How do I cut down or stop drinking or cannabis safely?

Seven pages in this library are about cutting down or stopping a drink or a drug. You can stop before anything falls apart is stopping alcohol. Choose how to stop by how your last try went is stopping cannabis. Take two dry weeks and read the result is a fortnight off as a test for someone who drinks less heavily. The water goes between the drinks is pacing on a night when you are drinking. Block the number before the first drink is the late-night drink after a breakup, and One story: the drink was the depression is one person’s account of a drink that was filed under coping. Sober for months and still not feeling better is for someone who has already stopped and is still not feeling better. A warning about stopping suddenly after heavy drinking runs through these pages, so it comes first here.

If you drink heavily and regularly, do not stop on your own before you have had medical advice. You can stop before anything falls apart has the UK’s National Health Service saying it can be very dangerous to stop drinking suddenly if you are dependent on alcohol, and that withdrawal symptoms (anxiety, trouble sleeping, feeling and being sick, a racing heartbeat, sweating, shaking, and at the severe end hallucinations, confusion and seizures) begin within 6 to 12 hours of the last drink. The US government’s MedlinePlus says symptoms tend to start within 8 hours but can start days later, and that people with moderate to severe withdrawal may need treatment in a hospital or a facility that treats it. The NHS lists needing a drink when you wake up, and needing more to get the same effect, as signs of dependence. If you have those signs, or you are not sure, the first step is a doctor, before you try to stop; the NHS says medical help with withdrawal can be given at home or in hospital. A steady hand is not a test: the page says it cannot tell you whether you are dependent, and a doctor can.

If you have already stopped and get seizures, a fever, severe confusion, hallucinations or an irregular heartbeat, treat it as an emergency: call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere), or go to the emergency room or A&E. One person warns that waking up on the ground with no idea how you got there may mean you had a seizure, and a seizure is on that list. Block the number before the first drink says the same from the NHS and MedlinePlus: in the UK, call 999 or go to A&E for shaking, confusion, or seeing or hearing things that are not there; in the US, go to the emergency room or call 911 for seizures, fever, severe confusion, hallucinations or an irregular heartbeat.

To find help, in the US call the free, confidential national helpline run by SAMHSA, the US federal substance-use and mental health agency, on 1-800-662-4357, open every day around the clock. In the UK call the national alcohol helpline, Drinkline, on 0300 123 1110 (free and confidential, weekdays 9am to 8pm and weekends 11am to 4pm), or ring your GP, or NHS 111 in England. If drinking has you thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the US, or call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK.

If it is cannabis, the first question is how your last try went. Choose how to stop by how your last try went says stopping after heavy use can bring symptoms. The US National Institute on Drug Abuse lists anger, irritability, anxiety, restlessness, changes in appetite, depression, trouble sleeping, disturbing dreams, headaches, sweating, stomach pain and shaking; the UK’s FRANK drug advice service lists feeling moody and irritable, feeling sick, trouble sleeping or eating, sweating and shaking. If stopping brings a low mood or anxiety you cannot ride out, or thoughts of harming yourself, including a depression that was there before and is now easier to see, do not push through alone: call or text 988 in the US, or call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK, and if you are in immediate danger call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK (your local emergency number elsewhere). To find treatment, in the US call the SAMHSA helpline above; in the UK call FRANK on 0300 123 6600 or ask your GP. The US institute says behavioural therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy can be effective for cannabis use disorder, and that there are currently no FDA-approved medicines for treating it or for medically assisted withdrawal. If you also drink heavily every day, see a doctor before you stop drinking: the UK’s NHS says it can be very dangerous to stop drinking suddenly if you are dependent on alcohol. And if a clinician prescribes cannabis or knows you use it for pain, nausea or another condition, talk to them before changing anything.

People have got off cannabis both by stopping at once and by cutting down, so the page’s counsel is to choose the way that fits how your last attempt went. Some people say gradual reduction, by cutting the hours, lowering the strength or adding a low-THC product, is easier to keep up and less damaging to the mind than stopping cold. Some people say the opposite worked for them: cutting down led to relapse, and only a clean stop held. The same trait gets read both ways, so the useful question is what actually happened. Did stopping at once hold for a while and then collapse? Did cutting down keep sliding back to the old amount? Did you never try? Your own record with each way is the evidence you have, and nothing in what people wrote is a study behind either camp. Some cautions from people who tried: one person warns that edibles used to cut down let the dose climb fast; one person says CBD worked at first and then they were smoking again; and some people warn that nicotine does not belong in the plan, because two dependencies at once are significantly harder to manage than one, and FRANK adds that mixing cannabis with tobacco carries the risks of tobacco. If cannabis was covering anxiety or depression, one person says stopping can bring it forward, and some people warn that stopping cold after heavy use can bring on anger and thoughts of self-harm.

