Tips for Cutting Back on Alcohol

Want to cut back on drinking alcohol? Try these tips, including: bringing your own drinks to gatherings, finding different get-together options, and trying vorvida® - an online platform to help you reduce drinking.

This post was sponsored by vorvida as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

Back in college, I used to drink more often, but as time went on, I realized how yucky it made me feel. I get a lot of negative symptoms like insomnia, irritability, having a hot face and many more things. Over time, this made me drink much less alcohol because of the way it made me feel. Today, I want to share my tips for cutting back on alcohol- even in a social situation where it can make you feel left out not to have a drink.

Whether you want to reduce drinking alcohol for health reasons, personal reasons or any reason, these tips should help make it a little easier to limit alcohol consumption. There is nothing wrong with having a couple of drinks here or there but if you want to cut back or think that you may have a problem with alcohol, please consider cutting back (or cutting alcohol out of your life if you need to).

Tips for Cutting Back on Alcohol

1. Bring your own alcohol-free drink

I used to just abstain from drinking alcohol and it would make me feel really left out compared to everyone at a get-together drinking alcohol. It can be hard being the one that is not having a drink. In my experience, at parties, people do not have many alcohol-free options, which can make you feel isolated. 

Lemonade is a great drink without alcohol!

As of this summer, I bring my own drinks. I love different flavored sparkling waters and juices. I've made fun mocktails like frozen strawberry lemonade slushies that taste amazing but don't have alcohol. If you think that there may not be any alcohol-free options at a party, just bring your own drinks so you can fit in with the crowd.

2. Try out vorvida®

As a dietitian, I have met a lot of people who want to either cut back on their drinking, or cut drinking out of their lives. I recently learned about vorvida® and I thought it was such a helpful tool to cut back on drinking that I had to share it. vorvida® is an online platform that can help you cut back on drinking alcohol. It is made to help you rethink how you drink. It is an interactive platform that gives you tools and techniques that help manage drinking. 

It helps you take control of your drinking habits using clinically proven psychology-based tools and techniques to identify triggers, break negative behaviors and develop healthier responses to different situations. vorvida® can help to identify habits such as drinking when you are upset. vorvida® is awesome at helping you change these habits to doing something else instead of drinking. I found it helpful that it helped me understand why I might want to drink (such as when I’m feeling stressed!) and then help me change those behaviors.

I like that it lets you set your own goals and gives you a personalized approach to cut back on drinking designed just for you. I love that people can access it from their phones or computers so you can use it anywhere with internet. It is completely interactive meaning you answer a lot of simple questions about your habits and feelings and then they give you recommendations based on that. It also helps you set goals to cut back on drinking.

It helped me learn all about how alcohol damages the liver and seeing that in-depth view of how you can be hurting yourself definitely made me want to drink less. I finally learned why I get a red face while drinking thanks to vorvida® - alcohol expands your blood vessels giving you those cherry red cheeks. Also, it talks a lot about having a good support network to help you cut back on alcohol, which is definitely important.

They have daily and weekly alcohol checks so you can share how much you had to drink and how often. It then shares if you are within medical recommendations of how you much you drank, or over the recommendations - for example, for women, it is recommended not to have more than 1 drink per day. It asks questions about your mood and how you're feeling. It goes over some of the negative effects of alcohol and shares benefits of drinking less. It has shown itself to be a super helpful tool for those who may want to reduce alcohol consumption!

**Use code CENTRAL40 for 40% off your vorvida purchase!

3. Find other things to do with friends and family

When I was in my early 20s, it seemed like the only thing to do with friends was to go out to a bar to have a few drinks. Now that I have kids and am in my 30s, I learned that there are SO many other fun things to do that make me so much happier. One of my favorite things to do is to go for a walk with a friend. We can chat a bunch while we get some exercise in. I love it! You can also go out to dinner, have a game night or do an active activity like going kayaking or biking.

4. Notice how much better you feel

After a night out of not drinking, how much better do you feel physically? I remember those feelings of being hungover, tired and sick. I didn't like it. After spending a night out where you don't drink alcohol, take note of how you feel. Do you have more energy to do the things you want to do instead of sleeping the day away? Do you feel happier? I know I always do!

5. Drink on certain days

Maybe you like a couple of glasses of wine on Friday and Saturday nights but that doesn't mean that you have to have drinks every single night. Choose a couple of nights per week to enjoy a drink, and other nights choose to have a cup of hot tea or another alcohol-free drink instead.

I hope that these tips are helpful for cutting back on drinking alcohol! I know that I feel so much better when I drastically limit drinking alcohol and I think that many people would feel the same.