Feel Good Friday - Moderation Management

It’s the last Feel Good Friday of the year and the day before New Year’s Eve. A perfect time to reflect on your alcohol intake with Moderation Management.

Founded in 1994, Moderation Management (MM) is “a behavioral change program and national support group network for people concerned about their drinking and who desire to make positive lifestyle changes.” They are the group behind Dryuary, an outreach initiative to support people abstaining from alcohol during the month of January.

First, let’s define moderate drinking. For men it’s no more than 14 drinks per week, and not more than 4 per occasion. For Women, no more than 9 drinks per week, and not more than 3 per occasion. None of us should drink on more than 3-4 days per week if we want to be considered a moderate drinker. If you’d like to score your drinking to see if you have a problem with alcohol dependency you can take this self test.

Next, let’s talk about moderation versus abstinence. As they explain on their Facebook page, “by the time people reach serious stages of alcohol dependency, changing drinking becomes more difficult, and treatment is usually costly. MM believes that this situation needs to be remedied in the interest of public health and human kindness with early intervention and harm reduction programs. Moderation programs are less costly, shorter in duration, less intensive, and have higher success rates than traditional abstinence-only approaches.”

MM offers members a supportive mutual-help environment that encourages people who are concerned about their drinking to take action to cut back or quit drinking before drinking problems become severe. All meetings are free of charge and you can find resources to help you develop awareness of your drinking habits on their website. These include:

• MM Tool Box - a month’s worth of tips such as: abstain for one day, buddy up with someone who has a similar goal, and brush your teeth to signal your brain and your mouth that you are done drinking for the night

• Abstar Drink Tracker - a tool to help you develop awareness of your drinking habits and share them (if you choose) with members of the MM community

• BAC Limits - charts that show how each drink affects your Blood Alcohol Content

You can read the MM step-by-step approach to moderation management here: Guide to Moderation Management Steps of Change

If you like what Moderation Management is doing and want to get involved you can register for, Dryuary 2023, support MM with a donation and spread the word about their work on social media. Like the MM Facebook page and follow them on Twitter @ModerationMgmt and Instagram @moderationmanagement.