How to Drink Slower: 9 Habits That Actually Work

Your glass is empty again, and everyone else is barely half way down theirs. You weren't trying to race. You just drank it, the way you always do.

Speed is the quiet reason a planned “one or two” turns into four. A night lasts the same length however fast you drink, so the faster each drink goes, the more of them fit in. Slow down and you drink less, without counting drinks or skipping the night out. Here are nine habits that help, and the one that does most of the work: a timer that paces every sip, not every drink.

Safety first: if you drink heavily every day, talk to a doctor before you cut back or stop. Alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous.

Why you drink faster than you mean to

Fast drinking is rarely a decision. Most of it is habit and surroundings, and research shows how little it takes to change your pace:

• The glass. In one study, people took about 60% longer to finish a full glass of lager from a straight glass than from a curved one. Soft drinks showed no difference, only beer.
• The music. In a field experiment in French bars, young men finished their beer faster and ordered more when the music was turned up. One explanation the researchers gave: loud music means less talking, and less talking means more sipping.
• The people. In a bar lab study, people tended to take a sip shortly after the person they were drinking with took one. Sit with a fast drinker and you speed up without noticing.
• Your hands. A glass in your hand is a fidget. A pause in the conversation, a laugh, a glance at your phone, and it's at your lips again.

That's good news. If your pace is set by habit and surroundings, you can reset it with better habits and surroundings.

9 habits to drink slower

1. Decide your pace before the first drink

Choose how slowly you want to drink while you're still sober, not after the second round. The clear-headed you makes the call, and the later you just follows it. A good target is one drink lasting about an hour.

2. Let a timer keep the pace

Deciding a pace is easy. Keeping it for three hours is the hard part, because tracking time in your head is exactly the kind of monitoring that slips after a drink or two. So hand that job to a timer. Not one that tells you when you're allowed your next drink, but one that buzzes every few minutes for your next sip. This is the habit that makes the others stick, and the section below explains why the sip, not the drink, is the thing to time.

3. Put the glass down between sips

A glass in your hand drifts to your lips on its own. A glass on the table has to be picked up, and that small gap turns an automatic sip into a choice. Take a sip, put it down, and let go of it.

4. Give your hands a glass of water

If the glass is your fidget, give the fidget a different glass. Keep water or a soft drink alongside your drink and reach for that between sips. The NHS recommends alternating alcoholic drinks with water; it slows you down and keeps you hydrated.

5. Eat before and while you drink

Food slows how quickly alcohol is absorbed, and a plate in front of you gives your hands and your mouth something else to do. Order something to share, even if it's just a bowl of chips.

6. Choose a straight glass and a smaller pour

Given the choice, take the straight-sided glass over the curved one, and the small glass of wine over the large one. In the glass shape study, the straight glass slowed people down most when it was full, and a smaller pour also means less alcohol in every sip. Our guide to standard drinks shows how much is in each size.

7. Drink at your pace, not the table's

Rounds set the pace to the fastest drinker in the group, and the imitation research suggests you'll copy their sips too. Buy your own drinks when you can, and if you notice yourself lifting your glass every time someone else does, that's your cue to leave it on the table.

8. Pick the quieter corner

Loud bars speed people up, possibly because there's less talking and more sipping. Sit away from the speakers, or choose places where you can hear each other. More conversation means longer gaps between sips, without trying.

9. No top-ups: finish one before the next

A glass that keeps getting topped up from a shared bottle never empties, so you lose track of both your pace and your total. Turn down top-ups, and don't line up the next drink before this one is done. When the glass is empty, check in with your goal for the week before you decide on another.

Drink timers and drink pacers: time the sip

If you've searched for a drink timer or a drink pacer app, you've probably found tools built on the classic drink pacing advice: one drink an hour. You log a drink, a countdown starts, and the app tells you when the next one is due.