You do not have to hit rock bottom to stop. You can stop before anything falls apart has some people who stopped saying that no catastrophe, and no label such as “alcoholic”, is needed to have a reason: bad sleep, a worse mood and money going out are enough. One person says you can stop whenever you decide the drink no longer serves you. One person says quitting before life falls apart means better outcomes, and that you avoid the shame of being caught. Some people say to drop the shame: to treat the drinking as a health problem that grew out of stress or a way of coping, not as a moral failing, and to be honest that something has to change. The road is not gentle for all, though: one person says recovery often takes hitting bottom before people accept professional help, and another that the horror stories do not make anyone stop and only your own decision does, though a crisis such as a trip to the emergency room can work as a reset. The page does not take a side on which motive is better. It says only that a drink-related crisis is not the price of admission.

What a doctor does is not always a hospital stay. The NHS lists treatment as medical help with withdrawal, at home or in hospital, and names three medicines a doctor can prescribe: acamprosate, naltrexone (to reduce cravings) and disulfiram (which has unpleasant effects if you drink). Tell the doctor everything else you take or use. If you take opioids, or you are not sure what you take, say so at the first appointment, because it changes the medicines a doctor can offer: MedlinePlus says naltrexone blocks the effects of opioid medicines and street opioids, and may cause or worsen withdrawal symptoms in someone who has recently stopped using them, and one person warns that it makes people who use opioids sick. People disagree about tapering. One person says cutting back gradually is more manageable than stopping at once, another that it is impossible for someone who binges until they are ill, and another calls tapering at home risky. The page says that argument is about what suits you, and not one to settle alone: ask the doctor which way, and for a plan if you are going to cut down first. Some people’s lists of supplements, and a sleep-aid antihistamine, for the first days are not carried: what to take while you are withdrawing is a doctor’s decision. One person warns that replacing alcohol with cannabis leads to the same trouble.

If you are not dependent and want to see what two weeks off tells you, treat whatever happens as information. Take two dry weeks and read the result starts with the same warning: do not take a break if you get withdrawal symptoms, get medical help first, and if a morning without a drink means shaking hands, sweats or a racing anxiety, the first step is a GP, today. The health service says there may be medicine to make stopping safe. One person says cold turkey is possible even for heavy drinkers; the page says other people and the health service say otherwise on the safety point, and it carries both. For the fortnight itself, some people say someone who only drinks at weekends may notice nothing, and some people say their sleep, clarity and mood changed. One person says that if a dry month feels like a large commitment, that feeling is the finding. One person says the break shows you how easy or hard stopping is and whether you were using the drink to manage stress. One person warns the first fortnight exaggerates the change through novelty. One person warns that quitting does not guarantee your mental health improves, because whatever the drink was covering is still there.

If you would rather drink less than stop, people use rules, not numbers. Some people say gradual reduction works for people who are not dependent, and the dependent need medical supervision instead. What people do, one person each unless the page says otherwise: put nothing in the house; log every drink for a week, because one person says the true weekly count is the first surprise; replace a number you set yourself with a mechanical rule such as one drink an hour, or water after every one, or a low hard cap kept whatever you feel like, because one person says self-set numbers do not survive the drinking; treat the thought “one more and I’m done” as the stop and not the permission; and keep something fizzy and cold in your hand. The health service’s guideline for the United Kingdom is fourteen units a week at most, spread over three or more days, with several drink-free days; the page carries it as the ceiling people’s rules sit under and not as a target. It is the UK’s figure, and the number for where you live may differ. A pint of ordinary-strength lager or a standard glass of wine is about two units and a single spirit one.

