When you want to stop drinking or at least cut-down, knowing how to sit out a craving makes a difference.
“A craving lasts for about 15 minutes. It’s like an ocean wave that gets bigger and bigger but then diminishes. If you can ride it out, you’ll feel stronger on the other side,” says Melise Ammit, a nurse with 11 years’ experience in addiction medicine. She’s one of a small but growing number of sober coaches in Australia, and specialises in helping women quit alcohol.
Then there’s that word ‘alcoholic’, so loaded with stigma it makes many drinkers run a mile if it doesn’t define where their drinking is at.“There’s a spectrum of drinking behaviour that I call the space between AA and the pub. I knew I wasn’t an extreme drinker but I also knew alcohol was having an impact on my life,” says Victoria Vanstone who quit drinking in 2018. “It’s about finding where you sit on that spectrum of grey area drinking and then finding others who are like you.
Then there’s Untoxicated, which makes it easier to socialise without booze via its meet-up groups in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Its 8,000 members are often former ‘grey area’ drinkers or those who’ve never drunk alcohol at all, says the organisation’s CEO, Andrew Addie. “Two things have helped accelerate how we think about supporting people who want help for their drinking. COVID was one because it opened up the conversation around alcohol.
“Another barrier to treatment is the myth that drinking problems can’t be treated, but we know that treatment works, and we have lots of options available.