How can you avoid drinking too much during and after the quarantine?

For many of us, the quarantine is starting to really drag on, stress is mounting and there are limited ways left to destress.

A glass of wine with a nice homemade meal…enjoying a beer or two over Skype with friends…a cheeky one after a hard day…It’s all too easy to start drinking more than you should. So what can you do? Dr Paul Brunault, psychiatrist and addiction specialist, offers some advice in his intervie with French journal Science et Avenir.

He starts by reminding us all of general publich health recommendations. The maximum amount of alcohol we should be limiting ourselves to is one or two drinks a day and less than 10 per week. There’s no harm in having a drink with friends over Skype every now and then, but what you do need to be careful about is developing a habit.

According to Dr Brunault, the danger is that you could build up a compensation mechanism in this way for dealing with stress, which can worsen over time. Also, the risk is even greater if alcohol becomes your only means of regulating your emotions. The professor recommends other strategies for dealing with stress, from talking openly about your feelings to your loved ones to creating more structure in your daily routine in order to regain a measure of control over this restrictive situation that has taken control away from us.

1) https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/sante/alcool-comment-controler-sa-consommation-en-confinement_143447