Background
While many Canadians casually consume alcohol and tobacco, it can be all too easy to fall into an addiction and start abusing these substances. In terms of alcohol, high-risk drinking is associated with family issues, crime, violence, and car accidents. Chronic use of alcohol is linked to cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, brain damage, and difficulties with coordination and motor control. Heavy drinking can also lead to high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, difficulties for men in obtaining and maintaining an erection, and irregular periods for women.
In terms of tobacco, smoking has been associated with dozens of diseases and conditions. Just a sample of these include death, heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, cancer of various forms, premature delivery if pregnant, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, osteoporosis, menstrual problems in women and impotence in men.
Thankfully, by consuming alcohol and tobacco within responsible limits, you can avoid these health and social issues. Today, Novus will propose an action plan that will help you properly manage your consumption of these substances.
Action Plan: Alcohol
Our action plan is two-pronged, covering both alcohol and tobacco. With respect to alcohol, start by learning more about the short-term and long-term social and health consequences of alcohol misuse. This knowledge will help motivate your efforts towards proper management.
Next, set or review your personal goal to reduce your alcohol intake. Regularly check to ensure you are meeting your goals. Remember that people are rarely successful at curtailing or quitting consumption on their first try—if you’ve had a bad week and have relapsed, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, get back on track as soon as you can! Try to determine the cause of your relapse and develop a plan that will help you cope with a similar situation in the future.
Creating accountability helps. Tell at least one person you trust about your goal and ask them to check in with you on a regular basis. Speak to family, friends, or a trained counsellor to help you through the ups and downs of reducing your alcohol intake. Set a drink limit at the start of your day, or before going out, and honour your limit. Ask a trusted friend to keep you accountable.
Drink slowly. Try to limit yourself to 2 drinks per day. Pace yourself while drinking: Drink one non-alcoholic drink for every alcoholic drink consumed.
It’s also very important to find out if there are any interactions if mixing alcohol with your medications. Speak to your physician or pharmacist for more information.
Do not drink if you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or breastfeeding. Do not drive if you have been drinking, and do not let yourself be driven by someone who has been drinking! Arrange for alternative transportation if you plan on drinking while out. DUI poses an extreme risk to not just yourself, but everyone around you on the road.
Action Plan: Tobacco
Our action plan for tobacco has some common elements with our plan for alcohol. First of all, set a quit date and tell someone about it if you haven’t already done so! Again, accountability will keep you on track. It can take many tries for someone to quit tobacco, so it’s okay if you relapse. The important part is to get back on track as soon as possible and identify the cause of the relapse so you can cope with similar situations in the future. Ask family members, friends, or a trained smoking cessation counsellor to help you and keep you accountable.
Cut out the negativity in your life—avoid people and situations that encourage you to smoke, and spend time with people who don’t smoke. Make your home and car smoke free if you haven’t already done so. This will decrease your temptation to smoke.
Celebrate your achievement at different milestones! This will help you reflect on the changes you’ve made and encourage you to stay the course. Remember, making changes to your smoking habits is very difficult. You’ve come this far—keep up the good work!
In terms of external resources, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has excellent resources on evaluating your drinking, learning about health risks associated with alcohol, and discovering binge drinking consequences. Furthermore, the Canadian Lung Association provides a great guide for how to quit smoking. Of course, here at Novus we have all the information you need to gain the best understanding of managing substance use.
For more health information, visit the health section of our blog!
