Here’s how to wean off alcohol—including useful strategies, how to create a tapering schedule, and how to stay safe throughout the process. Weaning off alcohol can benefit people who drink moderately or have support systems. If you have a severe alcohol addiction, it might be best to seek professional addiction treatment.
Alcohol Tapering Methods
A community of understanding and empathetic people can help you recover. These support groups require no commitment from attendees, and you can attend meetings online. Light exercise and a proper diet can help you adjust to the detox. Exercise can reduce stress, improve mood, and bolster your immune system.
Sample Alcohol Tapering Schedules
If alcohol withdrawal is so dangerous, is tapering off alcohol necessary for everyone who drinks? If you’ve been drinking consistently for a long time, it’s a good idea to consider the safest way to stop when it’s time to cut back. However, weaning off alcohol isn’t always necessary for people who want to cut back or stop drinking. The most significant factor is whether or not you’ve become chemically dependent.
Cons of Tapering off Alcohol
You can choose to taper your substance use or go “cold turkey.” In either case, you won’t have outside support or treatment. While cirrhosis scars from excessive drinking are irreversible, quitting alcohol and leading a healthier lifestyle can help your liver heal from alcohol-related liver disease. However, even the best-designed tapers can put you at risk for alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
Alcohol Detox at Home
Alcohol withdrawal can be deadly, especially for people with alcohol use disorder. If you or your loved one are suffering from alcoholism, seek out professional help from a detox facility or rehab to wean off alcohol. The process of tapering yourself off alcohol begins with planning. From here, you can plan a schedule for gradually reducing how much you drink per day. Ideally, this schedule will be determined with the assistance of a doctor or addiction treatment professional. If you don’t experience intense withdrawal symptoms, an at-home detox may be a good option.
- It pulls you out of a reactive state of mind and into a proactive state, which can be a powerful tool in helping treat alcohol withdrawal.
- Further, mental health disorders like anxiety and depression are extremely common in those who struggle with drinking, and these disorders can make it even harder to stay sober.
- It also ensures your body has proper nutrition to maintain stamina during the stress it will go through during detox.
- Information provided on Forbes Health is for educational purposes only.
- This is what causes many of the positive and negative effects of drinking, and it causes the effects of prescription depressants.
We offer 16 detox beds and around-the-clock medical care provided by a multidisciplinary team of addiction experts. Tapering alcohol is beneficial because you can avoid alcohol withdrawal symptoms. This is because when you drink heavily for months or how to taper off alcohol at home years, your body can start to depend on alcohol to function normally. When you are physically dependent on a substance like alcohol, your body adapts accordingly. Vitamins B1 (thiamine), B9 (folate), B12 and C are often recommended to aid recovery.
- While it is possible for some to wean off alcohol at home, it is highly inadvisable to do so without first consulting with medical and addiction treatment professionals.
- Talk to a medical professional to find the best detox option for you.
- It can be tempting to just “rip off the Band-Aid” when getting sober, but tapering off alcohol is often much safer—and much less stressful.
- When an individual has developed a substance use disorder or dependence on alcohol, stopping its use outright can seem virtually impossible.
- You should plan to taper for between three and seven days depending on how much you’re used to drinking.
- Overstimulation in your nervous system can affect important unconscious functions like your heart rate, blood pressure, and electrical impulses.
- Someone who has gone through alcohol withdrawal several times is more likely to experience severe withdrawal symptoms than someone going through it for the first time.
They can provide medications and additional support to make quitting alcohol safer, and more comfortable. This is why it’s always best to find some form of long-term https://ecosoberhouse.com/ support in sobriety. Support groups, from Alcoholics Anonymous to SMART Recovery, are one free way to find a community of people on the same journey.
What does drinking alcohol do to your body?
- However, even the best-designed tapers can put you at risk for alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
- For many other drugs, tapering is actually a standard treatment during medical detox.
- Seeking help as early as possible during the withdrawal process is the best way to stay safe as you cleanse your body of alcohol.
- Central nervous system depressants are a class of drugs that includes several prescription medications like benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and sedative-hypnotics.
- The craving for alcohol may be a persistent challenge during and after withdrawal.
Quitting drinking, “cold turkey,” means you suddenly stop consuming alcohol. Tapering off (or tapering down) alcohol means you gradually reduce the amount of alcohol that you consume over time. The length of the tapering process can vary based on the needs of the person. People with a greater dependency on alcohol may need to stretch out the process to gradually reduce their alcohol intake. Medical detox programs for alcohol dependency commonly offer medications to ease the discomfort or pain of withdrawal.
Alcohol Withdrawal: How to Get Through It
Alcohol detox centers have professionals trained to recognize and treat complications caused by alcohol withdrawal. Because alcohol withdrawal symptoms can sometimes be unpredictable and may escalate quickly, having an on-site medical team that can quickly intervene is the safest way to quit heavy drinking. It can be tempting to just “rip off the Band-Aid” when getting sober, but tapering off alcohol is often much safer—and much less stressful. Rather than quitting drinking abruptly (or “cold turkey”), many professionals recommend gradually reducing your drinking (or tapering) over time. This can give your body the chance to adjust, helping you avoid the worst of withdrawal symptoms.
Is it Safe to Detox from Alcohol at Home?
It’s difficult to predict who will and who won’t experience alcohol withdrawal — and how severe it will be. Go to the nearest emergency room or call 911 (or your local emergency service number) if you or a loved one has any concerning symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Dependence is often accompanied by tolerance, which is when it takes more and more alcohol for you to achieve the same effects that you experienced when you first started. Another sign that you might need to taper is morning alcohol cravings. For instance, many people binge drink on the weekend without drinking during the week. They may have a mild-to-moderate substance use problem without being chemically dependent.
