How To Track Your Progress When Quitting Alcohol

Mark sat at his kitchen table, staring at the calendar. It had been three months since he decided to quit drinking. While he felt different, he couldn’t pinpoint how far he had come. The nights spent overcoming alcohol cravings, the social events he braved without a drink in hand — all seemed to blur together. Without concrete milestones, he struggled to see his progress. If Mark had known of a way to track his progress, he’d have been able to see the tangible results of his efforts and celebrate his victories, no matter how small.

By setting clear markers and celebrating each step, we can find the motivation and encouragement to continue moving forward toward a healthier, alcohol-free life. Let’s explore practical methods to help us define our “why” as we recognize and measure our progress on this transformative journey.

Before Tracking: Setting Clear Goals

Before we can track our progress, we’ll need to know what we’re tracking. We can do this by setting clear goals. To kick us off, let’s identify why we’re quitting alcohol. This will give us clear direction on what we’re working toward and help us develop our short-term goals. While there are numerous benefits to quitting or cutting back on alcohol, identifying personal reasons focuses our journey. Our reasons can be anything — fostering better health, improving our relationship with loved ones, saving money on alcohol and putting it towards buying a house. These personal motivators help us shape actionable goals. 

Once we establish short- and long-term goals, we can set daily and weekly milestones, as well as monthly and yearly objectives. Setting smaller objectives helps us not feel overwhelmed by the end goal and promotes a more successful and sustainable journey to quitting alcohol. 

If you’re stuck on where to begin, use the SMART goal template to ensure your goals are clear and become the building blocks for your journey to an alcohol-free lifestyle. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. These criteria set up a successful framework for the things we want to achieve. And remember, our goals can always be adjusted and modified, so there’s no pressure to “get it right” or be perfect. Now that we have direction in our journey, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how we can track our progress in recovery.

Different Tracking Methods


As with most things in life, some options might work better for us than others. Tracking our progress is no different. Let’s explore three different ways we can document our progress.

• Journaling. We often think of journaling as a mindfulness practice or a way to express our thoughts and feelings, but it can also be a great way to see how far we’ve come by documenting our physical and emotional well-being during every step of our journey. Daily entries and reflections give us a more detailed account of how we’re feeling in the moment, which can also help us identify triggers and develop coping mechanisms.
• Digital tools and apps. Digital tools and apps can be game changers. On the go, we can have everything with us, including drink trackers, reminders of our milestones, journal entries for the waves of recovery emotions, and a toolkit of coping mechanisms. There are plenty to choose from. Check out “12 Best Apps to Help You Quit Drinking.”
• Physical trackers. Some of us like good old pen and paper. Hanging a calendar or planner on the wall can serve as a visual reminder of our goals; put it in a convenient location so we can track our progress. In addition to generic calendars and planners, there are more motivational, individualized tools for developing positive habits, such as progress maps and habit-tracking charts.


So, what should we be tracking and journaling about once we have our tools in hand? When we’re quitting alcohol, there’s so much we can measure to help us navigate this journey!

What Should You Track?

Determining what to track is the next step in ensuring we have a clear and measurable path to quitting alcohol. Let’s identify five key metrics.

1. Alcohol Consumption

Tracking the number of standard drinks we have helps us reach our goal to quit or cut back. Especially if we’re not quitting alcohol cold turkey, it’s helpful to create goals for how much we’ll cut back, then track the number of drinks we’re having (rather than guesstimating) to hold ourselves accountable. This way we can look back and see the work we’ve put in. Quitting alcohol may seem challenging at first, but seeing that we’re able to cut back steadily week after week can encourage us to keep going. 

Aside from the number of drinks, it’s also important to make note of the events and our emotions before, during, and after drinking to give us a clear picture of our drinking habits and triggers. 

2. Physical Health Improvements

Our physical health is also a useful marker of our progress since quitting or cutting back on alcohol is undoubtedly beneficial to our health. While we often evaluate our physical health by how we feel, having actual measures helps us better identify and celebrate our achievements.

Getting regular medical check-ups is not only beneficial for general preventative care, but they also give us an idea of how quitting alcohol is improving our physical health. Markers such as blood tests, liver function, weight, blood pressure, and heart rate can be tangible health measurements. 

To track physical progress, we can measure markers of our overall fitness and wellness, including endurance, strength, and sleep quality. Lastly, nutritional assessments such as vitamin and nutrient intake and hydration levels can be helpful to track as they contribute to good overall health.

