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Top Ten Rules to Control Our Alcohol Consumption | Sober and Unashamed

Matt Salis
7 min readJan 6, 2021

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Rules. Discipline. The ever-popular, yet mystically elusive mythology known as human willpower. I just needed to try harder. I just needed to establish a realistic drinking strategy and follow it. Drinking alcohol was far too important a component of my happy and successful life for me to give it up. I just needed to unlock the secret to controlling my drinking.

Here is my top-ten list of drinking rules I adopted at various times in the last decade of my drinking career. As you read through them, see how many you have tried. Are there rules on this list that the drinker you love has used to try to control his drinking? Keep track of the number of rules you recognize, and I’ll give you my take on what it means at the end.

Rule #10: Don’t Drink on an Empty Stomach

My wife noticed the correlation between my intoxication level and the lack of food I consumed. So, for some period in my drinking career, I agreed to eat with or before drinking alcohol. Now that I have a good understanding of the importance of blood sugar regulation, this advice has some practicality to it.

Result: Never underestimate the dedication of a serious drinker to put enough booze back to get where we are going — no matter how much of our dinner we eat. With a little extra effort…

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Matt Salis
Matt Salis

Written by Matt Salis

I live in Denver, Colorado, with my wife and four kids. I write and speak about addiction and recovery. Please follow my blog at SoberAndUnashamed.com.

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