E333: Understanding the Problem Isn’t the Same as Changing It

We expect to feel better once we stop drinking, and then sometimes we’re more anxious, irritable, unable to sleep, and bothered by everything. You might feel restless when you try to relax or exhausted but unable to settle down. Your emotions may feel more intense without alcohol there to shut them off. It’s easy to interpret this as evidence that quitting was the wrong choice. Now you’re not drinking, and your body seems even more activated. Maybe alcohol really was the only thing that calmed you down. But there’s a difference between regulation and chemical relief. Regulation is your ability to respond to what’s happening and eventually recover once the challenge has passed. Chemical relief changes your experience quickly so you don’t have to remain present with it. You feel stressed, lonely, bored, or overwhelmed, then you drink and feel different.

Many of us use alcohol to turn off our brain, escape our problems, or check out, but escapism is actually associated with more intense drinking and lower life satisfaction. In this episode you’ll learn about the different theories behind escapism, why we’re doing this, and how it makes our problems worse. I hope that this episode can help you make some connections so you realize drinking isn’t helping you. I’ll also share a personal story of when I drank to escape and how that went for me.

I know it feels like alcohol is required to relax. I felt that way too, but it's not. Turning off your brain at the end of the day is not the same thing as relaxing. In this episode, I’m going to explain what the research tells us about alcohol and your stress system, why short-term relief doesn’t necessarily mean drinking is helping you cope over time, and how stress can become connected to the motivation to keep drinking. Let’s start with what happens when you drink after a stressful experience, because understanding why alcohol feels helpful is part of understanding why we become so attached to it.

We believe alcohol is required for vacations, unwinding, dealing with stress, celebrating, and socializing. We have built up powerful associations in our brains to reinforce these beliefs through dopamine and repetition. After you get sober, facing life without alcohol can feel impossible. Everything reminds you of alcohol. You start to notice how prevalent it is on TV and in movies. In this episode, I’m explaining how the brain builds associations with alcohol, how that gets worse while we stay in the back and forth, and how we break down these associations after getting sober.

Many of us, myself included, get stuck in a cycle where we keep convincing ourselves we can drink again and then we’re shocked when it doesn’t go well. There are a couple of reasons why this happens, and it’s not simply because you forgot. There’s more to it. You’re not doomed to keep repeating this cycle forever.