When you begin trying to control your alcohol intake, you might take to the internet to figure out what other people are doing in a similar situaton. However, what word for someone else, might not always be successful for you. Furthermore, there are a lot of unsuccessful tactics that many people try and fail with over and over again. For this reason, we’ve made a list of a few different ways that you can be unsuccessful with monitoring your alcohol intake. Maybe you don’t feel it necessary to stop altogether, but slowing down is definitely a priority. So, we’re here to help.
Alcohol Intake: Ineffective Limiting Methods
Keeping alcohol out of the house
While this is a nice way to force yourself out of drinking too much, it’s not going to make you choose consciously. Instead you’re forcing yourself to let go of a behavior, which can make you want it even more. Therefore, leading to your drinking even more when you allow yourself to do so.
Only drink a certain type of low alcohol drinking
While this is lowering the ABV of your intake, it’s not limiting your intake. While a method like this might produce better result in letting you hold it together over multiple drinks, it is (once again), not solving your problem. It’s only moving your problem into a new dimension where you drink more and feel less.
Keep a diary of intake
While writing down every beverage certainly makes you visualize the problem, it’s something that’s pretty easy to lose track of or disregard completely. Setting goals is a great thing to do for any target you’re trying to reach. But, this one is usually one that falls off quite quickly, as it requires a bit of work.
Only drink on the weekends
This is the one that most people will attempt at some point in time— often on a rough Sunday morning following a wild Saturday night. However, methods such as this end up promoting binge drinking rather than encouraging you to slow your intake. Often, instead of drinking less altogether, you’ll just drink heavily Friday-Sunday.
There are plenty of methods that people will rave over. But, at the end of the day, it takes commitment on your part to slow it— and that’s it. When it comes down to it, if you want to make a change when it comes to your alcohol intake— keeping alcohol in the house is only a test of wills. You have to make the change on your own, and consciously. While there are plenty of limiting methods, the best one is to take matters into your own hands.