On a night when you are drinking, the water goes between the drinks. The water goes between the drinks says to put one glass alongside each drink, ordered together so it actually happens, to add salts rather than volume before bed, and to know the ceiling: past a real amount of alcohol, nothing you can drink afterwards will buy the morning back, and the only prevention with a guarantee attached is fewer drinks. Eat a real meal before the first glass, and skip the late shots, which are still being absorbed while you sleep. The page’s hard line: never take paracetamol (acetaminophen) when there is alcohol in the picture, the same night or a rough morning, because the liver processes both and the combination is how ordinary doses do real damage. Anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen are argued over there: gentler on the liver, harder on a stomach that alcohol has already irritated, with bleeding risk, and if your stomach or kidneys have a history, that is a conversation for a pharmacist. Do not chase enormous volumes of plain water: the body loses salts too. If you cannot keep water down at all, the page says that is past home-remedy territory: alcohol poisoning is a medical event, and sleeping it off alone is how it gets missed. And if the mornings keep getting worse while the evenings stay the same, the page says the honest question stops being about hydration.

If the drink is how you get through a breakup, block the number before the first drink. Block the number before the first drink is about the moment the phone is in your hand with their name one tap away, and it says to do it earlier in the day, while you are sober, and not to use the drink to get through the pain. One person says alcohol amplifies whatever you already feel and leads to behaviour you regret; another that keeping the number in your phone is what makes drunk texting possible. The page is fair about the other view: some people drink with friends after a breakup and say it helped, and the health sources it uses are about regular or heavy drinking to cope, and say nothing about one drink with a friend. The line it draws is a drink used to dull the pain with the number still in reach. If you are in danger right now, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK.

One person’s story is a question, not a verdict. One story: the drink was the depression is one person who quit cigarettes and alcohol in the same year, felt much better four months on, and found out only from the far side that alcohol had been the source of their depression. The page says it is one person’s experience, not a claim about your depression or anyone’s, and that depression has many engines, most of them not in a glass. It hands you a question: is there something in your routine you think of as coping, whose absence you have never seen? If checking that for yourself feels big, a doctor or therapist is the right company, and if alcohol has become hard to put down, stopping suddenly can be genuinely unsafe for heavy, long-term drinking, which is the moment for medical support rather than willpower.

If you stopped weeks or months ago and still do not feel better, being sober does not promise a good mood, and on a bad day the next hour is the whole job. Sober for months and still not feeling better is for someone who has already stopped, and it opens with a safety box, carried here whole and in its order. If you are thinking about ending your life or hurting yourself, call or text 988 in the US (free, any time), or call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK (free, any time). If you have taken something, or you are in danger now, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK, or go to the nearest emergency room or A&E. Elsewhere, call your local emergency number. If you are still drinking heavily, or taking a sleeping or anxiety medicine such as diazepam every day, do not stop all at once on your own. The NHS says it can be very dangerous to stop drinking suddenly if you are dependent on alcohol, and that you should get medical help before you try. It says to call 999 or go to A&E (in the US, call 911 or go to an emergency room) for severe withdrawal: visible shaking, being unusually restless, irritable or upset, confusion (for example, not knowing what day it is), seeing, hearing or feeling things that are not there, or a seizure. It says not to drive yourself there. The NHS also says stopping diazepam suddenly can cause withdrawal symptoms, and that your doctor will reduce the dose gradually, so talk to whoever prescribes it before you change anything. In the US, SAMHSA’s free helpline, 1-800-662-4357, is open 24 hours a day and gives referrals to local treatment; in an emergency, call 911. If opioids are part of your story, including heroin, fentanyl or prescription opioids, the US CDC says naloxone can reverse an overdose, that people at risk should carry it, that you cannot give it to yourself so someone near you needs to know where it is, and that you should still call 911. If you have been off opioids for a while, the UK government’s guide for drug workers and the US SAMHSA both say your tolerance will be lower, so an amount you once took, or even less, can now cause an overdose; the UK guide says the risk is higher still with alcohol, benzodiazepines or gabapentinoids such as gabapentin and pregabalin. In the UK, FRANK’s helpline is 0300 123 6600.

