Ok, so I wanted to write the “Start Here” post for every woman that’s tried to stop drinking alcohol, but seems to stumble every time. So here’s the quick overview about how to stop drinking (we’ll go into more detail below (but for my skimmers, here you go) – start by committing to a short, specific period of time without alcohol, remove alcohol from your environment, cancel high-risk social plans, build a support system, and prepare for the emotional and physical challenges that come with early sobriety. If you slip, start again rather than treating it as failure.

For people who drink heavily or regularly, suddenly stopping alcohol can be medically dangerous, so talking with a healthcare professional before quitting may be important.

The 60-second strategy isn’t about magically quitting alcohol in one minute. It’s the decision-making framework I use to turn “I need to stop drinking” into an actual plan you can start today.

A Quick Safety Note Before You Stop Drinking

To stop drinking, start by committing to a short, specific period of time without alcohol, remove alcohol from your environment, cancel high-risk social plans, build a support system, and prepare for the emotional and physical challenges that come with early sobriety. If you slip, start again rather than treating it as failure. For people who drink heavily or regularly, suddenly stopping alcohol can be medically dangerous, so talking with a healthcare professional before quitting may be important.

I stopped drinking in 2017. Not because I hit rock bottom in the cinematic, made-for-TV way. Not because I woke up in a ditch or lost everything. I stopped because I looked at my life and saw, with excruciating clarity, that my drinking habit was quietly, methodically killing everything I was meant to be, and if I kept waiting for the perfect moment to stop, I was going to spend the rest of my life waiting.

I am not a therapist, and this isn’t medical advice or a carefully hedged program wrapped in encouraging language about your drinking journey. I am a woman who has been fully alcohol free for over nine years, and I have coached and guided enough women who stand at this exact crossroads to know what actually works and what is just noise.

This is the noise-free version. No pussyfooting. No toxic positivity. No pretending this is going to be easy. Just the real strategy, from someone who has lived it, for the woman who is finally ready to stop drinking and build the life she keeps putting off.

And I want to be upfront about something before we dive in: this is my one and most likely only piece of content for the sober curious space. For 6.5 years I coached women through getting sober, and everything I know is going into this post – the real, no-fluff cheat code from someone who has sat with women at every stage of this journey.

But my world lives in what comes after the quit. House of Hypegirl is built for the woman who is already alcohol free and staring at a life that was designed for the drinker she used to be – the one who is ready to rebuild, rebrand, and come back online as a whole new version of herself with ambition and drive and energy and a wide open horizon. If that’s where you’re headed, you’re in exactly the right place. But first — let’s get you there.

Before we go any further – if you want the ongoing, unfiltered, real-time version of what life looks like on the other side of this decision, my newsletter is where that lives. Every Tuesday I write about what nobody else in the sober space is talking about: not the first 30 days, but the next 30 years. Subscribe for free right now – do it before you keep reading and you can thank me later.

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Okay. Let’s get into it.

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Is This Guide for You?

This guide is for you if:

• You’re tired of saying you’re going to stop drinking “soon.”
• You’ve tried to quit before and started again.
• You don’t think you have a “rock bottom” story but know alcohol is holding you back.
• You’re sober curious but don’t know where to start.
• You keep waiting for the perfect time to stop.
• You want to stop drinking but you’re terrified of what your life will look like without alcohol.

If you’re already alcohol free, you’re in the right place too. The rest of House of Hypegirl is about what happens after the quit — rebuilding your friendships, finding your identity, creating a life you don’t want to escape from, and figuring out who you are when alcohol is no longer part of the equation.

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The 60-Second Strategy to Stop Drinking: The 10 Steps

01. Commit to a Small, Doable Window of Time To Stop Drinking

Not forever. Pick a window that feels manageable: five days, two weeks, one month. Write it on your calendar so it becomes a real thing that exists in the world instead of a vague intention floating around in your head. The goal isn’t forever. The goal is to get through the window. Everything else comes after.

02. Cancel Every Plan in That Window

You will survive. Your one job for the duration of your commitment is to not drink, and that job becomes exponentially harder when you’re at a happy hour or a birthday dinner or a wedding with an open bar calling your name. Cancel the things. Tell people you’re busy. You don’t owe anyone an explanation. You have one job right now and protecting the environment around you is the most important part of doing it.

