Why Is Moderation So Tricky???

We have been conditioned to believe we need alcohol for a variety of different reasons. To parent. To cope. To reward ourselves. To have fun. To be romantic. The list goes on and on. 

 

Take a minute right now and do a little inner happy dance. You are getting curious. This is the first step to freedom from alcohol, becoming aware- and challenging all of messaging that we have been told on a daily basis. 

 

When I was knee-deep in my struggle, I was desperate to figure out alcohol. Because everyone around me seemed to be able to drink without any consequences, I thought I was the only one waking up sluggish, exhausted, and feeling like I was living a B- life. 

 

There must be a way to moderate, just have a few glasses, and feel okay. I was the one that was doing it wrong. There was something wrong with me. I just had to try harder. I had to flex my willpower muscles stronger. This was a me problem, not a wine problem. Right?

 

A big part of finding freedom from alcohol for me was when I began to do research about how addictive alcohol is. I realised it wasn’t up to me to crack the code of sticking to two drinks because physiologically and neurochemically, that made ZERO sense. 

 

Here’s why…

 

When we drink, we get a temporary feeling of euphoria, this is from the chemical hormone dopamine. 

 

Dopamine is both the pleasure and learning molecule, meaning when we do something like drinking our brain registers that we like it, and cements a neural pathway in our head that registers “Wine makes me feel good. Drink more wine to feel good.”

 

The brain records the level of dopamine from wine as artificial- meaning too big- and so the body needs to do some serious work to get us back to homeostasis. It relaxes a counter-chemical called dynorphin. Those chemicals counteract the dopamine (the buzz) and tries to bring us back to a normal baseline by releasing a downer, or sedative.

 

But the brain likes the dopamine buzz, so what do we do when we start to feel the effects of the dynorphin (the sedative, after just about 20 minutes)? We reach for another glass. This is what makes alcohol so extremely addictive, we are chasing that dopamine high.

 

Think about how many diet cokes you can drink in one sitting. Or sparkling water. Or whatever your non-alcoholic drink is of choice. Can you drink 5 or 6 glasses in a row? Nope. That’s because those drinks hydrate you, whereas alcohol dehydrates you and makes you have to pee a lot. It creates a thirst for itself so that after you finish the first glass of wine, you are thirsty for the second. 

 

It’s why you have to get up and go to the bathroom after drinking at night and then chug a bottle of water. You’re dehydrated. But when you’re actively drinking, the fact that alcohol is a diuretic makes you thirsty for more and more.

 

If I had a penny for every time I broke a drinking promise to myself. I promised myself I would only drink on weekends. I promised myself I would have water in-between glasses. I promised myself that I would only have one glass. Two glasses. The list goes on. 

 

But the problem was, I was never going to be able to stick to these rules that I had made because when drinking, I had shut off the decision-making part of my brain, the pre-frontal cortex.

 

When we’re drinking, we simply aren’t able to make great decisions because we’re in our lower brain, which is just trying to seek more pleasure, avoid more pain, and completely ignore the good intentions that you had set out for it.

 

I’ve coached lots of women who come to me and say that something must be wrong with them because they struggle with binge drinking. I always try to assure them that the reason that they struggle with drinking more than they want to isn’t that something is wrong with them. It’s because alcohol is highly addictive. One glass makes you want a second and a third.

 

 

When I first learned all of this, I was shocked, and then angry. I had been duped into believing that a highly addictive substance was supposed to somehow help me. Relax me. Cheer me up. In reality, it just kept me wanting more and the effects were so much worse than that 20-minute buzz. 

 

But what I found so incredibly helpful about learning this information is that it meant that there was nothing wrong with me. But there was a ton of things wrong with alcohol.

 

You are not broken when it comes to alcohol. You aren’t the only one that struggles to drink less than you want to. This is is because alcohol is extremely addictive.