Why Sobriety Eventually Just “Clicks”
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When trying to quit drinking, many people face the frustration of a back and forth struggle before finally achieving sobriety. The cycle, often leading to relapse, is intricately tied to brain function, specifically to the areas controlling decision making and habitual behavior.
How your brain makes decisions
Two brain regions, the dorsolateral striatum and dorsal medial striatum, influence our behavior by either adapting to our motivational state to align actions with our goals or by perpetuating automatic, habitual actions. The shift from goal-directed behavior to habitual action is key in understanding the struggle of those attempting to stop drinking. Addiction distorts the brain's function, altering behavior, memory, and emotions, which often leads to prioritizing alcohol over vital aspects of life like parenting, work, or maintaining relationships.
The back-and-forth struggle is further complicated by the fact that habits need cues to initiate the cycle. Associations, such as smells or music linked with drinking, can trigger a powerful response, making it challenging to move on after a slip.
The brain takes time to heal
Research has shown that alcohol addiction causes long-lasting disruptions in the brain's decision-making processes, which could lead to relapse. Furthermore, chronic ethanol exposure has been found to decrease activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a brain area involved in impulse control and value-based decision-making. This disruption might be one reason why you keep returning to alcohol despite the negative consequences.
A 2022 study found that if an individual's motivational state is strong enough, it can overcome this and engage goal-directed processes, indicating that when the motivation to avoid suffering is strong enough, it can override alcohol-induced damage and trigger sobriety.
Learn more about why sobriety eventually just clicks in episode 117
When someone quits drinking for good they usually say something like, “it just feels different this time”. That’s how I felt too this time around. It just felt different. So why did it click for me after 7 years of drinking but maybe it took you 20 or maybe it hasn’t clicked for you at all yet? In this episode you’ll learn how alcohol impacts our decision making process to put us into auto-pilot, how this continues into early sobriety, and what you can do to get yourself out of auto-pilot. You’ll learn about the different ways the brain makes decisions, and how you can start recruiting the parts of the brain that are going to help sobriety finally click for you too.
What to listen to next:
E115: why you aren't ready to quit drinking and how to get ready
E97: why we keep believing it'll be different this time
E94: drinking to cope or numb out doesn't help, here's how to really cope
E91: do you want to be sober or do you want to drink without the consequences
Sources
Renteria, R., Baltz, E.T. & Gremel, C.M. Chronic alcohol exposure disrupts top-down control over basal ganglia action selection to produce habits. Nat Commun 9, 211 (2018).
Shields, C. Effects of chronic alcohol exposure on motivation-based value updating. Alcohol. 101: 53-64. 2022
Cite this episode
Tietz, G. Episode 117: Why Sobriety Eventually Just “Clicks”. Sober Powered. 2022.
