Here's a prayer which could help to quit drinking.

It's been many years since I had a serious drinking problem, though after that I was on and off with drinking (and sometimes too much, and too regularly) for quite a while. I quit so many times that I figured I must have got really good at quitting, with all that experience of stopping drinking forever, so many times.

But in the end I did succeed completely — it's been about five years since I even had one sip of an alcoholic drink. And I pretty much never crave it now at all. I really believe that God took away my desire to drink, as in the end it wasn't a massive, unbearable struggle of will-power, pitting my own will against the "will of the bottle". Rather, it was God's all-powerful will which gave me this victory, and God gets the credit for it.

The main thing to remember is that if you do want to stop, it doesn't matter how many times you may have tried to stop before, and failed. Even cutting down significantly is a massive improvement. Though for myself, I find it easier to just not drink at all than to drink just a little.

The other way to say this main one thing to remember is to just keep trying to stop. If you're using prayer as part of your arsenal against whatever hold the "bottle" has over you, then keep praying. It may happen for you quickly, or it may take a long time for the prayer to really take hold and take effect in your life. But don't give up. It's never too late to stop trying to stop.

You could try praying the entire prayer as it is, or shorten it, or change parts as you like to suit your own life and situation. You can pray it any way you like, or how you think would help it work best. You can say it quietly to yourself, or as a whisper, or aloud in your speaking voice. You could be sitting in a chair, lying in bed looking at your phone, on a beach, or kneeling down on your knees. Perhaps you could experiment with different situations, positions, and locations to pray in. God can give you victory over anything if it's his will to do so, and it's the will of God that we become free from things like drunkenness. So put your trust in God, as much as you can muster, and try the humble but bold act of prayer:

The Prayer to Help Quit Drinking

Dear Lord Jesus,

Thank you so much for giving me faith in you. Even though my faith may not always be 100% rock solid, thank you for giving me enough faith to be praying this prayer to you right now. And to be able to imagine you hearing my prayer. Thank you for providing your Word in the Bible, so that I can learn your ways, and increase my faith, and grow closer to you by immersing myself and my life in you and your Word.

Thank you for your gift of forgiveness and of salvation (that is, for saving me), and of eternal life with you in heaven in the life to come after this one. Thank you for giving up your earthly life so that I may be forgiven, and blessed, and know that no matter what happens in this life, or what I do, I always have assurance of my salvation. And confidence that as a sincere follower of you I am saved, by my faith and repentance, and by your grace and forgiveness, from anything I have done, or may do.

I pray that you give me the power to turn away from excessive drinking of alcohol. To turn away from drunkenness. I pray that you take away my desire to drink, and replace it with thoughts of you, and thoughts of living in eternal happiness in heaven.

I also pray for the strength to resist any temptations to drink to excess (or at all, if that is what I believe is best for me). However even more than how I pray for the strength to resist, I pray that you take away all desire to drink, so that I will have nothing more to resist, but that I will be able to live freely and purely — a sober, pure, and healthy life — far removed from bygone days when I lived very differently to that.

I accept that drunkenness is a sin, and that I have sinned in the past, and that I hope to never again sin in this way. I repent of this sin, and ask your forgiveness, in the name and in the blood of Jesus Christ, my Lord and saviour. I know that, according to your true and holy word in the Bible, by believing in you, confessing, and repenting, I am forgiven of this sin. And free to put it behind me — in the past — and from now on live a clean and happy life, looking towards you my Lord, as my role model, and my hope in this life and in the much longer and more important life to come after this one.

I renounce and repent of the sin of drunkenness and of [insert any other sin(s) here which could be confessed here also]. I believe that through my faith and through the blood of Jesus Christ that I have been sanctified, made holy to God. Through God's grace I know I am fully and completely forgiven of these bygone sins which I now repent of, and I am justified, just as if I had never sinned. I am a new person in you, a new creation — a person who you made, and who you love dearly. Thank you Jesus for loving me.

Let me learn to think of ethyl alcohol as what it is, a poison. In days gone by, small amounts of it were added to drinking water to disinfect it, in a similar way to how we now add chlorine (another poison) to our drinking water. In modern times of clean, safe, disinfected drinking water (and many other types of liquid refreshments) there is no need for this disinfectant use of alcohol as there was in the days of the Bible. This means I am completely free to not drink alcohol at all, should I wish to not. It also means I am free to drink with a great deal of moderation, if I believe that is better for me. Though if I find it easier to not drink at all, then I am completely free, as of right now, to never have another sip of alcohol again.

Help to remind me that to deliberately ingest a poison, which will damage my body, is not a natural nor normal thing to do. And that any thoughts I may have adopted from worldly drinking culture which make drinking seem like a normal activity, do not come from you. The Bible says that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and I wish to look after it and keep it healthy and pure, so that I may stay closely connected to you all the days of my life.

Help to remind me that the craving for alcohol is created by drinking alcohol. Drinking does not take away the craving (other than for perhaps a very short time) — drinking is what created the craving in the first place, and keeping on drinking is what keeps the cravings from going away. Stopping drinking does not create cravings for alcohol — it takes the cravings away, sooner or later. Show me how the mind-trick of alcohol makes this appear to be completely backwards to how it really is, and makes me think that drinking will take away cravings for drinking. When the complete and total reverse of this is actually true. It is drinking that creates the cravings for drinking. Help me to realise this, and to patiently wait for any cravings to diminish, and to eventually go away completely — so that I may never have the desire again to become drunk on alcohol.

I call upon you, Jesus Christ, my Lord, to set me free from any hold or power drinking had (or has) over me, and every other power of darkness that has operated (or is still operating) in my life. I claim the supernatural authority of the blood of Jesus Christ to release me from this oppression. And to release me from any desires to return to the old ways of living in darkness, distanced from you, and apart from you and your love.

I thank you Jesus for your love, your sacrifice, your Word, and your forgiveness, all of which you have freely given me. I look forward to growing into my new way of life, becoming ever closer to you, and closer to an eternal life of happiness in heaven.

I pray these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

See also: How and Why I Quit Drinking