How can you safely detox from alcohol at home?
Quitting cold-turkey is dangerous at home by yourself. You should NOT stop drinking cold turkey at home if you can avoid it. Rather, stop drinking by slowly reducing your daily intake of alcohol.
Again, you should NOT stop drinking cold turkey at home if you can avoid it. Use the herbs to quit drinking and the strategies that we’ve talked about to slowly stop drinking in a stepwise fashion. When you’re consuming less than 10 units of alcohol per day, you can then quit drinking “cold-turkey”.
There are certain emergency situations that you need to be aware of during your alcohol detox at home. You may need support during an emergency and you need to tell the people that you live with to call an ambulance if any of the following situations occur:
- You have a seizure
- You become disoriented or confused
- You become unsteady when walking or moving
- You develop double vision
- You experience hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there)
If you have experienced seizures or hallucinations when you stopped drinking in the past, be sure to work with a health practitioner to guide you through the process of an alcohol detox at home.
Nutrient Supplementation and Diet Changes Before Detox
It’s hard to take care of yourself properly when you’re not sober. It can be incredibly helpful to have someone else watch over you as you step down your daily drinking during the initial stages of alcoholism recovery. Realistically though, if you live alone and you don’t have the funds to overcome alcohol addiction at a rehab facility, it is still possible to safely get through withdrawals and detox as long as you can remind yourself to take nutrient supplements and get good, healthy food to eat that will prevent some of the issues that develop when people step down on their alcohol intake too quickly.Insulin Resistance, Diabetic Seizures, and Alcohol Detox at Home
Alcohol addiction is typically caused by a trauma that causes the Cell Danger Response (according to Dr. Robert Naviaux), a form of Resignation Syndrome, or soul loss (according to shamanic medicine). We might look at soul loss as a loss of vital energy. This vital energy goes somewhere and continues to exist even while it isn’t inside our bodies. When the energy goes, some of our cells go dormant and we experience extremely unpleasant emotional states that are related to the original traumatic event.Cell dormancy and insulin resistance are related. One of the goals of at-home treatment for alcohol addiction is to bring the cells back to life such that they are no longer insulin resistant. Alcohol in low doses behaves a lot like insulin in the body to help cells receive essential nutrients. If you stop drinking too quickly or if you drop your daily dose of alcohol too precipitously, your body may not receive enough nutrients without the alcohol present to open cells. Your cells will need to learn to work with the herbs with the support of nutrients like the B complex vitamins rather than using alcohol to receive their nutrition.
If you stop drinking cold turkey, you can have a seizure because people with alcohol addiction are using alcohol to usher nutrients into their cells. Without adequate alcohol or something to replace the insulin activity of alcohol such a kudzu / Pueraria lobata and bitter melon / Momordica charantia, you may experience negative effects like seizures as you step down your drinking.
We recommend that you make a plan to begin nutrient supplementation before you begin to step down your drinking. However, kudzu / Pueraria lobata has a reputation for lowering how much people are drinking by 20-30% naturally. In other words, even people who aren’t trying to stop drinking will drink 20-30% less than they normally would when they take 2000 mg of kudzu a couple of hours before they begin drinking. So kudzu can help you step down your drinking naturally without having to exert a lot of effort and at the same time, this herb, in combination with the B vitamins, magnesium, multi-vitamin, and amino acids that we recommend can make sure that your cells receive the nutrients necessary to prevent seizures and other negative events that can occur when a person is trying to stop drinking outside of rehab.
Alcohol Addiction Demystified: The Science of Alcohol Addiction and How to Overcome It At Home - BUY HERE!Prevent Disorientation, Confusion, and Hallucinations During Alcohol Detox at Home
What’s really going on when an alcoholic is going through the withdrawal and detox process? The answer to this question really depends on the supportive treatments being used to help that person through the process.Physiologically, when a person who’s addicted to alcohol stops drinking cold-turkey, cells that depend normally on alcohol to bring nutrients into the cell, much the way insulin normally functions in the body, will close up and go dormant. These cells are “insulin-resistant” and they resist efforts by insulin to open the cell and bring nutrients into the cell through the cellular membrane.
Alcohol acts like insulin in the body at very low doses. This is why herbal remedies are often made in an alcohol tincture. Alcohol in very low doses can behave like a medicine. For someone suffering with alcohol addiction though, the need to open cells that are going dormant and refusing to take in nutrients is high. These people need something healthy and natural to replace the alcohol in the body and encourage cells to open up and receive the nutrients they need in order to function properly.
The cellular resistance to insulin occurs as a result of some traumatic event or even as a result of a biological trauma. In order to release this trauma, be it biological or emotional, the person who’s addicted to alcohol will need to support cells that tend to go dormant using herbs like kudzu / Pueraria lobata.
