationship as well. And I don't think that anybody else could have told me to leave my relationship and I would have. I don't think anybody else could have told me to get sober and I would have. Those decisions had to come from within myself. And even though I was flirting with the idea of sobriety for a year and a half, it was that day that I woke up and I felt that it was my day that actually got me to quit. So you really have to want it within yourself. And I think the recovery world tells us to find our why a lot. And I bet you you don't have to think too hard about what your why is, right? Like I could list a lot of reasons why I got sober, but I think the ones that were strongest in my mind were that I was tired of hiding and living in secrecy and living this double life. I was sick of lying to my family and my boyfriend at the time, and I was just sick of living like that. So that was a big why, and then also like my physical appearance. I was round as a basketball in the face. I was so inflamed and bloated, and my body was filled with cellulite. I looked really, really unhealthy, and I was 50 pounds heavier than I am right now, but I also just looked kind of sickly. I didn't even recognize who I was in the mirror, so those were my whys for why I got sober. But the thing that nobody talks about, that I believe is one of the most important things in sobriety or to get sober, is to figure out your why for why you got to the place you did with alcohol. Why did you drink in the way that you did? And that can be a little bit less obvious, but let me tell you why it's so important to determine that. We often use alcohol to mask certain things, whether that's like mental illness, depression, ADHD, OCD, a lot of people drink to get through that. It could be a traumatic event, a bad relationship, an accident, an injury, a breakup, whatever. Um, it could be loneliness, boredom. There are so many reasons why people drink, and I think we have to figure out why we did. Because when we figure out that why for why we drank in the way we did, and we actually focus on healing those things, the desire to drink will melt away, and it makes sobriety so much easier. That is one thing that I try to live by. It's like, yeah, quitting alcohol is hard, okay? It is hard, and especially because there's physical dependencies and things like that. It's really, really difficult, and there are cravings and temptations everywhere in this world, but I'm all about making sobriety as easy as possible, and doing the hard work up front will make sobriety easier later. So, what can that look like? It can I'm just gonna use my situation as an example. So I was in that really toxic relationship, it was very traumatic. I still to this day struggle with some PTSD from that relationship. It was just awful. And so, you know, I read a lot of books. I um listened to a lot of podcasts on narcissism and narcissist personality disorder. And when I started to really understand what was going on in that relationship, it helped me be able to process and heal from that. I probably should have gone to therapy. I still think I could use some therapy for that situation. Um, but as an example, like that's something you could do for your situation is go to therapy, talk to somebody, go to grief groups, support groups. In fact, if you want a support group on your sober journey, we have one here in the Scoop Troop community. It is called the Scoop Troop on Facebook, and the link is in the description of every episode of this podcast. So feel free to join if you want to. It's just a private Facebook group, totally free. Um, so yeah, that was a bit of a tangent, but finding finding support and finding resources, healing from what you may have been through. Let's look at the mental illness, or I don't want to call it an illness, just the mental side of things. A lot of people drink to combat OCD, ADHD, depression, all sorts of mental situations. And what that could look like is again, talking to a therapist. It could look like getting on ADHD medication so you don't feel like you need to drink to mask your symptoms. It could be just researching ADHD and learning coping mechanisms, behavioral coping mechanisms. It could be like what I did, literally hacking my home to make sense with my brain so that I feel less stressed, less overwhelmed, less overstimulated, and I have my systems in place so that I don't feel like I need to drink to be able to function in this world. And of course, it's easier said than done, but as we heal those reasons for why we drank, the desire to drink will start to melt away. Because let's be honest, if we just willy-nilly quit the substance out of nowhere, all of our issues still exist. We just quit the substance. We quit our medication, we quit the only thing that was helping us get through life. And then we just cut it off and we're just left with all the same issues, just no coping mechanism. So whether you do this before you quit drinking or you do this immediately after you quit drinking, working on those reasons for why you drank in the way you did is really important. I'm gonna give one more example: the loneliness aspect. I lived in Los Angeles for over eight years, and every day there I felt lonely. Even though I did have a couple friends, I had significant others throughout my time there. Um, but I still felt lonely. Every day I felt lonely. I hated it. I had no sense of community, and that's something I'm learning. Like, community is not the same as friends. Still, okay, I'm I'm bouncing too much all over the place. Um, what I did to combat the loneliness was I moved back to my hometown. I broke up with that boyfriend, actually a good relationship after the bad one, but anyway. I broke up with my boyfriend, I sold all of my belongings, I packed up my car, and I drove to my hometown of Seattle, Washington, to basically restart my life. And when I got to Seattle, I pretty quickly felt just so