Episode 52: How addiction hacks your brain and how to hack it back.

00:42

Today’s topic on dopamine and addiction and healing your brain chemistry is a doozy. And before we get started, I just wanna let you know that this is the type of work I do inside the next chapter. And so if you are a woman who has been struggling with alcohol use disorder, whether you’ve been sober for a while or whether you still need to quit drinking, just know that

01:09

spending your energy focusing on your relationship with alcohol is the problem. And science shows that identifying yourself as an alcoholic and committing to a lifetime of sobriety actually increases the chances of relapse, increases the chance that you’re gonna keep circling back to this spot. What you hear from me today is just the tip of the iceberg of my approach in looking at the big picture.

01:38

because this isn’t about alcohol. This is about your relationship with yourself. The real goal is not to give up drinking and stay sober forever. That sounds boring. Not to say that you ever need to drink again because you don’t. Alcohol is a toxic poison and it’s severely overrated. But isn’t the real goal to be able to trust yourself to make good decisions?

02:03

Isn’t the real goal to be able to know your own mind and take care of yourself? To be able to trust yourself with or without a drink in your hand? And not just with alcohol, but with sugar and relationships and big decisions. The real goal is to restore your personal power and your confidence to be able to manage your life and yourself without following somebody else’s rules or opinions about what is best for you.

02:32

I can help you bypass all of the bad advice and teach you how to lean into your own intuition. My approach to recovery is about emotional sobriety, which is the ability to resolve the uncomfortable subconscious feelings so that they are no longer controlling you, so that you can get out of your head and also diagnose the real problem, which is likely a dysregulated nervous system.

02:59

and also imbalanced brain chemistry due to stress and poor self-care habits. So I’d like to invite you to the free master class I’m doing this week where I lay out all of the pillars to my approach specifically into emotional sobriety, what that is and how I teach it, so that you can see that making a commitment to work with me and a community of like-minded women for the next 12 weeks can dramatically accelerate your recovery.

03:29

So click the link in the show notes and come to the masterclass on emotional sobriety if you’re interested in hearing what I have to offer and how I can help you. All right, so this episode is pretty deep dive, like get a notebook and a pencil. You may wanna come back to this episode. It is a bit of a lecture, not a friendly, fun podcast, full of stories, fun stories, but I think you’ll find it highly valuable.

03:58

in your recovery and with your mental health in general. Because when you are experiencing low energy and motivation, it’s not a reflection of you or something that’s wrong with you, like you’re just lazy. It is brain chemistry. And when you understand your feelings from the perspective of brain chemistry, it’s a lot easier to not take things so personally.

04:25

Because when we beat ourselves up and have all that critical negative self-talk, that actually makes things worse. Understanding how dopamine works allows you to see what you’re going through as a set of symptoms, and you can look for solutions to those symptoms. So in this episode, I’m going to explain why quitting an addictive behavior leaves you in a dopamine deficit.

04:52

I’m going to go into how your mindset is linked to dopamine and why perfectionistic thinking habits limit your ability to experience pleasure. And then I’m going to go into the day-to-day habits and actions that you can take to boost your baseline reserve levels of dopamine, which will accelerate your recovery dramatically. You do not have to suffer with post-acute withdrawal syndrome for years.

05:21

The information in this episode can dramatically improve your life in all fronts very quickly. And I would like to give some credit of where I’m getting this information before I get started. I follow and devour Dr. Andrew Huberman’s work. And I also follow Dr. Anna Lemke. She has a book called Dopamine Nation. And another book that I really thoroughly enjoy is The Molecule of More.

05:49

by Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long. So the information I’m giving you is updated, scientifically demonstrated, evidence-based suggestions with the latest research on this topic. So let’s get started with the basics. What is dopamine? Dopamine is our feel-good neurotransmitter. Most importantly, it’s not just a pleasure chemical. It’s more of the molecule of more.

06:18

Dopamine is our motivation. It gives us the energy and the focus to get something, to move us into action, to go and get the reward. And because dopamine feels good, any substance or behavior that triggers high levels of dopamine to be released can also lead us into addiction. And addiction is really one of our biggest problems right now. The world we live in is turning all of us into addicts.

06:49

Almost all of our lifestyle problems and issues and disorders are rooted in low-grade addictions because we’re on a dopamine roller coaster. Our dopamine mechanisms are overwhelmed by the internet and smartphones, constant supplies of sugar and caffeine, 24-7 bad news cycles. We’re all working from home with all-access backstage passes to everybody at all times. Our personal space is

07:18

And we are all struggling with compulsive overconsumption on so many levels. And so this isn’t just about alcohol. The devices that we’re all on all day long are reinforcing. And that affects our dopamine. Screens, digital screens, have taken the place of the fires that we all used to gather around. The tapping and swiping tap into our primitive desire to use our hands.

