Strategies for Reducing the Role of Alcohol in Your Life, or for Preventing Alcohol from Playing a Role in Your Life

If you would like to either reduce the role of drinking alcohol in your own life, or prevent alcohol from having a role in your life, you might try any of these strategies:

(1) Make a point of spending less of your leisuretime at establishments (nightclubs, bars, restaurants, live-theater playhouses, etc.) that sell alcohol. This will reduce the amount of temptation to imbibe that you might be subjected to during your lesiuretime.

(2) When you host a social party, let your guests know in advance that the beverages offered or permitted at that party will be limited to fruit juices, fruit juice blends, tea, water, and other alcohol-free beverages. "NO BYOBs will be accepted at my party," your party invitations could clearly state.

(3) Spend less time with friends of yours who are heavy drinkers. If you spend lots of time with those heavy-drinkers, they might influence your own values and coax you into drinking alcohol yourself.

(4) Stop getting together with anyone who repeatedly pressures you to consume alcohol.

(5) If you are a member of a civic group, do not attend any civic event hosted by that group at which alcohol will be either offered or consumed.

(6) Spend more of your leisuretime with civic groups and persons who or that do not sponsor or offer any consumption of drinking alcohol.

(7) If you currently drink alcohol every day of the week, try designating at least one day of each week as your alcohol-free (no-alcohol) day on a weekly and year-round basis. You may be surprised to note that that one day of each week will be a day in which you feel calmer and happier and more serene, without your experiencing any adverse side-effects such as vomiting, fits of rage, a tendency toward violence, inability to drive a motor vehicle with alertness and full concentration, a headache, a hangover, etc.

(7a) Never drive a motor vehicle within 10 hours after you have consumed more than one glass of alcohol. If you adhere to that policy, this will remind you on each such occasion that alcohol severely limits you and endangers your own personal safety.

(8) Make a point of having a one-to-one-meeting at a teahouse or coffeehouse with someone you know who is a confessed alcoholic, and who is willing to discuss with you the many harmful and tragic consequences he suffered from his drinking habit.

(9) Try studying the vitamin and mineral content of each of the most healthful non-alcoholic beverages of which you are aware. Then compare that with the vitamin and mineral content derived and actually absorbed into your bloodstream and body from hypothetical consumption of various alcoholic beverages.

(10)If you have a personal friend who habitually asks you to meet him for a drink at a tavern or bar or nightclub, try asking him if he would be willing to meet you instead at a coffeehouse or teahouse for a friendly conversation.

(11) Do some research about the statistical incidence of injurious motor-vehicle accidents suffered by persons who are heavy drinkers. That sobering information will remind you that if you love yourself and want to have a full and healthy and creatively vital life, and if you care about the personal safety of all passengers in your motor vehicle as well as other motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, also on or near the roadway when you drive, you should minimize your own total consumption of alcohol (if you do in fact choose to consume any alcohol).

(12) When you plan out-of-town trips, make a point of selecting wholesome and healthful destinations where there are numerous alcohol-free cultural and tourist attractions. If you visit Salt Lake City, Utah, as a tourist, you are far less likely to be subjected to any pressure to purchase alcohol than if you visit Las Vegas, Nevada, as a tourist.