What people say about the flat stretch: some people say sobriety means an ongoing struggle and a risk of relapse, and that over the long run recovery leads to accepting yourself and a better quality of life, even though happiness is not constant. One person says giving up drugs does not promise a steady good mood, and that feeling bad sometimes is part of ordinary life. One person says to compare your situation with being in active addiction, not with an imagined future, and another says suffering while sober is still better than suffering while using; the page says that is a comparison some people use to hold on, and it does not mean your pain is small. Some people tell someone in a bad stretch that the pain fades with time, even when it feels impossible now. How long that takes differs from person to person, and the page cannot say it for you. One person points to people who stay sober but keep thinking and acting as if they were still using: not using, on its own, is not enough without looking at the patterns underneath.

On a bad day, one person says the main aim in a crisis is not to fix everything or to feel better at once, only to avoid adding substance use or self-harm to the pain already there. Some people say recovery is made of small steps, one day at a time. One person says to break time into the smallest unit you can manage, from a minute to an hour to a day. The page’s step is the next hour only: write down the one thing you will do in it (a shower, a meal, a walk, a phone call), then tell one real person how bad it is, even in one line: “bad stretch, not using, can you talk?” If there is nobody, call or text a line from the box above, or look for an online meeting. One person lists who to reach if the urge to drink or hurt yourself is strong: a sponsor, a meeting, urgent care or an emergency room, a place of worship, or a hotline. Therapy is another door: one person says therapists are not judging you and that fear of being judged should not stop you from telling them what is going on. The NHS says that for alcohol, treatment can come from a GP or a specialist service, and for opioids the US National Institute on Drug Abuse says medicines such as methadone and buprenorphine are the first line, usually with counselling. One person suggested that someone on methadone ask their doctor about buprenorphine; that is a conversation for whoever prescribes, not a switch to make alone.

If you slip, some people say a relapse does not erase the clean time before it and does not send you back to zero, and that the move is to reconnect with your recovery quickly rather than sit in guilt. The US National Institute on Drug Abuse says relapse is not a sign that treatment has failed but a sign that it should be resumed, changed or tried again. If opioids are part of your story, your tolerance after a break is lower, so your old amount can now cause an overdose, and the naloxone should be where someone near you can find it.

Who that page is not for: if you are still drinking heavily or taking a daily sleeping or anxiety medicine, it is not the page, and its box is. If your thoughts are about dying, it says a page cannot hold that and a person can; the first lines of the box are for you. If your problem right now is physical pain after an injury, it cannot help with it. If you are worried about someone else, the SAMHSA line in the US and a GP or FRANK in the UK are open to you as well. The people it draws on lean toward those who kept reaching out, and some who wrote were still struggling themselves. If tonight is the bad one: in the US, call or text 988; in the UK, call Samaritans on 116 123. Both are free and answered any time.

People near you, and where people go for company. Many people say that joining an online community of people who are sober gives you people who hold you to it, and one person says Alcoholics Anonymous is free and you can find a local meeting. People disagree about it: one person says it did not work for them and the religious frame did not fit; another says going to hear other people’s stories can still reduce isolation even if you do not follow the twelve steps. SMART Recovery, in the Resource Bank below, says it runs free support groups using practical tools instead of steps or any religion. In the UK, the AA helpline in the Resource Bank is 0800 917 7650 and the call is free. The page about cannabis adds that some people say, whichever way you pick, it helps to fill the hours the habit used to take, to move your body and to count the money you stop spending, and that insomnia is common at the start and sleep often improves within weeks.

Who these pages are not for. If you are in withdrawal now, or you have just stopped and have the symptoms above, the emergency number and the helpline come first. If you do not want to stop, nothing here will make you. If you are reading because someone you love drinks, one person who lived with a drinker says it leaves lasting damage, takes ongoing work on your own mind, and comes with no promise of full healing; Al-Anon, in the Resource Bank below, is a peer group for family members of people who drink, and the NHS’s alcohol-support page names it too. If you are afraid of the person, whether it is someone you live with who uses cannabis or an ex who keeps contacting you, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline on 1-800-799-7233 in the US, 24 hours a day, or the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247 in the UK, free and open around the clock. If you drive, one person says flatly that if you cannot stop drinking, you should not drive, ever. The page about the dry fortnight carries that as theirs, as the one safety line it will not soften. If you live outside the US and the UK, the helplines here will not serve you: the emergency number and the health service where you live are the doors, and the withdrawal advice above still holds. The pages say what they cover is what people shared online, and that people who write about quitting are people for whom it worked out well enough to write about; they are not doctors, and nothing here is medical advice.