Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › When you use something to cope
If cutting down has failed over and over, that is information rather than a verdict on you. For some people the workable goal turns out to be none rather than less.
Starting young makes this more likely, and the earlier the heavy use began the harder the road back to casual use tends to be. Nobody enjoys hearing that. It is easier to take as a practical matter: you have run the experiment several times and you know how it comes out, so build the plan around the result instead of around hope.
If you are using something to cope and it has become hard to stop, please speak to a doctor before changing anything.
Qur’an and Sunnah
shun them so that you may prosper (Quran 5:90). The instruction is clean rather than measured, and for some people that is a relief rather than a loss.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِنَّمَا ٱلۡخَمۡرُ وَٱلۡمَيۡسِرُ وَٱلۡأَنصَابُ وَٱلۡأَزۡلَٰمُ رِجۡسࣱ مِّنۡ عَمَلِ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ فَٱجۡتَنِبُوهُ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ
You who believe, intoxicants and gambling, idolatrous practices, and [divining with] arrows are repugnant acts- Satan’s doing- shun them so that you may prosper
Qur’an 5:90read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A systematic review of skills training offered as a standalone treatment for substance use disorder found it feasible and acceptable, while judging the evidence for how well it works limited and preliminary. So a set of techniques on its own is not a dependable answer for everybody. If the lighter approaches have not held, that is a reason to ask for fuller treatment rather than to try harder at the same thing.
Warner N, Murphy M. (2022). Dialectical behaviour therapy skills training for individuals with substance use disorder: A systematic review.. Drug and alcohol review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Moderation asks you to decide again every single time, and stopping asks you to decide once.
When not to
Stopping alcohol suddenly after heavy daily drinking can be dangerous, so arrange it with a doctor rather than alone.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Drink can make talking easy and still leave you with friendships that feel like nothing. Worth noticing which of those two you actually came for.
Draw your own chart of the moment you usually give in, with the questions you actually ask yourself, and put it where you will see it.
If you smoked or drank during a pregnancy and have spent years holding yourself responsible for how your child turned out, you are allowed to put some of that down.