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Alcohol Taper Planner

A day-by-day schedule for cutting down — but only after a risk check, because for some drinkers the safe plan is not a schedule at all.

Under a doctor's care: tell a clinician you are cutting down before you start. A taper a doctor knows about is safer than a taper alone, and medically supervised detox is safer still. Nothing on this page is a prescription.
Step 1 of 2 · the safety check

Five questions before any schedule

These are the same questions, scored the same way, as the withdrawal risk checker. The factors that make withdrawal severe are the factors that make an unsupervised taper dangerous, so the planner asks them first and stops if the answers say stop.

Your answers are never saved — not to a server, not to this browser. Only a schedule you generate is kept, and only on this device.

5
Light (1-4) Moderate (5-8) Heavy (9-14) Severe (15-20+)

One standard drink is 12 oz of regular beer, 5 oz of wine or 1.5 oz of spirits. Not sure what your usual works out to? Count it here first.

How long have you been drinking regularly?
Prior withdrawal experience
A withdrawal seizure or delirium tremens in your history is the single strongest signal that stopping or cutting down on your own is dangerous. This planner will not write you a schedule.
Existing health conditions
When was your last drink?

Answer the last question to continue.

Lower risk band

Step 2 of 2 · the schedule

Your day-by-day plan

How fast to come down
Day Drinks that day Note

Saved on this device only: the shape you chose, your daily number and the start date. Your risk answers were never written down anywhere. Clear your browser data and the plan is gone.

While the numbers come down

Eat something at every one of those days, and drink water or an electrolyte drink through the day. HAMS's guide is direct about this: fighting dehydration and replacing lost vitamins is part of the taper, not an optional extra.

The number on each row is a total for the whole day, not a single sitting. Spread it out.

If the day's number leaves you shakier, sweatier or more anxious than the day before, the schedule is moving faster than your body can follow. That is the moment to call a doctor — not to push through, and not to quietly go back up.

A craving in the gap between drinks is normal and it passes. The craving timer is built for that quarter of an hour. When the schedule reaches zero, the withdrawal timeline maps what the following week tends to look like.

Stop the taper and get medical help

A taper is not something to see through at any cost. These are the signs that it is the wrong tool for your body.

Call 911 — emergency

  • A seizure or convulsion of any kind
  • Seeing, hearing or feeling things that are not there
  • Severe confusion, or not knowing where you are
  • A fever above 100.4°F (38°C)
  • A racing or irregular heartbeat, or chest pain
  • Repeated vomiting, or shaking too badly to hold a glass

Call a doctor today — the taper is too fast

  • Heavy sweating, or a tremor that is getting worse
  • A resting pulse over 100
  • Sleep that has stopped happening at all
  • Anxiety climbing day on day rather than settling
  • Nausea that will not let you eat

SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357 — free, confidential, 24/7.

How this is calculated

Nothing is planned until the risk questions are answered, and a higher-risk answer stops the planner rather than slowing it down. The questions and thresholds are the same five the withdrawal risk checker uses — drinks per day, how long the drinking has been regular, what past withdrawals were like including any seizure or delirium tremens, existing health conditions and medications, and time since the last drink — because the factors that make a taper unsafe are the factors that make withdrawal severe. Neither tool asks your age, though age is one of the things worth raising with a doctor. The schedule itself is arithmetic on a published shape, not a clinical judgement. For a baseline under about 20 standard drinks a day, HAMS publishes a reduction of two standard drinks per day, stepping down to zero; heavier baselines start from a fixed first-day amount and step down from there. The slower variant simply spreads the same descent over more days for people whose symptoms sharpen. None of these schedules is a validated clinical instrument: outpatient detox in medical practice is managed with symptom monitoring and, where needed, benzodiazepines, which is what the clinical sources below describe. If your symptoms get worse as the numbers come down, the schedule is wrong for you and the answer is a clinician, not a smaller step.

