The Neuroscience of Drinking on Autopilot

The divider made a loud clicking sound as it cracked open. A handful of lab rats darted out from one side of the maze, zipped through the turns, and started to munch on the chocolate without a second of pause.

How did the rats know how to navigate the maze and find the chocolate?

Well, they didn’t at first. When the rats were first placed in the maze, they could smell the chocolate, but they didn’t know where it was. They would sniff around, stretch the wall, and wander down the wrong path.

But with hundreds of repetitions of the same routine, they became better and better at navigating the maze, until they could zip through it without thinking. In other words, learning had taken place.

However, that’s not the most interesting part. What fascinated the researchers was the change that happened in the rats’ brain activity: As the rats became faster and faster in navigating the maze, their brain activity became quieter and quieter.

How does this have anything to do with consciously redesigning your drinking habit?

It answers the question…

Why Do We Reach for a Drink Without Drinking?

As learning took place in the lab rats’ little brains, running the maze became an automatic routine. In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg called this mental mechanism a habit loop.

When a routine, whether it’s mental or physical, has been performed over and over, eventually a habit loop is formed to help our brain preserve energy. A habit loop is made of 3 elements: cue, routine, and reward. In the lab rats’ case, the cue is a loud clicking sound made when the divider cracks open, the routine is to zip through the maze, and the reward is the chocolate.

A habit loop allows the brain to automatically perform a learned routine without consciously thinking about it once the cue is activated. A similar process explains how we could drive from work to home without thinking, as well as how we seem to reach for a drink by the end of the day on autopilot. While being able to enjoy the drive without mental effort is a welcome ability, to reach for a drink without thinking keeps drinkers in the habit they want to change. Which leads to the question of…

How to Consciously Redesign Your Drinking Habit

If you have ever tried to change a stubborn old habit, you may already know that even the simplest, tiniest habit can be disturbingly hard to change. To resist the temptation to reach for a glass when the familiar craving hits can feel like fighting against gravity.

Because here is the thing: Once a habit loop is formed, it cannot be unlearned. When a cue is activated, a neurological craving for the reward kicks in to drive us to perform the routine. In other words, craving is a part of the habit loop, acting as the glue to hold a habit loop together.

The good news is that, although we can’t unlearn the habit loop, we can consciously redesign it as long as we get to know its cues and rewards. According to Duhigg’s Golden Rule of Habit Changing, a habit can be changed by “keeping the cue, providing the same reward, and inserting a new routine.”

How to Replace Drinking With New Alcohol-Free Activities

The key to changing our drinking habits is not to remove alcohol, but to replace drinking with new alcohol-free activities that help us serve the same purpose alcohol once helped us serve, whether it’s to manage boredom, unwind after work, or feel connected with people around us.

At Sober Curiosity, we believe that truly breaking free from alcohol’s hold—and building a thriving alcohol-free life—takes more than just “stop drinking.” It takes four pillars to create a sustainable sobriety system:

• Pillar One – Value: uncovering your whys behind choosing to drink less
• Pillar Two – Belief: changing the story you’ve been told about alcohol and yourself
• Pillar Three – Action: breaking the drinking pattern and replacing alcohol with more empowering options
• Pillar Four – Result: embracing the learning process—and learn how to turn setbacks into stepping stones.

Alcoholism Essential Reads

What if Alcoholics Anonymous Doesn’t Work for You?

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Replacing drinking with a new alcohol-free activity falls into the Action pillar, where we learn to slow down the automatic drinking routine, pause before we reach for the drink, and ask ourselves “What do I hope to get from taking this drink, and what other ways can help me achieve the same?”

Building a thriving alcohol-free life takes more than white-knuckling. It takes the right strategy and the right tools.

For more free resources to change your relationship with alcohol, click here.