03. Start Scared. Start Half-Assed. Start Messy. Just Start.

There is never going to be a perfect time to stop drinking. There is never going to be a morning where you wake up feeling completely ready. You are going to start in the middle of a mess, possibly hungover, possibly terrified, possibly absolutely certain this is never going to work. Start anyway. Rip the band-aid off, pull up your big girl panties, and just go for it. I can promise you that you will be forever grateful that you did.

If you drink heavily or regularly, talk to a medical professional about the safest way to stop.

04. Eliminate Every Drop of Temptation From Your Home

Hide it, donate it, toss it, lend it out – whatever you have to do to get alcohol out of your immediate environment. Then stock up on things that actually taste good: NA wines, sparkling ciders, fancy sparkling waters, whatever makes you feel like you’re drinking something intentional instead of something on a kiddie menu. Your environment is doing more of the heavy lifting in early sobriety than any amount of willpower ever could. Set it up to support you.

05. Set Realistic Expectations – It’s Going to Be Hard

Not the not drinking part. That part is more manageable than you think once you get through the first few days. The hard part is feeling feelings. Seeing the true reality of your life without the blinders on. Standing ten toes down, staring at the demons that have been screaming at you your whole life – the loneliness, the anxiety, the patterns you’ve been drinking away for years. It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s even harder to keep living a life you hate and drinking it away. You already know which hard you’d rather choose.

06. If You Don’t Quit Drinking on the First Try – Cool

Nobody does. Perfection doesn’t exist and it was never the point. If you slip, you start again. If the first window doesn’t hold, you pick another one. Toss the shame in the dumpster fire where it belongs and let that burn. The only failure here is deciding that one slip means the whole thing is over – and it doesn’t. The next attempt is available to you the moment you decide to make it.

07. This Is Not a Solo Sport

It is not the flex you think it is, trying to navigate this on your own. There’s real power in the people you surround yourself with during this time, and it is absolutely imperative that you get around women who will ride or die for your dreams as hard as you do. Daily accountability check-ins, sober podcasts, quit lit, creators and voices in the alcohol-free space who remind you why you started – all of it counts, all of it helps, and none of it is weakness.

08. Your Relationships Are Going to Change – Good

Some friendships will fade when you stop drinking. The ones built entirely on shared bar nights and shared bottles will quietly dissolve, and that is going to sting, and it is also making space for the most important relationship you will ever have: the one you have with yourself. And the ones worth keeping will not require you to drink to stay.

09. Be Prepared for the “I Feel Better, So I Can Drink Again” Trap (Day 3-5)

This is the sneakiest part of early sobriety and you need to be ready for it. You are going to start feeling better in the first week – the headache lifts, the fog clears, you sleep a little deeper – and your brain is going to try to tell you that this means you are cured. That you could have just one drink now. You feel better because you are not drinking. Call that out the moment it shows up, name it for exactly what it is, and keep going.

10. The Reward Is Not the Drink You’ve Been Holding Out For

When you cross the finish line of your first window, the reward is not the glass of wine you’ve been promising yourself. The reward is to recommit. And then recommit again. And again, until one day, and this day will come, I promise you it comes – alcohol simply loses its significance in your life. Not because you white-knuckled it forever, but because you showed your brain a different way to exist and your brain decided it preferred that. That is the actual finish line. Everything before it is just the road.

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And Then There’s What Nobody Talks About After Day 30

Everything above is the how to stop. And I mean every word of it, drawn from nine years of watching women do this and doing it myself. But here is the thing that is going to surprise you on the other side of your first window: stopping is actually just the beginning.

The real work – the beautiful, disorienting, completely worth it work – is what happens next. The identity that shifts when alcohol isn’t holding it together anymore. The friendships that transform. The mornings that become yours. The life you start building when you’re not spending every weekend in recovery mode. The version of yourself who was waiting underneath all of it, patient and ready, who you are finally sober enough to meet.

That is what House of Hypegirl is about. Not the first 30 days – the next 30 years. So now that we’ve covered how to stop drinking, here’s what cones next:

• The Six Stages of Living an Alcohol-Free Life → so you know exactly where you are in the journey and what comes next
• How My Friend Group Changed After I Got Sober → because the friendship piece is going to hit you when you least expect it
• The Sober Girl Morning Routine → because you are going to fall in love with mornings in a way you never thought possible

But before you go: subscribe to the newsletter and come find your people. The door is wide open and we have been waiting for you.