whole because I'm so close to my family, and all my family lives in the Pacific Northwest. So I had all of them. I had my people. And beyond that, like I have other communities here. I I walk down the street and I see a mom of a classmate I had in fourth grade. Um, I go to the golf course and I know all the names of the people at the course. I go to cafes and I can call people by their names. I just feel whole and fulfilled. And even though I still don't have that many friends, you know, I have a few very close friends, but I have community here. And that is so important. In fact, have you guys seen that um blue zone documentary on Netflix? They say that community is the number one factor to living a long life. The number one factor. Like the documentary is all about these centurions, I think they're called, when you've lived over a hundred years, and different areas of the world have these blue zones where it's like the most concentrated amount of centurions. I hope I'm saying that right. Um, and community and that like socialization is one of the leading factors for why they've made it so long in life. If we go our lives just feeling empty, it it can it can kill us. Literally, like loneliness is so hard, it hurts so bad to exist in the world lonely. And that's a big reason that I was drinking so much alcohol. It made me feel a lot less lonely when I was downing beer after beer after beer. Like being alone at home and feeling so unfulfilled was a lot more fun, drunk. So I know that not everyone can just like pick up their life and move somewhere else, but I think that we can find community in other ways. Whether it's like joining groups, signing up for teams, um, going to the same cafes over and over, maybe joining a co-working space if you work from home. There are a lot of different strategies, and I feel like that's a whole separate conversation. Maybe I should dedicate a whole episode to it. But that's just another example of how I worked on one of the reasons that made me drink in the way I did. One of the many reasons was loneliness, and I kind of fixed my loneliness by moving back home and being around my family and having that sense of community. So we have to work on the things that make us drink in the first place. So when you decide to quit drinking alcohol, I do want to throw out one PSA. Like I said, quitting alcohol can be dangerous. Going from drinking every day, all day, to immediately not at all, it can be dangerous. So if you're gonna do it on your own with no help, know that you are running that risk. And I don't mean to scare you, but again, I'm just trying to emphasize like, don't be afraid to get help, like I was. Don't be afraid. Um, they have medicine that they can give you to wean you off of alcohol and do it in a safe way and like a monitored way. They'll monitor you. You'll get monitored by a professional, and it's just a lot more safe to do it that route. So I always recommend getting help. But if you're like me and you're stubborn and you do it on your own, just know that there is that risk and you need to be aware of what is going on in your body. I told myself that if I started feeling ill, I did have the shakes a little bit, but if the shakes got worse, I was gonna go get help. I told myself that if things start to show that they are going in a bad direction, I'm going into the hospital. Like I had that in the back of my mind, but I never felt bad enough to go and do that. So that was just my personal situation. I'm not saying I recommend that, but I'm just letting you know that's what I did. I did, I guess, quit quote unquote cold turkey. But that can be dangerous. You know a crazy thing that I did, and I really don't recommend this, but I'm just telling you what I did because it was just a really low point in my in my journey, I guess. It was during that year and a half where I was trying to, or I was thinking about getting sober, and I was so scared of what could happen if I just quit cold turkey that I tried weaning myself off. So if I had 10 beers a day, I did nine, and then I did eight, and then I did seven, and I was trying to just wean myself off. And oh my god, I I get emotional just thinking about it, but I remember there was one day where I was just crying and like downing a beer at the same time, calling it my medicine. Like, you have to drink this to not get sick or not like die from withdrawals. Um so I was like crying because it was just so hard to like want to get sober, but knew, but knowing you could be harming yourself by doing so. And so I was making sure that I had the beer as my medicine. It was just such a weird dynamic. Like you want to quit drinking, but you know that it's dangerous to do so. What a tough place to be in. And that's why, again, I say it's so good to get help because that was a really weird thing for me. And it didn't work. When I got down to that three, four beer range a day. I wanted it so badly, I just gave in and drank more because there wasn't that harsh line. It wasn't a I'm sober, like I don't drink anymore. I was still having some, and so it was so easy to give in and have more. That's why I personally don't believe that if you truly have a drinking problem, you cannot moderate your drinking. And let me tell you, I tried every moderation strategy under the sun. I tried only drinking on the weekends, I tried only drinking past 5 p.m. I tried only drinking hard alcohol because I loved beers, wines, and seltzers. And so I thought if I limited myself to only hard alcohol, then maybe I wouldn't want to drink as much. Like I tried everything. And I know those tricks may not make sense, but I was I was desperate. I was trying everything to not give up alcohol 100% because I wanted to hold on to drinking with all my might. Like I wanted just a little bit of it. I wanted so badly to be able to drink like everybody else does, but I just couldn't. And eventually I had to just cut it out of my life, and