07:48

devices are portals to social connection, or its evil cousin, voyeurism. We’re shopping, we’re watching graphic images, and all of this stuff is stimulating our brains. There are bright, colorful lights demanding our attention and notifications and games, buzzing and dinging sounds that stimulate the reward centers of our brain. The likes and replies and engagement on our social media posts or with our email, whatever.

08:16

All of that stimulates our urge to rank and compete and compare ourselves, not just here and there, but all day long, every single day. Growing numbers of us, especially our kids, are increasingly narrowing our worlds to these devices. And the result is that progressively, our joy set point is moving to the side of pain. Nobody is learning new instruments or reading novels or taking up different difficult challenges.

08:46

Nobody wants to slow cook a meal anymore. All of that seems hard. And we’re robbing ourselves of pleasure. Our resilience is rapidly falling. We are now in chronic pain, diseased and dissatisfied. Our focus on the real world has been stolen by big tech and big food companies. And if you haven’t read Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, you need to get it because that’s a game changer, life changer.

09:14

But we’ve been inundated with dopamine, and we’re living in our lizard brains, where the reward centers are located. And the truth is, we all think, and we’re right, it’s not fun to take a walk or read a book or sit in the yard watching the birds anymore, because our brain is out of balance. Forget alcohol or other drugs. Every single one of us that’s living in the modern world is suffering from low-grade addictions.

09:44

And it’s important to understand why that’s not a good thing. What is an addiction? In the brain, addiction is the pursuit of spikes of dopamine that result in lower levels of dopamine. It’s the proverbial painting yourself into the corner or digging yourself into a hole. And addiction is a major cause of unhappiness.

10:10

There have been massive increases in anxiety and depression and suicide just in the last 10 years. People living in rich nations with access to abundance are the most unhappy because we don’t have to work for our basic needs anymore and we have access to too many dopamine triggering activities. I heard it referred to and I agree with it. It’s cheap dopamine. We don’t have to get off the couch to get a big hit.

10:40

And cheap dopamine throws our bodies and brains off balance. There’s an evolutionary mismatch between the dopamine that is available to us and what our bodies actually need to survive. Like plants given too much water, we are drowning in dopamine. And Dr. Carl Eric Fisher says that addiction is an adaptation, not actually a disease.

11:08

He says that addictive behaviors are adaptive responses meant to fill that void of meaning and purpose. Using substances does provide a temporary sense of community with other users. It gives us purpose, because we have to acquire more of it. And we feel like we have meaning, because there’s literally feelings of euphoria or calm that we get from using the substance.

11:35

And he says that addiction stems from increasingly dislocated, capitalistic society. It is not from a medical pathology. Humans are becoming increasingly addicted, not because of some mutant DNA or just because alcohol and addictive other chemicals and behaviors are increasingly available, but because we are becoming more disconnected from our purpose, nature.

12:03

culture and each other. Anna Lemke says that addiction is the continued compulsive use of a substance or behavior despite harm to self and or others. And she covers the four C’s of addictions. The first one is control. That means you’re using more than you intend. So you don’t have this control over how much you use. The second is compulsion in that it steals our focus and it narrows our attention.

12:33

and we just go into automatic habitualized behaviors. The third one is craving. So we have a psychological or physiological urge. And the fourth one is consequences, which means that we’re suffering consequences. We’re in pain, we’re suffering disconnect, there’s financial cost, and we continue to do the thing, whatever it is, even though the consequences are getting worse. Because for most addictions, it’s a very subtle,

13:03

process, or like a frog that gets into cold water, not realizing that the temperature gets turned up one subtle degree at a time, and suddenly we are unable to jump out. The desire to keep using is more subconscious. At some point, our motivation shifts from pursuing pleasure doing the thing, to avoiding the pain of not doing the thing.

13:30

Because any activity that spikes our dopamine also puts us into a period of withdrawal. What goes up must come down. And the symptoms of withdrawal from anything are universal. You experience anxiety, irritability, insomnia, depression, and intrusive thoughts. And those aren’t fun, so that leads us to pick up again whatever it is that we were trying to put down.

