When you have an addiction to alcohol, it may seem impossible to stop drinking because it is so readily available, and so socially acceptable. When someone wants to quit drinking, going to rehab can be a great option to consider, however, it can be difficult to do if you have responsibilities such as work or a family. If you have tried to quit drinking and failed, you may want to consider voluntarily wearing an ankle monitor to make quitting a bit easier. The following guide walks you through a few reasons why wearing an ankle monitor can be so helpful when trying to get sober from alcohol addiction.
Ankle Monitoring Creates Accountability
Wearing an ankle monitor can help to keep you accountable. When you go to 12-step meetings, you often work with a sponsor. A sponsor is someone who helps you when you go through hard times, such as being tempted to drink or feelings of depression or loneliness. When you stop drinking, it can be difficult to hang out with your old crowd of friends because they more than likely still enjoy drinking and you need to avoid being around alcohol altogether. Being secluded from people can lead to feelings of loneliness, sadness, and depression.
The ankle monitor allows you to track how long you have gone without drinking, which can be a great motivator to continue with your journey of sobriety. It also provides you with the opportunity to work with your sponsor to have added accountability. You can provide them with access to the report that the ankle monitoring company creates for you. Knowing that someone else will be able to tell if you are drinking or not helps to keep you accountable and can often deter you from giving in to the temptation to drink.
Ankle Monitoring is an Investment in Time
In order to have proper ankle monitoring, the information that is saved on the device needs to be loaded online. You need to connect the device to a computer so that it can be downloaded and sent over to the appropriate company. If you don’t have internet readily available to you, you will have to go somewhere that you can gain internet access to download the information. This can cut into your day and serve as a huge time investment. Once you spend enough time on the monitor, you will not want to ruin everything by drinking.
Ankle Monitoring Allows You to Prove You Are Sober
There are many alcoholics who want to be able to stop drinking but have a really hard time convincing their loved ones that they have made changes to better themselves. Many people assume that once someone is an alcoholic, they will always be an alcoholic. They don’t understand that it is possible for someone to stop drinking for good if they really want to and have the right support. By having the alcohol monitor put on, you will be able to prove to others that you have quit drinking. You can have a report printed out that shows you haven’t had anything to drink, how long you have been sober and what the levels of alcohol are in your system at all times.
It Can Ease Peer Pressure
When people see an ankle monitor on someone, they often assume that it is court ordered. This can make it easier to convince people that you aren’t going to drink because they think that you could be held accountable legally if you did. Being able to avoid the temptation of alcohol can be difficult, especially if you have friends and family trying to push you to have “just one drink.” For an alcoholic, there is never just one drink. One drink often leads to two, which leads to five, which then leads to full-blown intoxication. Having others assume that you legally can’t drink diminishes the likelihood of them trying to encourage you to drink.
Wearing it Can Make Your Addiction More Obvious to You
Alcoholics often minimize their drinking. They assume that they aren’t actually drinking as much or as often as they really are. Wearing an ankle monitor can open your eyes to your addiction and help you to realize just how addicted you are to alcohol. If you do stumble along the way, you can use the report to look back and see exactly when you drank. This allows you to narrow down the situations you were in and determine what could have triggered you to drink. You can then use that information to avoid the same trigger again in the future.
Ankle Monitoring Puts the Ball in Your Court
By voluntarily wearing an ankle monitor, you can show that you want to take control of your life. If you are facing legal issues in the near future, wearing an ankle monitor voluntarily shows a judge that you know that you have a problem you need help with and want to make changes to better your life. The judge may decide that he or she wants you to have the information monitored by the court system so that they can be certain you stay clean. This helps to keep you accountable and may decrease the severity of the punishment the judge assigns because they know that your drinking will be monitored by the device.
You can choose how long you want to wear the ankle monitor for, but many companies require you to sign a contract agreeing to the services that they offer for a specific amount of time. The duration can be for six months, a year or even two years, so be sure that this is the option that you feel is best for you before signing any contracts.
