Three changes do most of the work. Empty every bottle in the house tonight, including the ones you've forgotten about. Delete the saved card from your delivery apps and log out. Then put something in the 6pm to 8pm gap that occupies your hands, because that hour is what actually ends most attempts.
One safety check before you start
If you drink most days and wake up shaky or sick, don't empty the house and stop cold. The NHS is direct about this: ["It can be very dangerous to stop drinking suddenly if you're dependent on alcohol."](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-misuse/treatment/) Speak to a GP or a free alcohol service first, and read [how to stop drinking safely](/guides/alcohol/how-to-stop-drinking) before you change anything.
Everything below assumes you've done that, or that it doesn't apply to you.
The sweep
Do it in one go, tonight, with the bin bag already open. A slow clearance gives you seven chances to keep one bottle "for guests".
- **Fridge and fridge door.** Beer, wine, the half bottle of prosecco with foil over the top.
- **Freezer.** Vodka and gin live there and get missed.
- **The obvious cupboard.** The wine rack, the drinks shelf, the spirits you were given at Christmas and never opened.
- **The kitchen ones you don't think of as drink.** Cooking wine, sherry, the cider in the crate under the counter.
- **The garage, shed, boot of the car, garden bench.** Wherever the overflow goes.
- **Your own hiding places.** You know where they are. That is the whole point of writing this line.
- **Glassware, if it's part of the ritual.** You don't have to bin the wine glasses. Put them at the back of a high cupboard so reaching for one is a decision.
Pour it down the sink rather than giving it away. A bottle at your neighbour's is a bottle with an address you know at 11pm.
Expensive spirits are the sticking point for most people. Decide which matters more, the forty pounds or the next fortnight, then act on your own answer instead of arguing with it for a week.
Your phone is the off-licence now
Clearing the house used to be enough. It isn't, because you're carrying a shop that delivers in twenty minutes.
- Remove the saved card from every delivery and supermarket app, then log out so buying needs a password you have to go and find.
- Delete the apps that exist mainly for this. You can reinstall them in ninety seconds, and that's fine. Ninety seconds is the point.
- Turn off one-click and stored payment in your browser.
- Unsubscribe from the offer emails. Each one is a nudge that arrives at the worst hour.
Friction does the work willpower can't. It buys you ten minutes between wanting a drink and being able to have one, and ten minutes is often the whole fight. If you want that friction on the laptop too, [Shield](/shield) is the part of Renovyn that does it. A drawer and a password do the same job for free.
The route home and the shop
The walk past the shop is a habit with its own momentum. Change the geography rather than trying to out-argue it.
Take the other road home for a fortnight, even if it's five minutes longer. Switch the supermarket run to a delivery slot, so you never walk the aisle at all. If you have to go in, go with a list, go after you've eaten, and use the door furthest from the drink aisle.
Small, slightly silly changes. They work better than resolve does, because they don't need you to be in a good mood.
The 7pm hole
Here's the honest part. Pouring the bottles away takes twenty minutes and feels decisive. The hard bit arrives at about seven o'clock the next evening, when the day's over, the house goes quiet, and there's a shape in the routine where a drink used to sit.
Don't leave that shape empty. Fill it with something specific and slightly ritualised, at the same time, in the same glass.
- A drink you actually like, cold, in proper glassware. Buy four or five you'd choose on their own merits and treat them as the replacement rather than the consolation.
- Eat earlier. Hunger and tiredness feel remarkably like wanting a drink, which is why HALT is worth [ten minutes of reading](/spaces/halt-method-recovery).
- Move for twenty minutes at the hour it usually starts. A walk, the washing up, anything that involves standing.
- Put a person in the slot. A standing 7pm message to one friend beats a vague intention to "reach out".
Cravings peak and pass rather than climbing forever. [Urge surfing](/spaces/urge-surfing-technique) is the technique for sitting through one, and it's worth learning while you're calm rather than at the moment you need it.
When you can't clear the house
Plenty of people live with someone who drinks normally and has no reason to stop. Their wine is not your project, and turning your recovery into a rule for the household usually costs you the support you need.
What tends to work instead.
- Ask for one shelf or cupboard out of your sightline, ideally with a door. A locked box or the garage fridge is a fair ask.
- Ask them not to offer, and not to check whether you want one. That single sentence removes most of the daily friction.
- Agree a phrase you can say when you need the room to change, so you don't have to explain yourself in the moment.
- Ask them to use a different glass from the one you associate with your own drinking, if that sounds ridiculous and also helps. Quite a lot of this is ridiculous and helps.
If they won't move any of it, you've still got the phone, the route home, the shop and the 7pm hour. Four out of five changes is a real change.
What the first week actually looks like
The physical part has a shape. The NHS says withdrawal symptoms ["begin within 6 to 12 hours of your last drink, and usually last from 3 to 7 days"](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-misuse/treatment/). Call 999 if you get ["hallucinations, severe tremors, seizures or fits"](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/).
Sleep is usually the thing people aren't warned about. It gets worse before it gets better for a lot of people, and knowing that in advance stops you reading a bad night as failure. [More on the first seven days here](/guides/alcohol/first-week-without-alcohol).
You don't have to do this without help. We Are With You offers ["free and confidential support to adults and young people facing challenges with drugs, alcohol and mental health"](https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/help-and-advice/) in England and Scotland, with a webchat if the phone is too much. Drinkline is 0300 123 1110, weekdays 9am to 8pm and weekends 11am to 4pm. Samaritans is 116 123, any hour.
Common questions
**Should I pour it away or just move it out of sight?** Pour it away if you can. Out of sight in your own house is still fifteen seconds from your hand at 10pm, and the decision you're avoiding gets made for you by whichever option is nearest.
**What do I do about expensive spirits I don't want to waste?** Give them to someone whose house you don't visit weekly, or pour them away and treat it as the cost of the fortnight. Storing them for later is the option that quietly assumes you'll be drinking again.
**I cleared the house and drank anyway. Did any of this work?** Yes, partly. Clearing the house puts time and effort in the way of a drink, and on its own it doesn't cover the phone or the 7pm gap. Look at which route you actually used, close that one, and keep going. Getting through a single evening is a skill you learn by repetition.
**My partner drinks and won't stop. Is it fair to ask them to hide it?** It's fair to ask for one shelf, one door and no offers. It isn't reasonable to ask them to stop drinking because you have, and the ask lands better when it's that specific.
Sources
- [NHS, Alcohol misuse treatment](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-misuse/treatment/), for the danger of stopping suddenly when dependent, and withdrawal beginning within 6 to 12 hours and lasting 3 to 7 days.
- [NHS, Alcohol support](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/), for the symptoms that mean calling 999, and the Drinkline number and opening hours.
- [We Are With You](https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/help-and-advice/), for free and confidential self-referral support with webchat in England and Scotland.
