LACK OF EXCITEMENT
When we stop drinking, some of us experience a general lack
of excitement for all those activities, either social or solitary, that we used
to enjoy when they were accompanied by a glass or ten.
Imagine alcohol, coming to you,
and saying, “It’s not you … it’s me”. Well, that’s because it is! The reason
for the lack of excitement is purely chemical, it really isn’t personal and it
has nothing to do with you.
Alcohol is the only drug that
engages with (and alters) almost every neurotransmitter in our brain. One of
them is DOPAMINE, the so-called “feel-good hormone”. When you think of dopamine
your mind might travel to anything that makes you feel good and excited, seeing
your good friends, going to a party, going on a trip, finally doing something you
had been looked forward to. When I stopped drinking none of this would have
made me feel remotely good. The idea of seeing my friends could not be extricated
by having an alcoholic drink in front of me. The thought of it was absolutely
bizarre and I wasn’t interested, at all. But I didn’t know why.
When I stopped drinking the
second time and I started to suck up every information I could find on alcohol,
I learned that drinking alcohol floods the reward centre of the mid-brain (also
known as emotional, limbic or mammal brain) with dopamine. As the reward centre
of the brain is connected to motivation and memory, your brain learns that
every time it receives alcohol, it experiences a dopamine spike, which is
pleasurable and, because of that, it will drive you to do it over and over
again. Your brain made the connection alcohol=pleasure, the connection is
reinforced and the job is done.
On top of this, it’s also
important to note that the quantity of dopamine released by drinking alcohol is
higher than the amount it would produce in pleasurable activities that do not
involve the use of substances. As well as releasing big quantities of dopamine,
alcohol also decreases the number of dopamine receptors in your body and, as a
result, your brain stops producing these chemicals naturally. This is why a lot
of people who stop drinking experience subsequent periods of sadness or
depression. As you all know, whatever goes up, has to come down.
The other astonishing fact that
blew my mind wide open is that it may take up to 14 months, let me say it
again, FOURTEEN MONTHS of complete abstention from it for our dopamine levels
to return to normal. So, as dopamine affects your mood, motivation and feelings
of pleasure and reward, if you don’t feel any of those, or don’t feel them as
you wished or expected you did, this is why. It’s not because life without
alcohol is dull and boring. It’s because your brain is not producing enough dopamine or at all. Additionally, this
behaviour is not conscious. So, please, don’t blame yourself. Your brain is
doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. If you had someone working for you,
would you be doing it yourself? A big FAT “NO”.
The other good news, though, is
that you will start to feel the first improvements in your mood around the
three months’ mark. This is why, when my clients come to me, I usually suggest
to them if they would be willing to be alcohol-free for three months as a start
instead of one, because if you are an habitual drinker and you go sober for one
month, your experience won’t be as rewarding as you had envisaged, and, without
knowing what I explained above, you might get discouraged. And we know what we
can do when our heart sinks. Here’s
another reason why it can be useful to be working with a practitioner who can
be there to help you process your feelings and support your through your
struggles as they come up.
Also, we have tapping, and tapping can help us hugely in this period of time to take down all the uncomfortable feelings and cravings that might arise as a consequence of stopping drinking.
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