Kris47

Mountainman Bob, took me about a month to get to this. Been at a standstill but haven't gone back up. I know I most likely couldn't stand a cold turkey.

Will do Dee. TY kind one.

Bemyslef, kinda know your story. I've lived it too long. Sending prayers your way tonight. But you're doing this at home?

Beach living, Day one! go with it!

Liberated, did you do cold turkey at home?

Time to go lie down. My back and knees are whining. I do feel the extra pain from cycling down. that's ok tho.

Night ALL.

Threshold

Kris, awesome on cutting down, and awesome that you are quitting.

Many of us find tapering doesn't work because after we have one, we lose all incentive to stop at all. But I do know of folks here who used tapering successfully, we are all wired a bit differently!

No matter the method you use to quit, or the method of recovery you use afterwards, SR is a terrific resource. Glad to have you on board. Please continue to share your experience here, it's how we all learn.

No matter what, hope you keep in touch with your dr to make sure all goes as smoothly as possible.

autan

I think to echo what others have said, you need to speak to a qualified medical Practitioner and work out a plan that suited to you.

Rehab, would be the safest option and offer the highest chances of success in abstinence based recovery.

Kris47

Will do Threshold.

I know that tapering will not work for me for long either. I'm just hoping
I can make it to my doctor appt. I am motivated now though with hopes of new knees and knowing the surgery will have me quitting anyway. A week in the hospital after surgery ensures no drinking. I need to be ready.

Gotta get this right ................

Hope to see you all in the morning. Have a good night with your wits about you.

Kris47

Hello Everyone,

Today I'm down to two beers. I haven't really been exact in my deliberation of the amount but have been having 4-5 for awhile after 10 daily at night. It would be about a month. Tonight is two beers. How long should I try this?

Last night I had a bit of some nightmare but nothing really nightmarish. think it may be a little bit of withdrawal?

I have an apt on January 14th with the doctor and I asked to be on the cancellation list for sooner.

Hope you all are doing okay today.

I know it is cold most everywhere.

Kris47

Dee74

Hi Kris

Our medical rules don't allow us to suggest a tapering schedule, but the end result should be down to zero.

If you have a week til your scheduled Drs visit that gives you a maximum time frame to work with

D

FreeOwl

"tapering" sounds like "Controlled drinking" to me....

just sayin.

Regardless, I wish you luck if sobriety is what you're after.

soberhawk

Great to see you are still going strong Kris.

h200h200

test

KAD

It can be done, but I blew it big time and was miserable during the whole attempt. I ended up going to the doctor and just got some meds to help me through withdrawal.

h200h200

But I wouldnt recommend it, your basically dancing with the devil, lol. Best way to quit is rehab followed by just going cold turkey. But for me rehab wasnt a option been a few times over 20 years of drinking and i felt like cold turkey was too dangerous so after many failed attempts at tapering off, i finally have had some success this time, 6 weeks sober. What I did differently this time is I treated alcohol strictly as medicine. My goal was to safely get sober as fast as possible. I only allowed myself one unit of alcohol (beer) if I was having physical withdrawal symptoms (shaking, muscle spasms, skin crawing) then if symptoms persisted i wait an hour and have one more unit. I think if you really want to quit by tapering this is the only way to do it. Doing it like most ppl never works because you get down to a few drinks a day and you think everythings fine, you got control of this, your feeling temporarily better, and within a week your right back where you started, at least that was my experience in my first few attempts. Good Luck and wish me luck, for some reason I feel like Ive really quit this time.

herradura

I tapered for 15 years. It works short term, then in my case it did not work anymore. If you are not physically dependent on it, and I would assume at 5 drinks a day you are not, then you can stop cold turkey. I would get all excited because I was drinking half as much as I used to, then within a month or so I would notice I was drink twice as much as I used to. One thing I have learned from this site is it is much easier to not have the first drink, than to stop the 5th, 10, 35th. I was at the wrong end of the scale for too long. Good luck.

Bobnik

personally I have never managed it. I am an alcoholic. When I put alcohol in my body something strange and bad happens and I seek oblivion... but thats just me. Hope it works for you.