As cells begin to “open” and become alive and responsive to insulin and to the external world, the person with alcohol addiction will begin to embody their trauma if that person is not working to release their trauma actively using trauma-informed / somatic therapies or sacred indigenous medicines like Ayahuasca, psilocybin, San Pedro, or others. Talk therapy does not generally work to release trauma as trauma is something that’s encoded into the body, specifically the autonomic nervous system. As the body becomes healthier and as cells become less resistant to insulin, past traumas are embodied as the body literally readies to release them permanently. But it’s vital that people suffering from alcohol addiction seek out trauma-informed / somatic therapy for addiction and work with the sacred medicines to avoid hallucinations, confusion, and disorientation during detox and withdrawals.
What is the embodiment of trauma?
Dr. Richard Schwartz developed a model of the human psyche that acknowledges that everyone, including very healthy and mentally stable people, have sub-personalities or “parts”. This may sound familiar to readers who know something about Dissociative Identity Disorder / DID, also known previously as Multiple Personality Disorder.In DID, patients embody different sub-personalities that exist as a result of trauma. Each sub-personality in a DID system develops to cope with something as a separate and distinct personality that can embody the flesh and bones of the person with the disorder. DID sufferers may experience amnesia when they switch from one personality to another. This amnesia occurs because some sub-personalities (which may also be referred to as “parts” or even “soul parts”) are more dissociated from the Core Personality than others. Some parts of us are angry with other parts of us. This is true for people with alcohol addiction as well as people without any type of addiction or formal mental illness. Dissociation from situations and emotionally challenging situations helps us survive in the modern industrialized world.
In some situations, a person will send away or experience a dissociation of a large part of their energy field in response to high stress or trauma. When a dissociation like this occurs, what’s left behind is low-energy levels and a resistance to the embodiment of the original part / sub-personality that experienced the brunt of the trauma.
A person with an alcohol addiction is insulin resistant. This person experiences a “lift” when they drink alcohol because low doses of alcohol “open” cells back up. This “opening” might be conceptualized as an emotional-type of opening to receiving energy from parts / sub-personalities of this person with an alcohol addiction. So when the person begins drinking alcohol, they experience a “lift” in energy levels as cells that were previously dormant, come back to life. But as the drinking continues, the person with the addiction begins to embody sub-personalities that are younger than their biological age that have been, in many cases, severely traumatized.
In order to prevent hallucinations, confusion, and disorientation, the person with the addiction must actively seek out ways to release trauma from the past as a part of their treatment or else traumatic emotions will rise to the surface of consciousness. These emotions are not connected to a memory or a narrative event so they are experienced as disorienting and confusing and the emotional content of these traumatic memories may also cause hallucinations (hearing and seeing things that other people cannot hear or see).
Natural At-Home Alcohol Detox Treatments
There are many at-home alcohol detox treatments that can be used to significantly lessen uncomfortable detoxification symptoms at home. Below we talk about some of the most important detoxification treatments that will help your body clear toxins, heal the liver and kidneys, and provide clarity of thinking by removing excess toxins from the nervous system.N-Acetyl-Cysteine / NAC
N-Acetyl-Cysteine / NAC is a nutrient precursor to glutathione, one of the most important substances in the human body that removes toxins safely without harming the organs. NAC is an extremely versatile medicine that can be used in a number of different health-related situations, but in all cases, it works by promoting the production of glutathione and by increasing the fluidity of mucus.Mucus is a sticky substance that captures pathogens before they can cause infection. Mucus also carries toxins from deep inside the body to external orifices. NAC helps improve the ability of mucus to carry toxins out of the body and it simultaneously increases the production of glutathione which binds to toxins in the body to make the toxins inert as they’re traveling out the body via the bloodstream.
NAC has a mind-clearing effect on those who are working to overcome addictions. It reduces cravings and nagging thoughts associated with addictions and should be administered at a dose of 3000 mg per day (1000 mg up to 3 times daily).
NAD+ for At-Home Alcohol Detox
NAD+ is a supplement that can be administered either as an IV drip at a boutique spa or as a nasal spray administered twice daily. NAD+ is a supplement that binds to opioid receptors to control pain. NAD+ is not an opioid, however, and it is not addictive. Many people feel rejuvenated and revitalized after a few days of NAD+ supplementation or IV drips.
NAD+ is extremely beneficial as an at-home treatment for alcohol withdrawals and for opioid withdrawals and nicotine withdrawals too. Below are some of the health benefits that you can expect from supplementation with NAD+:
- Reduce alcohol withdrawals naturally
- Improve cognitive functioning
- Restore cell function throughout the body
- Improve metabolic function throughout the body
- Improve mood
- Improve energy levels
- Reduce cravings for alcohol and other addictive substances
There are no adverse effects associated with NAD+.
Molecular Hydrogen for At-Home Alcohol Detox
Molecular hydrogen is another treatment for alcohol detox at home. Molecular hydrogen can be generated using a molecular hydrogen machine that will produce water that looks and tastes exactly like regular water except it will have a higher concentration of molecular hydrogen in it. Molecular hydrogen is a powerful antioxidant that has the ability to heal broken hydrogen bonds in DNA. As such, it is a valuable remedy to heal the liver and the entire body.Trace Minerals for At-Home Alcohol Detox
Studies have shown that trace minerals / electrolyte levels are seriously disrupted as a result of alcoholism. Trace minerals / electrolytes play a vital role in the electrical conductivity of our cells and tissues. Without electrical energy (read: electrons or electrolytes), our cells lack the energy they need to heal themselves, communicate with other cells to coordinate metabolic activity in the body, and release waste products. Administer trace minerals (also known as electrolytes) by switching from regular table salt to Himalayan sea salt.