so that's exactly what I did. And that leads me to my next point, which is to immediately when you choose to quit drinking, identify as a non-drinker, like take on that persona. You are now sober, you are a different person, you are now somebody who does not drink, and you need to take on that identity. And let me tell you why this is so important. If you say that you're like trying to quit drinking, oh, I'm trying to drink less, I'm trying to be sober, that leaves the door cracked for alcohol to come back into your life. It's so easy to then convince yourself that you could have a drink or that you could drink on a Saturday and get right back to it. There's this negotiation that goes on of to drink or not to drink when when you're not a hundred percent sober. But when you are 100% sober, when you identify as a non-drinker, you are not somebody who drinks alcohol, then there that's a hard and fast line. There's no wishy-washy there. It is a no every single time without any negotiation. And I actually think that this is the thing that has kept me sober for these two years because there's this thing called relapses. I'm sure we're all familiar. And those are the hardest things for people to go through. They're a part of a lot of people's sober journey. And I cast no judgment on people that that has happened to because it's so hard. This is all so hard. You guys don't judge me, and I don't judge you. Just know that that is true. Uh, this is a no-judgment zone. And if you join our Facebook support group, you will see that there are all sorts of different ways to get sober. And relapses are part of some people's journeys. But for me, why I don't think a relapse ever happened is because alcohol was not an option. I never even let the thought of alcohol enter my brain. Like, I could be having a craving. I could say, oh my god, I feel really triggered. I really want to drink right now, this is making me want to drink. That can all be true, but it was never like, so I'm going to drink. It was always, okay, that's a thought. Interesting, but I'm never gonna act on it and actually take that drink. It was an absolute no every single time, and that almost makes it easier to figure out what to do next. Because the option to drink is not there. That's not one of the options. Let's say you're at a party and you're really tempted to drink, everybody else is drinking, someone's offered you a drink, you're feeling peer pressured. Some people would put take the drink as one of the few options. It's like, okay, you either take the drink or you stay sober and stay at the party, or you go home to stay sober. Like, there's a few options going through your mind, and drinking is one of those options for some people. For me, I did not allow that as an option. It's like, okay, I'm feeling peer pressured. I'm feeling like I kind of want to drink right now. It would make this situation a lot easier. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna drink. That's an absolute no. My options instead are, you know, how can I tell this person that I'm not gonna drink? Let's work on that. Maybe I should leave the party. Maybe I should crack into a non-alcoholic drink and put it in a solo cup so that people stop offering me alcohol. Like I started exploring every option other than actually having the drink. That was not an option. That is never an option in my sober journey. And so I think that's why I've been able to stay sober is because I can have all the cravings that I want. It can, I mean, sobriety is hard. There's gonna be cravings, there's gonna be triggers. But picking up the drink and actually consuming it was never, ever an option for me. And so I think if we can take on that identity of a non-drinker and just become that person and start adjusting to our lives as a non-drinker, that'll do us good in the end. Like that'll be healthier and better for us so that we can make sobriety as easy as possible. Okay, a couple more tips for you. One is to stock your fridge with non-alcoholic beverages. When you quit drinking, you don't want to like just have water. You want to open your fridge and have it look like a vending machine. You want to have tons of options in there: teas and adaptogen drinks and fiber drinks and sodas and sparkling waters and juices and you know you can do like a mocktail situation. You can do Italian sodas, you can do coffees. I mean, there's so much. Smoothies, whatever, ice creams, oh, we'll get into the sweet treats after this. But stock your fridge with non-alcoholic beverages and make it so that sobriety is still fun. Because we all loved alcohol, right? Like we want to get excited about our sober options as well. So go to the store, treat yourself, set your budget of whatever, and just go off in the drinks aisle and get so many non-alcoholic drinks. Because as somebody who drank beer after beer after beer, I still wanted to drink all day. Just not alcoholic drinks. Um, it was like that muscle memory. I wanted to be consuming liquids all day still, so I just got tons of non-alcoholic drinks and it was fun. It makes you appreciate all the fun drinks that are out there. So highly recommend that. And then as far as sugar cravings, you might experience some intense sugar cravings like I did. And my tip is to give in to them in the beginning. I don't know if that's the healthiest tip, but like I I tried to get lower calorie options. Like, if you want a lower calorie ice cream, there is NYX ice cream, there's protein pints, there's frozen one, and there's Yazzo. That's Y-A-S-S S-O. It's my current fave. Um, actually, frozen one is because it also has 40 grams of protein per pint. But anyway, I loved ice cream. I was craving sugar like crazy, and so I got some lower calorie ice creams to have. You can also get like smart sweets, which is a lower sugar candy. You can do diet sodas, which kind of crack uh scratches that itch, but lower calorie. Um, I just was super, super craving