Are you physically dependent on alcohol? For the sake of safety, if you are drinking all day from the moment you wake up in order to avoid your hangovers, then you will need some sort of medical supervision to help you through the detox . You might have experienced D.T.s before (the shakes, or Delirium Tremens to be precise), but full scale alcohol withdrawal can be an unpleasant business. Hallucinations, seizures, it can even be fatal . So you should see your doctor before you plan to stop drinking alcohol. They can help you with medication, or even a short stay in hospital to get you over the first week. If the thought of that scares you to death, then you MUST try and cut down a bit before you stop completely. So you've worked out why you want to stop, and if you can stop safely. Now what? You need to: Develop a plan for how you can avoid those urges to drink. Read our earlier article on coping with alcohol cravings first. It will give you a few techniques to help you. One thing's for sure, will-power alone is not enough to stop you from drinking. You need to work out what are your 'high-risk' situations, what are your 'triggers' that make you want to drink? Some of these can be avoided, so make plans as to how you can avoid them. For those that clearly can't be avoided, you have to start thinking about how you can