Distract yourself with a healthy, alternative activity. For different situations, come up with engaging short, mid-range, and longer options, like texting or calling someone, watching short online videos, lifting weights to music, showering, meditating, taking a walk, or doing a hobby.
Why is it so hard to stop thinking about alcohol? It turns out that cravings for alcohol may have some similarities to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD sufferers experience obsessive thoughts that result in compulsive behaviors. Scientists believe the two phenomena may share some of the same brain circuitry.
Thinking about drinking does eventually become a non-issue. In fact, it becomes such a non-issue that you don't even consider it for occasions where people might typically drink.
Take a few deep breaths. When you recognize you are overthinking things, take a few deep breaths to break the cycle and calm your thoughts. This is the easiest, most effective way to break the overthinking spiral.
The new research shows that it takes at least two weeks for the brain to start returning to normal, so this is the point at which the alcohol recovery timeline begins. Until the brain has recovered, it is less able to suppress the urge to drink. This is because the alcohol has impaired the brain's cognitive ability.
- Caffeinated Energy Drinks: Caffeinated energy drinks are some of the most popular functional drinks on the market. They are packed with caffeine and other stimulants, which can give you a quick buzz.
More simply, our brains begin to regulate themselves with alcohol. Without it, the brain makes chemical demands and requests for alcohol. For the cue-induced craving, it has to do with memory. Alcohol and other drugs flood our brain with reward chemicals like dopamine.
Training our subconscious brain
Using a joystick, the user repeatedly pushes away pictures of alcohol, and pulls healthier alternatives, such as bottled water, towards them. By practising this over and over again, the avoidance of alcohol cues becomes automatic, thereby disabling the autopilot response to these cues.
But there is more to alcohol than just hedonic pleasures and nutrients. The clue lies in the fact that we make such extensive use of it in social contexts. The key to this is that alcohol triggers the brain's endorphin system. Endorphins are opioid neurotransmitters that form part of the brain's pain management system.
Finding hobbies and fun alcohol-free activities can be a great way to release anxious energy. These activities may involve other people, or can be self-care practices you do alone, such as taking a bath, practicing yoga, or reading.
Drinker's remorse is an all too common consequence of a night out. After one too many drinks, a person may wake up with a splitting headache and a foggy memory of the night before. They may feel guilty or embarrassed, or perhaps angry with themself for engaging in behaviors that they regret.
Ironically, the reason it's so hard to quit drinking is because alcohol makes us feel so good! It produces a lot of the chemistry our brain's associates with pleasure, neurotransmitters like dopamine. When we drink regularly, our brain gets used to elevated dopamine levels.
If you feel that you need a drink every night or to get through a social event, stressful situation or personal struggle, and you have a compulsion to drink or constantly crave alcohol, maybe even daily, this could be a sign of psychological dependency.
Experts believe the reason some people become aggressive when drunk is due to the way alcohol affects the brain. Binge drinking increases the likelihood of both becoming aggressive or angry and also being on the receiving end of someone else's temper.
That aspect seems to stem from the fact that alcohol increases activity in the dopamine neurons in the mesolimbic reward pathway, as well as opioid cells that release endorphins. Both produce feelings of joy, pleasure, euphoria, depending on the type of activation. That's why drinking can be so pleasurable.
Impaired control over alcohol use
This might mean not being able to control how long a drinking session is, how much alcohol you consume when you do drink, how frequently you drink, being unable to stop drinking once you start, or drinking on inappropriate occasions or at inappropriate places.
Frequent heavy drinking can interfere with the chemicals in the brain, leading to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Our brains work like giant computers on a much smaller scale, processing information that it receives from the senses and body and sending information back.
Alcohol abuse can cause signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, psychosis, and antisocial behavior, both during intoxication and during withdrawal. At times, these symptoms and signs cluster, last for weeks, and mimic frank psychiatric disorders (i.e., are alcohol–induced syndromes).
One of the most notorious effects of alcohol is that it effectively shuts down your frontal lobes, lowering your inhibition and turning your mind over to your more primitive impulses. It is absolutely insane to believe that the best way to keep cool at a party is to have a cold cocktail.
To give you some context, a pint (568ml) of 1% ABV beer contains just over half a unit of alcohol[1], which is why 0.05% ABV drinks can be labelled as alcohol-free. But across Europe and in the USA, 'alcohol-free' means anything under 0.5% ABV, so imported products can be labelled differently.
Summary. Across the month, your body is likely to have benefitted greatly from giving up alcohol. Better hydration and improved sleep will have increased your productivity and daily wellbeing. Your liver, stomach and skin will also have benefitted from not dealing with alcohol.