That's a good rule, but a drink timer only paces how often you order. It does nothing while you're actually drinking. A drink can still disappear in ten minutes, and then you spend the next fifty holding an empty glass, watching a countdown and fending off “another round?” from everyone at the table. The waiting runs on willpower, and willpower is the first thing alcohol wears down. Our comparison of drink pacing vs sip pacing goes through where the one-drink-an-hour rule breaks down.

The fix is to move the timer down a level, from the drink to the sip. That's the Sip Pacing method:

1. Set a sip interval, say 5 minutes, and put your phone in your pocket.
2. It buzzes every 5 minutes.
3. Take one sip on every buzz. Between buzzes, the glass stays down.

A drink is roughly 10 sips, so at one sip every 5 minutes your drink lasts about 50 minutes, close to the one-drink-an-hour pace a drink timer aims for. The difference is how you get there. There's no countdown to wait out and nothing to resist: you just follow the buzz, and there's always a drink in front of you, so nobody offers you another.

The two don't have to compete. If you like a rule for how many drinks fit in an hour, keep it; a sip pacer makes it much easier to hold. And if you want to try it, our guide on how to start sip pacing compares the timers you can use, from HIIT timers to a dedicated sip pacer, and walks through your first paced night.

How slow is slow enough?

Your body processes alcohol at a roughly steady rate, often described as about one standard drink per hour, and no amount of water or coffee speeds it up. Drinking faster than that lets alcohol build up in your blood, and the NIAAA warns that drinking too much too quickly impairs judgement, coordination and impulse control. Those are exactly what you need to stick to a plan.

So one drink an hour is a sensible ceiling, and for most people a sip every 5 or 6 minutes gets there. If that feels too slow at first, start at 3 minutes and stretch the gap as it gets easier: 3 becomes 5, then 8, then 10. The night stays the same length, so each step means fewer drinks, without a single dramatic decision.

When drinking slower isn't enough

Drinking slower works best as one part of a plan. Whether you're cutting back to a lower limit or stepping down to zero, a clear weekly goal is what steers it, and slower nights make that goal easier to hit. Our guide on how to cut back on drinking lays out the full route, and when the urge to speed up hits mid-pause, these ways to deal with cravings can help you ride it out.

Pacing is a tool for drinking less, not a way to make drinking safe, and it isn't enough on its own if you can't stop once you start, or you get shaky, sweaty or anxious when you don't drink. Those can be signs of alcohol withdrawal. Talk to a doctor, or reach out to a free helpline: in the US, the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 (24/7); in the UK, Drinkline on 0300 123 1110; in Australia, the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

How Pour Decision helps

Pour Decision is an iPhone app for people who want to drink less or stop, and its Sip Pacer is the drink pacer this guide has been describing: it times your sips, not your drinks.

• Pick a pace and hit start. Choose any interval from 1 to 30 minutes, or tap a preset (2, 5, 10 or 15 minutes). If you made a plan, your pace is already set: the app works out how long your body takes to process one of your usual drinks and spreads your sips across that time.
• Phone in your pocket, even with the app closed. The Sip Pacer schedules a notification for every interval, so the buzzes keep coming with the screen off and barely touch your battery. Pick a sound or vibration only, and with an Apple Watch you'll feel a tap on your wrist.
• One sip every buzz. The screen shows a countdown to your next sip and how many sips you've taken.

The pacer sits alongside everything else you need to reach your goal: your own daily and weekly limits or a personal plan with weekly goals that step down to zero, drink tracking in your country's units, a sober clock, an “I'm about to relapse” button for cravings, and a blood alcohol estimate. Your data stays on your phone, with no account and no ads.

Download it for free, and let the buzz set the pace on your next night out. Pacing makes drinking slower, not safe: never drive after drinking, however slowly you drank.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Attwood et al. (2012): Glass shape influences consumption rate for alcoholic beverages, PLoS ONE
• Guéguen et al. (2008): Sound level of environmental music and drinking behavior, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research
• Larsen et al. (2010): Peer influence in a micro-perspective: imitation of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, Addictive Behaviors
• NHS: Tips on cutting down alcohol
• NIAAA: Understanding the Dangers of Alcohol Overdose
• SAMHSA National Helpline