13:57

Withdrawal is a dopamine deficit. And when we’re in a dopamine deficit, we feel bad. And so we wanna grab whatever’s closest to give us another hit. Andrew Huberman describes addiction as a progressive narrowing of things that give us pleasure. The more we engage with activities that spike our dopamine, unnaturally high, the worse our symptoms of withdrawal get.

14:23

and the more we want to just pursue whatever it is that’ll fix the problem the fastest. And because there are negative consequences to continued and progressively increased use, addiction while it begins as seeking pleasure, eventually it becomes about avoiding pain. And not just from the external consequences. Anything that spikes the dopamine also depletes the dopamine reserves. So the more you’re doing it,

14:52

the worse you feel when you’re not doing it. And that’s why they say addiction is progressive, because obviously it doesn’t start out that way. And that speaks to what most of us don’t realize is that no drug, no behavior works the same forever. The brain is always learning, changing, and adapting. The more you use anything, the less effective it is. That’s called neuroplasticity. So how alcohol or drugs

15:21

or on our screens, our emails or social media, or even simple things like coffee or sugar or any drug of choice, they become less enjoyable over time. But while our experience of the drug of choice may change, our belief systems tend to be rigid. So we keep chasing the initial high while denying that we’re not getting it. We just tune out our experience.

15:51

and kind of just allow the default automatic behavior to continue without really being conscious of the effects. Huberman describes the effects with an analogy of water in the bathtub. So imagine you’ve got a bathtub filled with water, and let’s say you’re in the bathtub, rubber ducking in it, and you make waves in the bathtub.

16:16

Those are your dopamine spikes. So the high levels of water, the tip of the wave, is a dopamine spike. That feels good. And you get the top of the wave, or the dopamine trigger, any time you think or engage in the activity. So understand that this isn’t just about using. It’s also about thinking. And that’s why it steals the focus. The desire begins when the thought happens.

16:43

You know, if you see a commercial for pizza or alcohol or chocolate cake, you think you want a pizza or alcohol or chocolate cake and the dopamine in your brain is what gets your ass off the couch to go get it. So back to the waves in the bathtub. When you get a unnaturally high dopamine spike, that’s like a big wave. And what happens is like in the bathtub, some of the water spills out of the tub, which lowers the level of water in the bathtub. Also,

17:12

lowers the dopamine in your brain. So your ability to generate normal waves, normal dopamine spikes for normal behavior goes down because you have less water. And the less water you have in your bathtub, the more down you feel, the more lethargic, unfocused and low energy, you’re not motivated. And the lower the water levels get, and then all of a sudden your brain remembers, ah, there’s a fast pass to feeling good again.

17:41

And that might be pouring a drink, or scrolling on your phone, or eating a cookie, some cheap dopamine source. That will give you a high again, and then more water spills out and the cycle continues. But this does happen very gradually over time. The desire to avoid the pain of the low dopamine, low levels of water in your bathtub, is very subconscious. You’re not really aware of it. You just know that when you stop doing whatever you’re gonna be doing,

18:10

you’re going to feel worse for a while. But you’re also not necessarily aware that there’s pain in continuing too. So you might watch one more episode on Netflix or grab one more cup of coffee or one more glass of wine or check Facebook and Instagram one more time. But sitting there all day and not doing other things isn’t gonna feel good at the end of the day either. But as this is all subconscious and you’re not really aware,

18:38

your brain ends up going with the instant gratification. Go ahead and have one more drink or one more cookie or whatever it is you’re having instead of suffering the pain now of saying no to yourself and moving. Dr. Anna Lemke talks about this balance of pleasure and pain in the brain. And she, her analogy is like a teeter totter. And she says that the,

19:03

main rule is that the balance needs to be level. That’s called homeostasis, kind of an equal amount of pain and equal amount of pleasure. So when there’s an imbalance, the brain has to work to compensate for it, which means too much pleasure actually leads to more pain and vice versa is true as well. There are, if you’re in a lot of pain, there are opioid-like neurochemicals that are

19:33

you know, nature’s morphine or whatever. An extreme example of this would be cutting. When someone is in such deep emotional distress that they lean into the pain and slice themselves to the point where they’re bleeding, that physical pain is sharp enough that it triggers the brain to release the opioid-like compounds. So when you’re using...

19:57

an addictive substance, let’s say you’re not addicted to it, but you’re engaging with your phone or you’re engaging with some alcohol. If you can’t tolerate the discomfort of stopping, because again, you don’t have to be physically addicted to experience withdrawal, withdrawal always happens with a dopamine spiking activity. It’s less intense if you’re not a regular user, but it’s still there. So you have to be able to tolerate that.

