If you have made the difficult decision to stop drinking, you have already taken the all-important first step. Nothing happens without conscious intent, especially when it comes to altering behavior involving alcohol. Whether you were a moderate drinker who has stepped over the line and become a problem drinker or someone who has been abusing alcohol for quite some time, changing your ingrained patterns of drinking behavior will take a systematic and determined effort and time. In the first place, you can take a lifestyle assessment session followed by the tips mentioned below.

Enlist an Ally

First of all, you can’t do this on your own. It is just too easy to fool yourself, tell yourself a few lies, and fall back into your old habits. You need an ally, someone who can help by reminding you of your goals and encouraging you to stick with the program. The person you pick is supposed to be the one you can easily trust. After all, you will be getting some flak from your ally if you veer from your path, so you’ll want that constructive criticism to come from a person whose opinion you value. If you are married or have a partner who shares your desire to quit drinking, this is an obvious choice. If, however, your spouse or partner is also a drinker who’s had difficulty quitting drinking, you might want to choose someone else with a little more fortitude – and not as much skin in the game.

This is not to say that two spouses or partners can’t make a go of it together in a mutual goal to steer clear of alcohol. It is just recognition of the fact that it makes it tougher. Sometimes, however, you two are all you have got. In that case, make the best of it and move forward with your plans. Just be sure you both know that you have been enablers of each other’s drinking in the past, and that’s got to stop – right now.

Make a List

When you are trying to change ingrained patterns of behavior, it is important to figure out the people, places, and things that prompt you to drink. This includes friends that you hang out with at the bar or after a game or co-workers with whom you de-stress by knocking back more than a few toddies. It also includes the sports bar, tailgate parties, a friend’s house for weekend barbecues where everybody gets sloshed. For some, just the sight of a billboard advertising Ketel One vodka or some other spirits is enough to get them turning off to the nearest liquor store. Better get your supply, right? Don’t want to run out of your favorite drug of choice.

These people, places, things – and sights, sounds, smells, and tastes – are the cues the signal to your brain that it’s time to drink, that you want to drink, that you must drink. It is the response to stimuli that has always resulted in you actually drinking. These are things you will need to change, and it is definitely not going to be easy.