If this inspires you to curb your drinking, there\u2019s a variety of directions to take.<\/p>\n
First, if you suspect you have alcohol use disorder, talk to your doctor<\/a> or a mental health professional who is trained in substance use. Psychology Today<\/a> maintains a database of mental health professionals nationwide.<\/p>\n If you are looking to cut back or cut out drinking, the experts who spoke to HuffPost gave a few tips.<\/p>\n If you normally have three drinks on a Saturday, have two, Martinez said. Or, if you drink every night of the week, reduce the number of nights you do drink, Martinez suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cThey might want to have more days where they just don\u2019t drink at all … and having no alcohol days is a good thing,\u201d Martinez added.<\/p>\n Your drink\u2019s percentage or Alcohol By Volume (ABV) number is also an important factor. \u201cIt\u2019s not just how much you drink, it\u2019s … how much alcohol is in it,\u201d said Martinez.<\/p>\n Many craft breweries make high-percentage IPAs, which are often 8% or even 9% alcohol, much more than what\u2019s considered to be a standard drink, which is a 12-ounce 5% beer.<\/p>\n If you drink one high ABV beer, you\u2019re having the equivalent of one and a half standard drinks. If you have two high ABV beers, it\u2019s the same as having three standard drinks, Martinez said.\u00a0\u201cHaving lower ABV beverages can also be a way to cut down. You just want to reduce the amount of pure alcohol that you\u2019re getting.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a wide variety of non-alcoholic beers, wines, and mocktails<\/a> available at many stores, restaurants, and bars. Instead of drinking booze, you can opt for a non-alcoholic option.<\/p>\n Scheller also recommended listening to podcasts like\u00a0Sober Powered<\/a> and Hello Someday<\/a> and reading books like \u201cThe Unexpected Joy of Being Sober<\/a>\u201d for support and motivation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If this inspires you to curb your drinking, there\u2019s a variety of directions to take. First, if you…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":232704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[210,45533,37656,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-232703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-syndicated-huffpost","10":"tag-timely","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115217164148177168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}