How to quit drinking after you've tried and failed before
Failed attempts taught me what to expect. Yours can do the same for you, and the next try doesn't start from zero.
If you’ve tried to quit before and it didn’t hold, this attempt already has something the first one didn’t: you know how it goes. You know what the first days feel like, which part of the day gets you, and what usually happens next. That is information, and most of it is only available to someone who has already been through it.
I tried more than once. Failed attempts taught me what to expect.
What my attempts looked like
I drank about a bottle of gin a day for around 15 years. In that time I tried AA. I tried rehab, more than once. I saw psychiatrists and therapists, and I took pills that left me foggy. None of it held for me. If one of those works for you, keep it, and nothing here argues against it.
Under all of that, I thought I was the problem. I also spent a long time waiting for something outside me to fix it.
That is the hardest part of trying again. The drinking is one thing, and the record of the last attempts is another, and the voice that reads that record back to you can be loud.
What the failed attempts gave me
By the time it finally held, I had a lot of rounds behind me.
I knew what the first few days felt like. I knew which moments were going to be hard, and roughly when they’d come. I knew what had pulled me back before, and I knew which of the things I’d tried had helped, even in the attempts that didn’t stick as a whole.
None of that felt like knowledge while I was living it. It felt like failing, over and over. It only turned into information afterward, once I used it.
Nobody believed it would hold
Something I wasn’t ready for: nobody believed it would hold.
They had reasons. They had watched me try before. When you’ve asked for belief and not delivered it, you don’t have much credit left, and every doubtful look across the table can feel like a verdict.
It stung. If you’re in the same spot, you aren’t imagining it. Their doubt is a record of the past, and it doesn’t say anything about the next few weeks.
Read your own attempts like a map
You can do on paper what I did over years. It takes about twenty minutes, and you only need honest answers, not good ones.
Take your last attempt, or the one you remember best, and write down:
- How it started. Was there a day you decided, or did it drift in? What were you hoping would be different?
- The first hard moment. What time of day was it, where were you, and what were you doing right before?
- What you reached for. The drink itself, or something close to it: the store, the route home, the text to the person you drink with.
- What helped, even a little. A walk, a meal, a person, a routine, an hour of doing something with your hands. Count the small things. They count.
- What ended it. Not why you “failed,” but what was happening in the hour before the first drink. Tired, alone, angry, bored, celebrating, or just a Tuesday.
- What you expected, and what actually happened. The gap between those two is where most of the surprise lives.
Put it into words is a private page for exactly this, and it stays on your device. A paper notebook works too.
Then read it back as a stranger would. You’ll probably see a pattern you couldn’t see from inside any single attempt. The hard moment tends to arrive at the same hour. The same situation tends to come right before. Once it’s on paper, you can plan for that hour in advance.
Keep what helped, drop the rest
Some of what you tried was probably wrong for you, however well it worked for someone else. That is allowed. People get better by many routes, and the NIAAA says the same: there are many roads, and what matters is finding yours.
Keep the pieces that helped, even from attempts that ended badly. A plain routine was the piece that stayed for me, and Today is one place to build yours if you want a place to put it.
Make the plan smaller than last time
Big plans are easy to break. A small plan for the next hour is harder to fail. Last time you may have tried to change everything at once. This time you can pick the one hour you know is dangerous and plan only that one.
If you slip
Plan this before you need it. At nine at night, after a drink, you won’t plan anything.
A slip is information. What was happening in the hour before? Where were you, who were you with, how did you feel? That’s the same question you answered above, with a fresh example.
Then start again with the next hour, not next Monday. Telling one person who knows can end a slip faster than shame lets it. Everything you learned before the slip still exists.
The reason to say so plainly is that the story you tell yourself after a slip has an effect of its own. It is rare for someone to try once and never drink again, and the NIAAA says so: more often people try over time, learn from each attempt and keep going. Researchers who study this also describe a trap, where reading one drink as “I blew it” can make heavier drinking more likely. Treating the slip as a piece of information avoids that trap.
The “blew it” idea is called the abstinence violation effect. The paper cited below presents it as an argument supported by earlier work, and the authors don’t test it in their own analyses. The same paper says some return to drinking is the most common outcome after treatment, and it cites earlier findings that most people who lapse go back to abstinence or light drinking and stay out of heavier drinking. But the data they analyzed came from people in formal treatment programs, were self-reported and retrospective, and weren’t collected to answer this question. It doesn’t tell you what happens to someone doing this on their own, and it doesn’t promise that a slip is harmless.
A note on stopping suddenly again
I stopped cold turkey. Nothing dangerous happened, and I may have been lucky. If you’ve been drinking heavily and daily, stopping suddenly can be dangerous, and that stays true on the fifth attempt just as it did on the first. After a slip, the same rule applies. It’s worth getting that checked before you stop again.
What I can’t promise
I can’t tell you this attempt will be the one. The evidence on how long it takes, and on what holds, is mixed, and anyone who gives you a guarantee is selling something. What I can say is that the knowledge from the earlier tries is real and doesn’t expire. It’s yours to use.
Questions people ask
Is it normal to fail more than once?
Yes. It’s rare to try once and never drink again, and the NIAAA says most people learn from each attempt and keep going.
Does a slip put me back at zero?
No. A slip is one event, and it doesn’t erase the days, the routine or what you learned. There’s no day count on this site, because counting can turn a slip into a verdict.
Why do I feel more discouraged each time?
Each failed attempt adds to the story that you’re the problem. I believed that story for a long time. It’s a story, and the notes you wrote above are evidence against it.
How do I get people to believe me?
Probably not by arguing. Nobody believed it would hold for me, and what I had to keep coming back to was that I wasn’t doing it to convince anyone. They tend to see it over time, or they don’t, and that can’t be the point.
What if the last attempt went badly?
Start with the question above: what was happening in the hour before? A bad attempt tells you more about your hardest hour than a good one does.
The first hour, the first three days and a slip plan are laid out step by step in How to stop drinking alcohol.
Sources
- NIAAA, “Treatment for Alcohol Problems: Finding and Getting Help.” niaaa.nih.gov.
- Witkiewitz K, Marlatt GA. “Modeling the complexity of post-treatment drinking: It’s a rocky road to relapse.” Clinical Psychology Review, 2007. PubMed Central.
Put it into words is a private page where you can write down what the last attempt taught you. It stays on your device, and nobody else sees it. Free, no account.
See your recordThe First Hour isn't medical advice, and we're not doctors. This is writing grounded in research and lived experience — it's not treatment, diagnosis, or a substitute for a doctor, therapist, or recovery program. Alcohol withdrawal can be medically dangerous. If you're detoxing, struggling, or in crisis, please reach out to a medical professional or a helpline.
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