3. Mental and Emotional Health 

Mental well-being is difficult to measure intuitively, making it hard to  see the progress we’ve made. Some measures to track are our mental and emotional health. We can practice stress management skills, develop a daily journal habit, attend therapy sessions, and participate in peer support groups. 

We can also identify improvements in our mental health by documenting our emotions and tracking our mood fluctuations. When we document mood swings and our overall mood before, during, and after quitting or cutting back, we can get a relatively objective measurement of how our mental health has been improving over time.

4. Social and Relationship Progress 

Quitting alcohol also has many social benefits. Identifying them may require reflection on our personal relationships and open conversations with our loved ones. These steps help us evaluate where we are with alcohol, identify what we want to work on, and evaluate our relationships with others and ourselves.

We can use key markers of authentic connections such as trust, communication, vulnerability, respect, and validation to help us rebuild and create new connections and set boundaries when needed. 

We also can look out for other indicators of positive social health, such as participating in events, developing hobbies and interests, and getting involved in our community. During recovery, we tend to isolate ourselves or avoid social events because they might be triggers. Connecting with others can be an indicator of improvements in our social well-being. 

5. Budgeting and Finances 

Alcohol can wreak havoc on our finances. After quitting, it may take some time to develop better financial management or spending habits, but luckily, financial progress is something that we can see easily. 

We can track our financial progress by calculating our savings from not spending on alcohol or alcohol-related expenses. We can also track our spending habits to help us better manage our finances and invest in other items and activities that provide us with a more fulfilling life. 

We’ve talked a lot about progress — how to track it, what to track it on, and what to measure. But what happens if we have setbacks?

Dealing With Setbacks 

Setbacks can occur when we’re working toward any goal. In recovery, setbacks, also known as relapses, are common. That’s because alcohol overconsumption can lead to neurological dependence, meaning it changes the way our brain systems work so we want to keep coming back for more. When we remove such a significant disruptor from our life, it takes time, repetition, and relearning for us to get used to not having it. 

It’s important to remember that setbacks don’t mean failure, and they don’t undo the progress that we’ve made. In fact, they help us learn more about our triggers and coping mechanisms that may or may not work for us. They also help us adjust our goals and strategies so  instead of a setback, we can think of it as redirection that strengthens our journey to an alcohol-free life. 

A key to overcoming relapse in recovery is to stay motivated, and tracking our progress helps with that. Bu tracking our progress, we can celebrate victories (no matter how small), keep a positive mindset, and visualize long-term success through these small steps. 

Beyond Tracking: Long-Term Maintenance 

We may not need to track every aspect of our life over the long term, but setting goals and tracking progress are beneficial steps. Several practices have proved successful in maintaining progress.

• Continuing education and self-improvement. Aside from tracking our progress, we can continue to improve our health and work toward an alcohol-free life by learning more about alcohol and strategies to improve our life. Reading, attending workshops, and listening to reputable podcasts can be great ways to learn more.
• Staying connected with support networks. Research shows that social support during recovery has many benefits. We can stay connected through mutual interests, attending support group meetings, and fostering open and honest communication. 
• Setting new goals and challenges. Our goals don’t have to be just recovery-related. We can pursue new hobbies and interests and take on personal and professional challenges. Try a new yoga class for a different form of movement or work on saving up a certain amount of money to spend on something you’ve been wanting. 
• Building a life outside of alcohol and recovery. While working toward a healthier life without alcohol, we can sometimes get stuck in all things recovery. To prevent this, it’s important to find a balanced lifestyle that focuses on both recovery and other aspects of our life.

Tracking our progress has tremendous benefits. It helps us set more intentional objectives to reach our goals and stay motivated on our journey. There’s no “right” way to do it, so find what works best for you!

The Road Ahead

As we navigate the transformative journey of quitting alcohol, tracking our progress is more than just a method — it’s a powerful ally. By setting clear goals, exploring tracking methods that work for us, celebrating each milestone, and reflecting on our achievements, we’re building a new narrative of resilience and self-discovery. Every step we track is a testament to our determination and a reminder of the strength we have to reach our goal of an alcohol-free lifestyle. So, here’s to embracing each day with the knowledge that we’re moving towards a healthier, brighter future, one tracked step at a time!