Finding Your Off Switch: Controlling Your Drinking

Can't stop at one or two drinks? Strategies to develop a reliable off switch and regain control over your drinking.

Can You Acquire a Reliable Off Switch?

One of the questions to be answered in an attempt at moderation is can an alcoholic learn to drink in moderation—can you acquire a reliable off switch if you’ve not had one up to that point? Anybody who’s seeking help for an alcohol problem, whether it’s a mild, moderate, or severe problem, is by definition going to be somebody who does not have a reliable off switch. And that’s what brings them to treatment.

The question “is moderate drinking a realistic option for you?” depends on several factors, including the severity of your alcohol problem and your ability to develop better control strategies. For many people, moderate drinking programs can help them learn these skills under professional guidance.

Understanding the nature of addiction and whether you’re experiencing abuse versus dependence is crucial in determining your treatment options and whether moderation is a viable goal. The NIAAA provides detailed criteria for assessing the severity of alcohol problems.

The Importance of Professional Treatment

This is the importance of being involved—if you are involved in some kind of treatment—of seeing an addiction psychologist or psychiatrist, as the American Psychological Association emphasizes, somebody professionally trained in psychotherapy and psychological psychiatric diagnosis so that you can start to identify and address the issues connected to the drinking or other substance use. Because when it becomes a problem, it essentially becomes a self-medication problem.

Getting started with professional treatment provides the structure and expertise needed to understand why you can’t stop once you start drinking. Individual therapy combined with group therapy offers comprehensive support for developing better control strategies.

Understanding Self-Medication

It’s using substances as tools to adjust your emotional state and change your mood. Learning how to cope with whatever it is that’s coming up in your life without the benefits of chemical mood alteration is a learning process, but it has to be guided by somebody who understands the factors—the emotional and the psychological factors that fuel these kinds of problems and that maintain them and keep them going.

Many people engage in self-medicating behaviors without realizing it. You might drink to relieve stress after work, to ease social anxiety, to cope with depression, or to numb emotional pain. Understanding these patterns is essential to developing healthier coping mechanisms.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, addressing the underlying reasons for excessive alcohol use is critical to successful long-term outcomes.

How to Acquire a Reliable Off Switch

Developing control over your drinking requires a systematic approach under professional guidance:

Step One: Give Your Brain a Rest

And how do you acquire a reliable off switch? I would say that step number one is that you have to give your brain a rest from the alcohol. It requires being abstinent at least for a brief period of time so that you can let some of the biological factors that are involved here, some of the impact of the alcohol on the brain subside and recover from that.

This initial period of abstinence is crucial for several reasons:

Total abstinence, even temporarily, is often a necessary first step. Some people find that after this break, they prefer continued abstinence. Others use this period — sometimes called sobriety sampling — to prepare for controlled drinking attempts.

Step Two: Learning Control Under Guidance

And then see whether under professional guidance you can acquire the ability to limit your alcohol and exert an off switch reliably. Not just on a single occasion, not just on particular occasions, but develop the ability to reliably cut it short before you become too intoxicated.

This is where moderated drinking strategies — such as the Drink Smartly program — come into play. Under professional supervision, you can learn:

However, it’s important to understand that testing control during recovery can be risky and should only be attempted under professional guidance. Not everyone can successfully moderate, and that’s okay—abstinence remains a valid and often more sustainable option for many people.

Is Moderation Right for You?

Not everyone can successfully moderate their drinking. Moderation is generally most successful for those who:

• Have mild to moderate alcohol problems (not severe dependence)
• Haven’t experienced serious consequences from drinking
• Are committed to the work required
• Have stable life circumstances
• Are willing to accept abstinence if moderation proves unsuccessful

If moderation isn’t working after a genuine effort with professional support, that’s valuable information. It often means abstinence is the better path—not a failure, but a discovery about what your brain and body need.