Take Control of Your Drinking.And You May Not Need to Quit (A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book)

In a career spent working with people who want to change their drinking habits, Michael S. Levy has found that the routes to behavioral change vary: abstinence is the successful route for many people, while others can moderate their drinking on their own or with professional help. In this book, he helps people take control of their alcohol problems by teaching them how to think about and address their drinking habits.

Beginning with a set of self-assessments that reveal whether the reader’s use of alcohol is creating problems, Levy explains the causes of problem drinking and why it is so difficult to change. He also offers

* guidelines so readers can decide whether to try to moderate their drinking or to choose abstinence
* a contract for moderate drinking in which readers decide what they will drink, how often and how much they will drink, and the situations they need to avoid
* advice for coping with slip-ups
* tools for fighting helplessness and the fear of failure
* guidelines for knowing when moderation is not achievable

Many people are able to overcome their drinking problems without any formal help; Levy stresses the importance of personal commitment in this effort. For those who are unable to moderate their drinking, he provides comprehensive and compassionate guidelines and resources for abstaining.

This book empowers people to tackle their drinking problems and gives them the freedom to do so in a way that fits with their own lifestyles and values.

Michael S. Levy, Ph.D., is the director of Clinical Treatment Services at CAB Health & Recovery Services, Inc. He is a lecturer in psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance and at Harvard Medical School, and he maintains a private practice in psychotherapy. He writes extensively on substance abuse and its treatment.