Do NOT drink commercial soft drinks that contain electrolytes because some of these products contain addictive substances like BVOs that can cause alcohol addiction relapse . A number of soft drinks that contain electrolytes also contain a lot of bromide / bromine, a nerve agent that disrupts thyroid gland and reproductive organ function. Click here to learn more about bromine / bromide.
Removing regular table salt and replacing it with Himalayan sea salt in the diet will have remarkable results on your health over the course of time. Consider doing salt loading or salt flushing if you’ve been exposed to a lot of bromine / bromide or if you feel lethargic and exhausted throughout the day.
Also consider supplementing with Shilajit, another substance that comes from the Himalayan mountains. Shilajit contains a wide array of trace minerals. It was discovered by people working in the mountains who observed robust and healthy monkeys eating the substance.
How to Detox Your Body from Alcohol at Home: Liver Cleansing
Cleansing the liver will do wonders for your mood as a recovering alcoholic. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the liver is where anger gets stored in the body, so as you cleanse the liver, you make it easier for your body (and your mind) to release anger. Note that the liver and the gallbladder both produce and can release gallstones. Indeed, releasing these “stones” naturally using coffee enemas and the Hulda Clark gallbladder and liver cleanse might be regarded, in some respects like releasing “bones” to pick with other people as well as “stones or fossils” from familial dysfunction.Both coffee enemas and the Hulda Clark gallbladder cleanse can be used to release gallstones from the liver and the gallbladder naturally (without surgery!) which makes it much easier for these organs to repair themselves and become healthy again. Coffee enemas also help the liver produce glutathione, the primary detoxifying substance made by our bodies to remove toxic substances like the metabolic byproducts of alcohol at a minimum.
Arctium lappa / Burdock Root: Herbal Detoxifier for the Liver
Arctium lappa, also known as burdock root, is a powerful herbal detoxifying herb that also has anti-diabetic, insulin sensitivity-promoting effects. Burdock root is an ideal herbal detoxifier for alcohol addiction recovery because it also has other important medicinal properties including:- High nutritional content
- Powerful toxin removal
- Protects the liver from toxins and oxidative stress
- Improves blood sugar levels
- Gets rid of chronic pain
- Prevents dementia symptoms
- More…
Administer burdock root either as a decoction for alcohol addiction. A decoction is a tea that’s made by putting the herb into the water to be simmered on low heat for 12-20 minutes before drinking it. To make an herbal decoction with burdock root, put ¼ of a cup of Arctium lappa in 2 cups of water in a pot on the stove. Consider adding ⅛ of a teaspoon licorice root / Glycyrrhiza glabra to this mixture for inflammation-reducing effects and also to enhance the medicinal effects of the burdock root.
After bringing the decoction to a boil, reduce the heat to simmer for 20 minutes. Drink the tea slowly throughout the day for at least 20 days during the initial phases of your alcoholism recovery process.
Alcohol Detox at Home Timeline
Everyone wants to know, how long will it take to detox from alcohol at home? The answer to this question depends on how much you drink each day when you begin the alcohol detoxification process and how quickly you can safely and easily step down to drinking nothing per day. It’s best to go through the process of an at-home alcohol detox slowly and successfully get through the steps without having an emergency health issue arise than experience a roadblock that creates discouragement. Take your time and use the herbs and supplements to stop drinking naturally and recover your health at the same time.Resources:
• Baj, J. et al. (2022). Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium, Sodium, Phosphorus, Selenium, Zinc, and Chromium Levels in Alcohol Use Disorder: A Review. Retrieved February 2, 2024 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7357092/
• Adzavon, Y. M. et al. (2022). Long term and daily use of molecular hydrogen induces reprogramming of liver metabolism in rats by modulating NADP/NADPH redox pathways. Retrieved February 2, 2024 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-07710-6
• Lawn, W. et al. (2017). Well-being, problematic alcohol consumption and acute subjective drug effects in past-year ayahuasca users: a large, international, self-selecting online survey. Retrieved February 2, 2025 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14700-6
• Rootman, J. M. et al. (2021). Adults who microdose psychedelics report health related motivations and lower levels of anxiety and depression compared to non-microdosers. Retrieved February 2, 2025 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01811-4
• Lu, K. H. et al. (2014). Wild bitter gourd protects against alcoholic fatty liver in mice by attenuating oxidative stress and inflammatory responses. Retrieved June 10, 2025 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24664243/
• Shyam, M. and Sabina, E. P. (2024). Harnessing the power of Arctium lappa rot: a review of its pharmacological properties and therapeutic applications. Retrieved June 10, 2025 from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13659-024-00466-8
