When you’re thinking about quitting or cutting back on drinking, it can feel like you’re the first person to have this idea.

Your friends may or may not be supportive; your partner may or may not be in the same boat; and all around you are signs that drinking is the norm, and that you are the odd man or woman out for not being on the drunk train.

Apart from joining online forums on Reddit (we recommend r/stopdrinking or r/cutdowndrinking), or joining a Group in Drinker’s Helper (Groups are personalized for you, placing you with others with similar past drinking habits), it can help to read books written by people who’ve gotten over drinking problems.

Authors share advice, of course, but they also share their experiences. That helps you understand that the challenges you face when cutting back or stopping drinking are normal - maybe withdrawal, but also other symptoms like mood swings.

Here are three that we really liked:

This Naked Mind: This is one of the canonical books to read when you want to quit drinking. Through the story of its author, it brings to life the idea of changing the way you UNCONSCIOUSLY think about alcohol. Once you stop arguing against yourself, it’s a lot easier to quit.
The Sober Diaries: One of the funnier reads, this book shares the experience of a woman quitting drinking after a realization that she was losing her grip on other things that mattered. It’s one of the best in terms of really describing the experience of cutting back - the physical and emotional ups and downs are so easy to relate to.
Sober for Good: One of the most digestible of the books, this one offers tips from an extensive survey of people who have quit drinking or significantly moderated it. It helps to give a picture that there are many ways to quit or cut back on drinking, including Alcoholics Anonymous, therapies of various kinds like cognitive behavioral therapy, quitting cold turkey without help, and many combinations of different approaches.

We hope you enjoy the suggestions, and as always, if you haven’t already, please do give Drinker’s Helper a try here! We help people quit or cut back on drinking with therapeutic exercises, drink tracking and insights, and a personalized support group delivered via our app.

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At Drinker’s Helper, we believe that moderation (moderate drinking at healthy levels) is a perfectly acceptable option as a goal, and increasing numbers of people agree. We did it ourselves for a while without problems, before we decided to stop drinking. But we wanted to share a few arguments for quitting drinking entirely. It’s up to you - just some input to consider!

Here are the reasons we recommend you quit drinking:

When you actually quit, you get a better sense of how (psychologically) addicted you are. When alcohol is forbidden, you see how much you crave it - much more so than if you can relieve that craving every few days.
It’s easier to make one big decision to quit than many daily decisions to drink or not to drink. When you pass an airport bar, or go on a late night snack run, you just know that booze is off limits, instead of weighing the pros and cons of drinking that one time. As a bonus, others start to know that you just don’t drink, so they don’t tempt you with offers.
When you stop drinking, you think about drinking much less often. When you simply moderate your drinking, you end up thinking about your next drink almost constantly (to monitor it, or to plan out your week so you stay on track). You end up anticipating your weekend drinks more than you’d like because you think about them all week when you’re denying yourself.
There’s no fudging. When you are moderating, you need to monitor your drinking carefully to make sure you’re staying within the recommended limits. It’s easy to forget a drink, or count an enormous double cocktail as just one ‘drink.’ With no drinks at all, it’s pretty clear to tell whether you’ve hit your goals or not.

These are just a few of the reasons we recommend quitting drinking, even though we strongly support moderation as an option.

Download Drinker’s Helper today if you decide to quit or cut back on drinking!

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