Quitting cold turkey means suddenly stopping all alcohol consumption. This method can lead to withdrawal symptoms, especially if you’ve been a heavy drinker. Making a clean break, however, provides a sense of finality and commitment.

• The support of medical professionals and psychologists can help you in this process.
• Alcohol works by increasing the potency of a neutral chemical in the brain called GABA, or gamma-Aminobutyric acid.
• This is why many people dependent on alcohol will choose to taper down their usage rather than stop drinking altogether.
• For people who moderately consume alcohol, tapering off may be a good option.
• They can help you decide if tapering is the safest option for you.
• If you and your doctor decide that a taper is proper for you, it is crucial to remember there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy.
• Typically, quitting cold turkey from a 12-beer-a-day habit is going to be more stressful than tapering off slowly.

Insurance May Cover The Cost of Alcohol Detox

The support of an alcohol detox program may help you wean off alcohol more quickly and with fewer unpleasant side effects. Some detox programs also offer therapy to prepare you for addiction treatment. Medically assisted detoxification (detox) is an inpatient program that keeps you stabilized during alcohol withdrawals. Staffed by medical professionals, these programs offer 24-hour monitoring so you always have support if any complications arise. Slowly decreasing the amount you drink over time can spare your body from withdrawal symptoms. This is because drinking heavily over a long period can cause your body to become physically dependent on alcohol.

• The phrase cold turkey refers to abruptly stopping drug or alcohol use.
• Typically, when a person thinks about the word tapering they think of tapering off medications like opioids.
• If you are tapering yourself off alcohol for the first time, it can be helpful to know what symptoms to expect during the process.
• If you or someone you know needs help detoxing from alcohol, The Recovery Village Ridgefield Drug and Alcohol Rehab is here for you.
• If you go through alcohol withdrawal multiple times, a kindling effect can occur.

Symptoms timeline

Tapering off alcohol only deals with the immediate effect of physical dependence by managing the risk of withdrawal symptoms. Safely stopping drinking is an important task, but it is only the first step of a much longer journey of change to deal with psychological dependence. Unless you tackle the reasons your drinking got out of hand, it’ll be harder to stay stopped in the long term. Licensed medical professionals review material we publish on our site. The material is not a substitute for qualified medical diagnoses, treatment, or advice. It should not be used to replace the suggestions of your personal physician or other health care professionals.

Saved Costs and Time

If you have a friend or family member who knows that you’re trying to taper off alcohol, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. They can take you to the hospital or help you get medical support. If you drink alcohol and are thinking about quitting, it is important to make sure you do so safely.

What Are the Benefits of Quitting Alcohol?

Being exposed to either form of a trigger can result in unwanted relapse. Dependence is often accompanied by tolerance, which is when it takes more and more alcohol for you to achieve the same effects that you experienced when you first started. Another sign that you might need to taper is morning alcohol cravings. For one thing, it creates tangible goals for the person tapering to reach, helping to build their confidence in themselves and the belief that they can eventually stop drinking completely. The typical warning signs that someone is going to experience Delirium tremens include tremors, an extremely elevated heart rate, and a drastic increase in body temperature.

Nutritional support

If you’ve been drinking for a long time, tapering off can cause withdrawal symptoms. Getting professional help can mitigate harmful withdrawal symptoms and ensure success. However, if you don’t taper properly, you may experience withdrawal symptoms, especially if you have severe alcoholism. Going “cold turkey” means abruptly stopping drinking entirely, leading to uncomfortable withdrawal effects.

People who try tapering off alcohol won’t have the guided support of medical professionals that they would at inpatient treatment. In contrast, in-patient care can be more beneficial and less expensive in the long-term. The main difference between tapering and quitting alcohol cold turkey is how fast you quit. Cold turkey is a common slang term for quitting alcohol (or any substance) all at once.

Calculating exactly how much you drink

All of these chemical activities caused by alcohol can make drinking feel good, which can train your brain to seek out alcohol compulsively, which leads to addiction. Tapering off alcohol is a method of reducing your alcohol intake gradually. This process can help your body break its dependency on how to taper off alcohol alcohol with minimal side effects. Your insurance plan may cover some or all of the cost of treatment for drug or alcohol addiction. Our online health insurance verification system will estimate your in-network and out-of-network deductibles, coinsurance percentages and out-of-pocket maximums.

Unsupervised Medical Care

Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of mortality in the United States, with approximately 95,000 people dying from alcohol-related causes each year. By gradually tapering off alcohol, you can lower your risk for alcohol-related accidents or death. If you’re struggling to wean off alcohol, it might be best to seek addiction treatment. Various treatment programs are available to help you recover from addiction. Risky withdrawal symptoms are not limited to the above.3 Learn more about alcohol withdrawal here and, once again, speak to a doctor first. Quitting binge drinking may require different strategies than either tapering or cold turkey.

On top of this, quitting immediately — or “cold turkey” as many users and professionals call it — can be dangerous. Withdrawal symptoms are generally uncomfortable to deal with, but they can be fatal. To avoid or reduce the impact of the withdrawal symptoms, people struggling with alcohol may choose to progressively taper off alcohol rather than quit abruptly. If alcohol withdrawal is so dangerous, is tapering off alcohol necessary for everyone who drinks? If you’ve been drinking consistently for a long time, it’s a good idea to consider the safest way to stop when it’s time to cut back. However, weaning off alcohol isn’t always necessary for people who want to cut back or stop drinking.