Harm Reduction and Moderation Management vs Abstinence

Moderate drinking can be achieved through keeping track of how much you drink, pacing yourself when you drink, avoiding drinking with heavy drinkers, and pinpointing your heavy drinking triggers. By eliminating the sometimes daunting alcohol abstinence vs moderation notion of zero-alcohol use, many find a moderation-based approach more attainable in their daily lives. “Harm reduction” strategies, or moderation techniques, set more flexible goals in line with patient motivation.

And that’s why this focus on restraint, that’s why so many people give into their desire because all they know how to do is to grit their teeth and say no, or give in and say yes. Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit from the inside out.

Moderation Management™ is a lay-led non-profit dedicated to reducing the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol.

The decision of what you fill your glass with or what you order to drink is totally separate from whether or not you desire alcohol. So you can say no to a drink and you can have a ton of desire, or you can say no to a drink and you can have zero desire. I didn’t realize that there was this thing called the think-feel-act cycle that would explain why I had all the desire I had. It wasn’t because of how I was born or this belief that I had for a long time, “Oh, I must have an addictive personality.” It was simply because of the thoughts I was thinking.

MM also offers an online chat room and a public hub curated blogging site for its members. MM began to add more in-person meetings and last year, the organization launched a campaign around Dryuary, encouraging people to take the month of January off from drinking. It was so successful, they now plan to do it every year. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.

When To Consider Treatment

Moderate drinking can still put you at risk for health effects like certain cancers and cardiovascular disease. Additionally, many people who have gone through non-abstinence programs seek out complete abstinence later in life. The population of people who use MM is pretty well educated and is made up for the most part of problem drinkers rather than those meeting full-blown alcohol dependence criteria. The idea is to teach problem drinkers more responsible drinking habits so that they don’t devolve their habits into all-out alcoholism. Some people find it’s still too overwhelming to be around alcohol, and it’s too hard to change their habits. If one drink still leads to several more, attempting moderation isn’t the safest choice.

While she attempted to achieve lasting sobriety in AA, she killed a man and his son in a drunk driving accident. She spent some time in prison and never fully recovered from alcoholism. The person who drinks 3 to 4 drinks per night might commit to the principle of abstaining from alcohol during the week. Now, if he drinks three to four drinks on Friday and Saturday, he has decreased his alcohol use by 70% and is within the CDC’s recommended limits for men. The female who binges one night each week might commit to drinking no more than 3 drinks on any occasion. Now she has eliminated binge drinking and the acute and chronic effects that often accompany it. Heavy drinkers that are able to moderate their drinking may be more like people with early-stage heart disease.

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Through Moderation Management’s Steps of Change, individuals are able to assess how drinking impacts their lives and learn how to better manage drinking-related problems. Through the Steps of Change, a person is asked to initially chart their drinking, write down all the issues that alcohol has created in their life, and keep a drinking diary of how much and how often they drink. Through this diary, a person can then look at how alcohol is involved in their daily life and identify potential problems. This is a recovery program and national support group network. It’s for people who have made the decision to reduce their drinking and make other positive lifestyle changes. If I am committed to abstinence, I do a hundred things to prevent myself drinking alcohol.

• But moderation disconnects you from all of that because it focuses on a number instead of tuning into your body and how it feels.
• Harm reduction and moderation management approaches allow for a wider range of success than does abstinence based treatment.
• By limiting the amount through moderation management and frequency of drinks they consume, they can manage their addiction.
• 24.5 percent of people who needed treatment but didn’t get it between 2010 and 2013 reported they weren’t ready to quit using.
• The effectiveness of alcohol moderation programs are still being studied.
• Now she has eliminated binge drinking and the acute and chronic effects that often accompany it.

Abstinence from drinking is typically considered the traditional approach to treatment and is sometimes required in programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. Life-long abstinence from alcohol is often the end goal for many people who have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, but getting to this point can be challenging. Some people may never get the care they need to start this journey and as a result, will never achieve abstinence. For those with more severe alcohol use disorders, trying to quit drinking cold turkey can also be dangerous to their health and in some cases, even deadly. To avoid these problems, we offer a medical alcohol detox and rehab in Ohio that safely weans someone’s body off of alcohol. While the result is abstinence from alcohol, getting here still involves controlled alcohol intake.

Abuse Recovery: Moderation vs Abstinence

Characterizing heart disease in stages allows physicians to match treatment with severity. It is not difficult to imagine how alcoholism https://ecosoberhouse.com/ might be characterized in a similar way and how treatments could be calibrated to the appropriate stage of the illness.