Why It's So Hard to Moderate with Alcohol

The first thing you should know before reading the rest of this blog post is that I had moderation on a pedestal for 5 years. I truly believed if I could just get moderation down, all my drinking problems would be solved. Why?

I knew the amount of alcohol I was drinking was unhealthy, but I loved drinking and the thought of giving it up entirely sent shivers down my spine. “Sobriety was for real alcoholics,” I told myself.

There are plenty of people who decide they want to drink less, and are able to cut back and moderate without a problem. My dad is one of them! If you’re one of those people, that’s great! I truly believe everyone should drink the way that works for them.

But for me, moderation was hell. It was a mental gymnastics that left me exhausted, confused and full of shame and anxiety about my drinking. It’s not that I couldn’t moderate, quite the opposite in fact. I was very good at it. I could get it right almost every time. But…

Then there were times when I drank, and I just didn’t want to moderate. I wanted to keep going. I was drinking to get drunk. In the moment, it felt like an easy way to relax and treat myself.. because the rest of the time I was kind of obsessed with being perfect and productive.

Yet I knew I had to get out of that cycle of occasional binge drinking, or eventually there would be consequences. If nothing else, it would eventually take its toll on my health. It was not an if, but a when.

My biggest problem with moderation wasn’t the flip flopping between getting it right and not getting it right though. It was the never ending internal chatter. My internal dialogue of “Should I have a drink tonight, or should I not drink?” “Should I limit myself to 1? Or would 2 be okay?” “I haven’t had a drink in 2 weeks, so it’s okay if I have more than usual this weekend…” and the worst of them all…. “go ahead, you deserve it.”

THIS is why sobriety is a much happier place for me than moderation ever was. Imagine that script playing out in your head multiple times a week, or even multiple times a day. I was so over it!

Letting go of alcohol completely has set me free. It cured my anxiety and has given me so many priceless gifts. Only since quitting alcohol have I gained the clarity to see all aspects of my life as they truly are.

But before I get too off topic, let’s talk about moderation, and why it can be so darn challenging.

#1 Chemical changes in your brain

When you are drinking alcohol, there are changes in your brain chemistry which make it more appealing to keep drinking than to stop. This process is highly complex and there is a lot of great literature available on the topic, but for now I’ll paraphrase two key components. If you have no interest in a little science lesson, you can skip right ahead to #2!

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that’s part of the brain’s reward system. It functions by sending the brain a reward in the form of pleasure when it does something that’s necessary for survival. As we evolved from ancient man, this would include having sex or eating some foraged berries.

However, the amount of dopamine released when a person drinks alcohol is far above and beyond levels the brain releases naturally. This is why drinking initially feels so pleasurable!

Here’s the part that is less talked about: dopamine doesn’t only make you feel good, it also tells your brain to repeat the behavior. Herein lies the problem with moderating after the initial dopamine spike from the first drink. Your brain wants you to have another, because it’s confusing alcohol with something necessary for survival.

But wait, there’s more…

Alcohol affects the brain’s GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) receptor, while also shutting off glutamate (which makes you feel anxious). Combined, these two chemical reactions give you that feel calm and carefree feeling.

However, the brain will always work to achieve homeostasis—which is just a fancy word for rebalancing itself. When it recognizes the presence of alcohol (a depressant), the brain begins releasing its own stimulants (primarily cortisol and adrenaline) to counter the slowing effects of the alcohol. A surge of cortisol and adrenaline is not a pleasant feeling. In Alcohol Explained, author William Porter compares it to having too much caffeine.

Now, you may be saying to yourself “I don’t feel that way after one drink.” Well, that’s because after only one drink, the stimulants released are minimal; therefore the discomfort is barely perceptible. Your conscious mind may not even notice it, but your subconscious mind does. Since the relaxed feeling occurred so close to the time when you took the drink, your subconscious mind associates the positive feeling with the drink, but not the negative feeling created by the stimulants—even though both are actually caused by the introduction of alcohol to the body.

The first drink has worn off, but the stimulants your brain released are still present, leaving you feeling just a bit more on edge than you did before you started drinking to begin with. So you reach for a second drink, which once again affects your GABA receptor and shuts off glutamate. This works exactly as you hoped, you feel better. That’s the thing about alcohol, it works the same way every time. Can you guess what happens next? Your brain releases more stimulants. Uh oh..

