Moderation March (Part 3)

In the first two installments of this miniseries, I described my surprise at sliding into Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and my decision to avoid the 12-step or abstinence-based recovery models. Now, I’ll discuss what helped me successfully recover from AUD.

Moderation Management

Although I’ve got some beef with AA (described in part 2) and decided that it wasn’t the right fit for someone like me who planned to moderate rather than quit drinking, I still felt like I needed some support from folks experiencing similar struggles. Fortunately, my therapist often has excellent recommendations and suggested I check out Moderation Management (MM).

MM is a 501c3 nonprofit organization with a free online support community that offers:  

• weekly virtual meetings at varied times
• core groups in which you get matched with 3-4 other folks with similar backgrounds and moderation goals  
• a private Facebook group
• a listserv and chatrooms
• occasional themed groups that convene a cohort of folks with a focus on specific topics

While their main focus is to support people seeking to healthily moderate alcohol intake, they also host dedicated meetings and online resources for anyone practicing abstinence. The program recommends new members start with a 30-day abstinence period to disrupt the associations they have between drinking and provide a mental reset before developing new skills. Some members also decide that abstinence is the best solution for them after failed attempts at moderating, but prefer to stick with the MM community rather than switching to AA.

Some of the key things I experienced while active with MM that were invaluable to my recovery included:

• Joining meetings for groups with specific criteria matching my life experience, e.g., the women’s and ADHD groups.
• Participated in the Kickstart group with a cohort of members working together to learn new strategies for moderation, compare experiences, cheer one another on, and gain more accountability around our goals.
• Participating in a book club that read Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind allowed me to combine my interest in mindfulness with goals to successfully manage my slide into AUD territory.

I also benefited immensely from MM’s Toolbox, which included 31 days of tools and concrete, specific strategies for moderation that I experimented with. Group leaders reinforced that different strategies may work better for different folks and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, so I felt empowered to try everything without pressuring myself with unrealistic expectations that doing this work would result in a magical fix.

For me, the strategies that helped the most were:

• Delaying my usual drinking start-time or cutting my end time off by one hour.
• Requiring myself to have one non-alcoholic drink between every alcoholic one.
• Forcing myself to surf urges for at least 15 minutes before choosing to go forward with drinking since often that’s how long it takes for a desire to pass.
• Brushing my teeth when I’m planning to quit drinking for the night, which tells my brain I’m “done.”
• Making it more difficult to drink by not keeping alcohol on hand or only buying limited quantities so I can’t over-indulge.
• Making a contract with myself detailing guidelines for drinking, which I then reviewed and signed before every drinking occasion.
• Incentivizing myself with rewards for successfully sticking to my contract, e.g., 30 days of successful moderating resulted in using the money I saved to splurge on something I usually wouldn’t have treated myself to, like dinner out or a new clothing item.

Other Invaluable Supports

While MM was vital to my success in recovering from Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), other supports that were also important throughout my journey:

• Mindfulness—especially the skills I learned during my time in the free Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program that I blogged about in 2023.
• A Supportive Community—I felt fortunate to encounter open minds and nonjudgemental encouragement from the folks I chose to be open and vulnerable with during the messier periods of my recovery, including family, friends, and my therapist.
• Health-centered Lifestyle—the better care I took of my body, the less likely I was to drink, so even when I couldn’t seem to successfully manage my alcohol consumption, I knew I could focus on upping my exercise, improve my diet, leave time for adequate sleep, and do everything in my power to help my body heal from the harm I caused it.

Since March is over, this is my final post on alcohol moderation (for now, at least). Ultimately, I hope this series has shown that there is always hope and that recovery is possible. 

Though I am not a professional advisor for AUD recovery, I am always happy to discuss this topic and my experience. If you are concerned about your alcohol intake, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like a safe space to discuss your experience and thoughts for the future. The same goes for folks who are in relationships with folks who may be struggling with their alcohol intake.