This page was written by Dr. Ed Wilson for non12step.com. Dr. Wilson is retired and, in an effort to preserve a fellow thought leader’s writings, we have copied, with permission, his “About Me” page and included it here. We think it will be of value to our readers.

It is possible to stop drinking on your own. Indeed, most people either stop or moderate their alcohol consumption on their own and that’s the first “step” you need to keep in mind.

Having said that, and being a person who did that on my own some 35 years ago, I will also say that it is much easier with a little short term, confidential, individual and experienced support and information. What took me – and possibly you – three years shouldn’t really take more than three months.

Yes, it took me three years of stumbling around to collect the information, experiment with approaches, assimilate the changes, and leave my problems with alcohol behind.

It all started with my self-assurance that if my only two choices were being a drunk and joining AA I’d rather be a drunk. I know many of you agree. Happily there are many choices and it will help to know that the research, as summarized in Hester and Miller’s Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches, shows that in terms of effectiveness, AA-based treatment ranks 36th, and AA 38th. Obviously you would not voluntarily bet on a “cure” that came in at those positions in the race.

So what does “work”?

#1: Brief “intervention” which is pretty much taking a bit of time to reflect and gather information. I hope that is what you are doing now and what brought you here.   

After that, the effective tools are such approaches as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Enhancement, Naltrexone, Assertiveness Training, and so on. With clients, I help create a mosaic of approaches and tools which make the changes easier.

Given my “Stopping Drinking on Your Own” title I imagine you are wondering why I do suggest the “brief intervention” and the assorted approaches which seem to imply hiring some help. 

Given the information I have provided you can make some shortcuts and fix things “all-by-selfy” as my daughter insisted when she was 2 years old. The questions are: how much time and effort do you want to spend and how much support do you need fending off others who “know” that AA and rehab are the only things that work – even though, as Miller and Hester did, that they don’t work at all. In fact, doing nothing works better than either AA or rehab-as-usual.

There are a couple of other points to what I offer. It’s damn lonely out there trying to work your way alone. It’s also helpful to learn the new coping skills relatively quickly whether it’s internalizing CBT and learning to be more assertive.

There is also the factor of “putting your money where your mouth is” with regard to actually doing something. It’s very easy to procrastinate and defer actually fixing the problem by telling ourselves that reading about stopping or moderating is “doing something.” It isn’t. Nor is going to a therapist and talking about doing something – which frequently goes on for years with no change of behavior.

Imagine going to a local gym to lose weight. You can go and watch and complain that nothing happened. You can hire a trainer to demonstrate while you sit and then complain that the trainer wasn’t any good. You can finally hire a short-term trainer to teach you what you need to do and change, you follow instructions as a personal plan evolves, and guess what? You lose the weight.

That’s what I do – I help you generate a personal plan and get you started and after two or three months you don’t need me anymore. And you won’t waste years in the personal purgatory of “in recovery” – you will have recovered, just like ex-smokers have (yes, I’m one of those too).

But, if nothing else, this page should have let you know that you can recover, you don’t need meetings or steps or sponsors. You don’t need to allow yourself to be demeaned, publicly humiliated, labeled, and exploited.

So, what’s your choice?

Dr. Wilson is retired and no longer practicing psychotherapy or providing addiction treatment. If you are interested in treatment that follows Dr. Wilson’s style, our approach here at Practical Recovery could be a great fit for you.