Be Efficient In Your Time Management

For the true alcoholic, the idea that they can just stop drinking is no light matter. Since there are several different strategies that can be used to quit drinking with, which ones give good results in most situations?

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. Of course this has been attempted by numerous drunks over the years and time and time again we prove to ourselves that we cannot quit successfully without serious help. Ever.

2) AVRT - this stands for “Addictive Voice Recognition Technique,” so this is essentially an example of a cognitive therapy for quitting drinking. The main idea in this technique is to be aware when the addictive side of your brain starts acting up and stay vigilant against it. Then you can tell the addictive voice “no” when it asks for a drink.

There are other cognitive devices out there as well, each with the idea that we can change the way we react to situations through changing our thinking. Some of us in sobriety can likely do well by using cognitive tools such as this, but for most alcoholics we will probably need to expand our solution set beyond these therapies by themselves and seek more help.

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 one thing–while it is difficult to find accurate data regarding this–the success rate in AA is probably somewhere in the range of 3 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.

AA is not ineffective for quitting drinking, it is merely an incomplete solution. The real solution for recovery is a holistic approach that addresses all aspects of the recovering individual. This is what we might call the creative theory of recovery in action. Finding your way to this solution requires a holistic approach if you want to stop drinking.