Sources

Our editorial policy explains how these tools and articles are researched and kept up to date.

Why this tool refuses

Almost every taper schedule on the internet is a table. You arrive, you read the numbers, and nothing on the page has any idea who is reading them. That is fine for a drinker whose body has barely adapted. It is dangerous for one whose body has, because alcohol withdrawal is one of the few withdrawal syndromes that can kill, and the people most likely to go looking for a taper chart are the people furthest along.

So this planner asks first. The five questions are the withdrawal risk checker's questions, scored on the same scale, and the answer they produce decides whether a schedule appears at all. Above the threshold you get a phone number instead of a table. That is the whole design, and it is the honest one: a page that cannot examine you should not hand out a plan it cannot supervise.

Below the threshold, the schedule is deliberately plain about what it is. HAMS — a harm-reduction network that has published taper guidance for years — describes cutting two standard drinks a day for baselines under twenty, and a fixed opening for very heavy drinkers before the same descent. This tool does that arithmetic and puts dates on it. The gentler option halves the step and doubles the days; it is spelled out as arithmetic rather than dressed up as a second protocol, because it has not been separately validated as one. What clinicians actually do for outpatient withdrawal is different again: symptom monitoring and, where it is needed, benzodiazepines. The sources for all of that are listed above.

There is also nothing here to keep a streak alive. No badges, no run counter, no green day and red day. Tapering is not a performance, and a tool that rewards you for holding the line is a tool that quietly punishes you for calling a doctor. The only thing this page tracks is the schedule you generated, on your own device, so you can print it and put it on the fridge.

One last thing, because it is the part people skip: tell someone. A taper that a doctor knows about is safer than a taper alone, and a taper someone at home knows about is safer than a private one. If the numbers stop working — and for some bodies they will — that is information, not a failure of will. The SAMHSA National Helpline is 1-800-662-4357, free and confidential, any hour of any day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to taper off alcohol at home?
It depends on how dependent your body has become, and that is exactly why this planner checks before it plans. For lighter drinkers with no history of severe withdrawal, a gradual reduction your doctor knows about is usually manageable. For heavy daily drinkers — and for anyone who has had withdrawal seizures, delirium tremens or morning shakes — tapering alone at home can be dangerous, and medically supervised detox is the safer route.
Why will the planner not give me a schedule?
Because your answers put you in the higher-risk band, where an unsupervised taper carries real seizure and delirium risk. That is not a judgement about you and it is not the end of the road — it means the next step is a clinician rather than a chart. SAMHSA's National Helpline is 1-800-662-4357, free and confidential, 24/7.
How fast should a taper go?
Slower than most people expect. The shape HAMS publishes for baselines under about 20 drinks a day is a cut of two standard drinks per day; very heavy drinkers start from a fixed first-day schedule and step down from there. Both are guides, not prescriptions. If withdrawal symptoms sharpen as you cut, the taper is moving too fast for you.
What symptoms mean I should stop and get help?
Seizures, hallucinations, severe confusion, a racing or irregular heartbeat, a high fever, repeated vomiting, or shaking so bad you cannot hold a glass. Those are emergencies — call 911. Symptoms that are milder but getting worse — heavy sweating, a growing tremor, sleeplessness, rising anxiety, a pulse over 100 — mean you need medical advice the same day.
Is tapering better than quitting cold turkey?
For a dependent drinker, stopping abruptly is the riskier option — alcohol is one of the few withdrawals that can kill. A controlled reduction lowers that risk and medication-assisted detox lowers it further. For someone drinking lightly, cold turkey is usually fine. The honest answer is that the right method depends on how far your body has adapted.
Does the planner save my answers?
Everything stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, there is no account, and you can clear it whenever you want.

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Go deeper

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How to Taper Off Alcohol: Schedules, Safety, and Who Should Not Do This Alone

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The days after the taper are the long part

Rebuild tracks the hours through early withdrawal and what your body does next — no streaks to break, no judgment.

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