For those who are dependent on alcohol, quitting can be an extremely stressful and difficult time. Withdrawal symptoms, peer pressure, boredom and more can make it sometimes feel like it's simply easier to drink again.

Despite this, it is possible to overcome alcohol addiction, and it will be the best thing you ever did.

From improved health and finances to a newfound appreciation for life, the benefits of quitting alcohol are numerous.

In the hopes of making your journey to recovery a little easier, we've put together the following tips on how to detox at home.

Let's jump straight in:

Get Medication

Whereas there are no medications for alcohol withdrawal or to reduce your addiction, there are certainly ones that can make quitting alcohol a lot easier. When we quit alcohol, our central nervous system gets overstimulated, leading to withdrawal symptoms such as:

●Agitation/aggression

●Constant sweating

●Anxiety

●The shakes

●Insomnia

●In worse cases, even seizures

Medications such as benzodiazepines and sedatives can help you relax, reduce all of these symptoms, and ensure you get a healthy night's sleep.

This will make a huge difference, make you feel better on a daily basis and make your journey to recovery as manageable as it can be.

If you attend a rehab clinic, you will be given such medications as a matter of course, but if you're recovering at home you can still access them through a home detox programme or your GP.

Admit You Have a Problem

If you are trying to quit alcohol in silence while acting as if everything is fine to people around you, it's a lot more likely you'll simply give up and start drinking again, because you have the freedom to do this without other people checking in on your progress.

Telling people about your problem will not only make the issue real in your own head and make you less likely to give up because you want to avoid embarrassment, but it will also:

●Encourage them to support you and help in any way they can

●Prevent people from inviting you to drink or acting in ways that can hurt your progress

●Potentially make other people who have experienced drinking problems open up to you in ways they wouldn't have previously

●Tell you who your real friends are (if somebody keeps asking you to drink when they know you're trying to stop, they aren't a friend!)

Eat Healthy Foods and Exercise

This may be the last thing you want to think about when you're already feeling sweaty, nauseous and uncomfortable, but when you quit alcohol, your body goes through a lot of stress and imbalances.

Eating good, nutritious meals instead of the lazy, greasy fast foods you feel like eating will go a long way towards speeding up your recovery.

At the same time, long term drinking damages your vitamin stores and causes deficiencies, so it's a good idea to nourish yourself with a varied, healthy diet full of antioxidants and vitamins to help with the detoxing process.

Even better, regular exercise will keep you distracted, prevent you from getting bored, and give you a way to measure your recovery and progress, all of which will help in reducing cravings and your chances of relapse.

Don't Be Afraid to Get Help

By following the above steps, working hard, and ensuring you don't get distracted from your end goal, it is completely possible for you to detox yourself and overcome alcohol addiction alone.

With that said, sometimes people have too much temptation, or have simply been drinking for too long to truly manage this themselves, and need a little further support to reliably get their lives back under control.

This shouldn't put you off trying, as there are brilliant, low cost and effective rehab clinics around that provide all sorts of services such as cognitive behavioural therapy, medications and more in order to make it easier than ever to stop drinking.

The best ones even offer a home detox programme so that you can have all of the same benefits of attending a rehab, without the financial cost, or having to spend time away from the comfort of your own home.

No matter which route you go, the most important thing to remember is that alcohol addiction is a disease not a choice. You have nothing to be ashamed of in admitting your issue, and there is certainly no shame in asking for help.

You may just find, it's what you needed all along.