Journey to the Sunnyside

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another one of these ten minute Mondays. And I want to start out with a hypothetical that I think a lot of you listening can relate. So let's say it's three p. M.

On a Tuesday. You're at your desk. Maybe you're leaving a meeting or on your way to pick up the kids. And there it is, that thought. Maybe I'll have a drink a little bit later.

Now nothing's happened yet. No glass has been poured, not even a decision totally made. But your brain, it's already reacting. And here's what a lot of people miss. The craving isn't for the drink.

It's for what we think the drink will do. It's that thought of relief, maybe the promise of unwinding or even a fantasy in our heads about how good that first sip's going to feel. That is where the real hook gets us. Not in the drinking, it's in the anticipation. Here's the thing is that most people who struggle with drinking assume that the problem is the alcohol itself.

That seems intuitive. If I just drank less, this would stop. Or if I had the discipline, I wouldn't even think about it so much. But for a lot of people, the strongest pull shows up before the alcohol even enters the picture. So let me explain how this works.

Dopamine, yeah, it gets talked about a lot and usually as that reward chemical. And while that's true, that's not the full picture. Dopamine is actually a prediction signal. While it's true that it does fire while the action itself is happening, what doesn't get talked about a lot is the spike that happens before when the brain predicts what's coming. That's why lottery tickets feel exciting before you even scratch it.

That's why scrolling feels good even when the content doesn't. Checking your phone gives you a little hit of dopamine before you even see what's there. And when it comes to alcohol, that means the anticipation often feels better than the drink itself. Now this isn't to say that alcohol can't be physically addictive. It is.

But for many people, the strongest pull happens before the drink. Think about it. The fantasy that we have, it has no downsides. There's no hangover. There's no regret.

There's no waking up feeling slightly off. Or those thoughts of, Why did I have that extra drink last night? The drink has limits. The fantasy, it doesn't. And here's where it gets interesting.

When you actually drink, the experience, it often doesn't match what your brain promised. Of course, it's probably fine and probably good, but it's not the relief that you probably imagined at 3PM, and it's not the magic reset button that you fantasize. And yet that disappointment, it doesn't stop the loop. It only resets it. Because the brain doesn't always learn from what happened, it often learns from what it predicted.

So the next day, the same thought shows up. But you'll insert tonight will be different. Tonight, I'll actually unwind. And then later on, that drink that you're trying not to have at 7PM was decided at 3PM. And that cycle continues.

And this is where moderation actually breaks for most people. It's not in the drinking, it's in the hours before. So by the time the glass is already in front of you, your brain has already decided. The dopamine has already fired. The prediction has already happened.

And you're now just following through on that. And most people will try to solve this, myself included, with rules that lack planning and support. They'll just say to themselves, I only have two. You know, I'll skip the weekends. And, of course, for some people, those rules, they can work, but they're being applied too late.

And in those times, you're trying to control the consumption when the real problem is many times in the prediction. Your brain has already become attracted towards the idea of the drink before you even started negotiating with yourself in the moment. So now that I've laid this idea out, you might be asking, yeah, well, what do I do with this information? So here's what actually helps. At 3PM, when that thought shows up, you're probably still going to want a drink.

I mean, that doesn't change. But what you can do is recognize that you're not making a decision right now. In that moment, you're having a prediction. The actual decision is going to happen, let's say, at 7PM. So when seven rolls around and you're standing at your kitchen, that's when you check-in.

Do I actually want this right now? Or am I following through on that prediction, that fantasy that I had four hours ago? Now sometimes the answer is going be like, yeah, I want it. And that's fine. But sometimes, and this is what people notice over time, the answer is different.

Actually, you know what? I don't need this as much as I thought I would. The urgency from 3PM doesn't always have to carry over to 7PM. And that's where you can separate the prediction from the actual moment and you get a real choice. You don't have to negotiate with the decision that was made earlier when you were in a different frame of mind.

So the next time that afternoon thought shows up, just see it for what it is. It's a prediction, and we can even call it a fantasy. It's not a decision you have to stick to. The decision actually comes later. In that gap, those few hours between the thought and the moment, that's where the real work happens.

Alright. Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you got anything out of this episode, rate and review wherever you're listening. I'd love to hear from you, Mike@Sunnyside.co. And to all of you that have emailed me, thank you for taking the time to write.

I really appreciate it. I truly do love hearing from you. And until next time, cheers to your mindful drinking journey.