sugar right in the beginning, and I allowed myself to have that. I kind of said, like, my one rule is no alcohol. That was my only thing, is like stay sober, do not drink alcohol. And I was willing to do pretty much whatever else to stay sober. And that was eating a lot of sugar. So uh just know that that might happen. And the last tip I want to say, which kind of goes back to that like party example, is have a sentence in your back pocket at the ready for why you're not drinking. Because if you are somebody who drank a lot of alcohol like I did, people are, you know, naturally just gonna be curious why you're all of a sudden not drinking. A lot of people say to just lie and say you're on antibiotics or whatever. Um, I don't think that's super healthy because one of the reasons I got sober was to stop lying and hiding and living a double life. And so I didn't want to start my sobriety with a lie. So work on this, research this, ask AI or something, um, but work on a couple just one-liners for why you're not drinking. You can have a different one for different situations, like um, I'm focused on my health and wellness, and alcohol is not helping my goals. Um, you can say I was heading down a bad path with alcohol and I wanted to just nip it in the bud before it got too bad. You can say I did a dry January and I felt really good afterwards, and I just want to keep that going. Um, you can say I quit drinking for good. You can say I'm sober, you can say I'm I'm I'm quitting drinking. I don't know. Like there's a lot of different options. And I remember in the beginning of my sobriety, I would say different things to different people in different situations. So just find something that you're comfortable with, but have a couple of those just one-liners because people are gonna be asking. And it was really like discouraging, almost is the word, I guess, when people would constantly be asking me why I'm not drinking. Like I'm just trying so hard to focus on my sobriety and just do this on my own and just just stay focused, don't drink. Like I was really just individually focused on it, and then to have everybody else notice and ask, and why aren't you drinking? And are you gonna drink at this? And just always asking about my sobriety, I was like, I'm barely even comfortable with it myself. And now I have to explain myself and like basically come out to everyone. I mean, imagine like when you're gay, you don't have to explain that you're gay to every single person at a party. You know, like some things are just you can keep to yourself. It doesn't come up. But when you're drinking a soda at a party, it's like you're wearing a badge, just saying, I'm sober. It would be so hard if you have not even come out as gay and everyone was coming up to you being like, Are you gay? Are you gay? Are you gay? Okay, I don't know if this is a I don't know if this is like a similar experience, but it it did kind of feel like that, where I had to basically come out to all of these strangers. Like I had barely talked about this with my family, my siblings, my friends, my parents, and now I have to tell every stranger at a party that I'm sober and I had an alcohol problem and blah blah blah. I really did not enjoy that part of early sobriety. So my biggest tip for that is to just have a sentence ready that you are comfortable with that kind of like shuts down that conversation and redirects it because you don't want to be feeling like self-conscious or ostracized in the beginning of your sobriety. It's hard enough as is. So as much as we can avoid feeling that way, the better. So I hope that this gave you some ideas for how you can quit drinking successfully and help you through those early days. The early days are the hardest. Um, oh my god, I almost forgot one more thing. I kind of touched on it earlier with our sobriety community on Facebook, but I do think that whether or not you do AA or rehab, I think it's important to have some support system. And that's why AA is so cool. If you're against AA for whatever reason, there's also something called smart recovery, which is like if I was gonna do one, that's the one I would do. It's less about the 12 steps, it's less about um God and religion. Um so feel free to look into that. S-M-A-R-T, like I think it stands for something. But anyway, smart recovery. Um, look into that. But then outside of any programs, you can join online support groups, you can listen to podcasts, you can follow sober creators and like make friends with people in the comments, you can find an accountability buddy or like what AA calls a sponsor, somebody that you can text who's a little bit further along in their sobriety than you are. Um, you can join groups in person, online. There are lots of different ways to find that support. But I do think that whether you have one person that you talk to, or you have 50 people that you talk to, or you only do it on the internet, whatever route you take, I do think it's important to have some support on your journey. So that's just one more thing I would recommend in early sobriety. But I hope that with all of this, you can quit drinking and feel good about it, no matter what route you choose to take. There are so many ways to get sober, and whatever way you choose, we're all on the same team. We're all getting sober, we're all doing something good for our bodies, our brains, our life. There's so much life to be lived out there, and we all deserve to meet our sober selves and not literally drink our lives away. So I'm so proud of you for quitting. You got this. It get I know everybody says this, but it does get easier and easier and easier the longer you are sober. So stick with it to reap all the benefits. And I'm thinking of you. You got this. Remember, you can always DM me or leave a comment here on whatever platform you're listening to. Thank you so much for listening and tuning into today's episode. I will see you next week. Bye.