For the true alcoholic, the idea that they can just stop drinking is no light matter. Given that there are a number of different methods to stop, which are most effective in most cases?
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 idea here is to recognize when your “addictive voice” is speaking and recognize it as being “your addiction” instead of the real you. Then you are able to tell this addictive voice that you do not want to drink when it starts to get active with you.
There are other therapies out there that are similar to this, each with the concept that we can change up our thinking in order to change our behavior. 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. But there are problems and limitations with AA as a solution as well. For starters–while it is very hard to prove statistics regarding this fellowship–the rate of sobriety in 12 step programs likely runs around the rate of 5 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.
It is not that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a good solution for recovery, the problem is that it is just not a complete solution for most people. 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.