So now, in addition to dopamine telling your brain to repeat a behavior that it’s misinterpreting as helpful, you are caught in a cycle of drinking to get relief from discomfort that was created by drinking in the first place.

*Both of these processes contribute to why alcohol is so addictive for many people. Understanding this from a scientific viewpoint has allowed me to release so much shame and guilt around my former drinking habits. I can now see that it was not a lack of willpower, or a character flaw, or a disease that made me able to moderate well at times, but not always. When I successfully moderated my drinking, I was simply winning an uphill battle against what my own brain was telling me to do.

#2 The intoxicating effects of alcohol make it difficult to make good decisions

…This of course includes sticking to a decision you made about your drink limit, while sober.

When you drink alcohol, your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for decision making) becomes less active. If you drink a lot, it eventaully shuts down completely (temporarily.)

The slowing of the prefrontal cortex will likely not be obvious after the first drink (unless your tolerance is really low), which is why for many people (including me), sticking to ONE drink is not that hard.

But let’s say you decide you are going to allow yourself to have 2 or even 3 drinks, and then stop. After 2+ drinks, the reality is, your prefrontal cortex is no longer running the show.

A lot of bad ideas sound like great ideas when you’re drunk. Especially… having another drink! 

#3 All or nothing thinking

This is especially common with perfectionists, like myself. It is pretty widely accepted that perfectionism and drinking can be linked in a number of ways. For me, drinking was a way to momentarily quiet the inner critic and stop obsessing over getting everything right… at least while I was under the influence. But perfectionism also goes hand in hand with all or nothing / black and white thought patterns.

If this is you, your inner monologue might sound like, “I already broke my healthy streak for the week by having one drink, so I might as well fully enjoy the night and drink more since I already screwed up.” And you end up finishing the bottle. Of course this backfires because the next day, your inner critic is really pissed at you for screwing up!

#4 You will deal with enablers

If you tell someone—whether that’s a friend, family member, or your partner—that you aren’t drinking at the moment and are firm and confident with your decision, most people will respect your choice. If they don’t, you may want to reevaluate the company you keep!

On the other hand, if you’re moderating and your plan is to stop after one or two, you cannot reasonably expect the people you are drinking with to remember this, or even take it seriously. Remember, after a few drinks their prefrontal cortex and decision making ability is also compromised.

Someone may refill your wine glass, or offer you another beer innocently, just out of habit. Because not doing so in most situations would be considered rude. They may not intentionally be enabling you, but the end result is the same.

#5 Decision Fatigue is real.

Moderation requires constant decision making. Remember my miserable internal monologue I mentioned in the intro?

When you quit drinking—or even just commit to taking a break from alcohol for a set amount of time—there are zero decisions to be made, because you already made one decision: not to drink. This frees up so much space in your mind to spend on things you actually care about.

The more decisions you make in a day, the less care you care about each one. This becomes more true with each decision, and is compounded by with the fact that drinking is most common later in the day or evening. By the time it’s “wine o clock” your decision making ability is likely shot to shit. (I get you because I was you!)

Not to mention, spend enough time negotiating and bargaining with yourself about alcohol, trying to stretch your own rules and come up with excuses.. you’ll start to feel insane. I can’t think of anything more detrimental to one’s self esteem than making serious promises to yourself and then breaking them.

But if you look back at reasons 1,2, 3 and 4, you’ll see that trying to moderate with alcohol is setting yourself up to fail.

Conclusion

So what’s the solution? The way I see it, you have 3 options.

Option one: you can do nothing, and keep drinking the way you have been. But I have a strong suspicion that isn’t working for you. Because if it was, you’d be drinking gin and tonics on a fuckin boat somewhere right now, instead of here reading this blog. (Jokes aside, I’m super proud of you for even thinking about changing your relationship with alcohol! That’s where amazing growth begins!)

Option two: you can continue trying to moderate, and hope it will go better now that you at least know why it’s so super challenging.

Option three: you can take a break from drinking for a set period of time. This does NOT mean you have to get it perfect, by any means. It took me several years and a ton of therapy to be able to take more than 2 weeks off from drinking successfully. But a break is the only way for you to see what an alcohol free lifestyle is like. And the break can be however long makes sense for you, where you are at currently. If you are a daily drinker, take one night off. A few years ago, just one night without a drink was very challenging for me! It doesn’t mean anything about you, other than that’s where you are at right now if your journey.

Did this blog post resonate with you? Did you learn something new? Tell me what you think in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.

Rooting for you always,

Gretchen

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