20:25

And if you don’t, or if you can’t, because say maybe you’re stressed or in pain from other reasons, if you don’t tolerate it, then you will fall into regular use and eventually overuse. And then the brain to try to maintain homeostasis will actually create more pain. And you end up with a new pain point, a new joy set point, a hedonic set point, that’s chronically tilted towards the side of pain.

20:55

And this translates to chronically low levels of dopamine. And when that’s what you’re dealing with, when you’re not using your substance of choice or whatever, you are experiencing withdrawals. And again, the universal symptoms for withdrawal from anything and everything is anxiety, irritability, insomnia, depression, and intrusive thoughts.

21:19

So just think for a minute how often you experience those things and put them into perspective instead of them being the actual problem. Look at them as more of a symptom. What are you withdrawing from? I know, right? That puts everything into a whole other context. But as long as you let the withdrawal pass, your dopamine will go back into a balanced state.

21:45

But if you can’t tolerate it, or it gets so bad that you can’t tolerate, and so you keep indulging yourself, you end up living in a chronic state of pain. And so your primary motivation is no longer seeking pleasure, but avoiding the pain. And so if you find yourself, or when, really when, because we all live in this modern world, when you realize that you have gotten wrapped up with an addiction,

22:13

and it’s creating more pain than it is pleasure, the most important initial intervention is a period of abstinence. According to Dr. Lemke, a 30-day period of abstinence is the minimum. And she cites two reasons for that. Number one is it takes a minimum of 30 days to restore natural dopamine pathways. And then the second thing is to give yourself a chance to get some perspective. Give your brain a chance to learn

22:43

the true cause and effect, you know, that it is overusing that is creating the pain, not the pain of something else that’s causing the desire to overuse. It’s not that your desire to use an intoxicant is bad. It’s about learning how to use them and at what frequency and at what potency you can use them without triggering a cycle of addiction.

23:13

Now, she says that 30 days is the minimum, but we all know that it can take a lot longer than that to heal your brain from an addiction. Studies for alcohol use disorder, I’ve only found one. And that shows that the average time that it takes to recalibrate brain chemistry is 14 months. There’s also science shows that say, to achieve mastery takes 10,000 hours. And if you, which I did, I did.

23:42

did some math and realized that 10,000 hours, if you go 24 hours a day, also coincides to about 14 months. I think, especially with alcohol, the longer you can go to not just heal your brain chemistry, but also learn to heal your emotions. That’s why I teach emotional sobriety in my 12-week course, because it’s not about the alcohol. You’re using alcohol to avoid pain and what’s beneath that pain.

24:10

and learning how to deal with the subconscious emotions and the negative feelings, shame and fear and embarrassment and all of the things we deal with, learning how to deal with those, that takes time. To me, that’s what your 14 months worth of mastery is. You have to learn how to be kind to yourself and how to deal with subconscious emotions. But if you go back to using alcohol or anything else, you just have to make sure.

24:38

that you leave enough time for first the brain to heal and then also for your coping skills to catch up. And if you go back, you have to make sure that you put enough distance between uses that the withdrawal, because everybody who uses a drug will experience withdrawal. If you use anything, there’s the coming on part and then there’s the withdrawal part. And you have to make sure to give yourself

25:06

enough space so that the withdrawals don’t get so bad that you need to escape the withdrawals themselves. If you can handle the up, you have to be able to handle the down. And when it comes to mindset processes about drinking, I think for me, what shifted for me where I was able to reintroduce wine, I remember when I first started in sobriety saying

25:32

I don’t ever want to drink again because I can’t imagine why anybody would have one drink. Like that sounds ridiculous. I would want the whole bottle. And three years later, I was like, why would anybody want to drink a whole bottle of wine? I mean, one glass is fine. So understanding there’s a difference between being a drinker and having a drink, I think is critical if you ever want to reintroduce alcohol. And as long as the idea of getting stupid drunk and out of your head still sounds appealing.

26:02

you ain’t ready. Or if your decision to drink is somehow about escaping a problem or altering the way you feel, or trying to avoid negative emotions, until you have emotional mastery in place, alcohol will then just become a crutch and lead you right back to where you were. You truly have to change who you are as a person, how you identify and

26:30

your relationship with yourself before you could ever establish a healthy, you know, distance friendly relationship with alcohol. It’s not about your relationship with alcohol at all. It’s about your relationship with yourself. And here’s the scientific reason for that. Because if you’re drinking to relieve stress, that is triggering your dopamine in a different way. You’re wanting something. So when you have a mindset that

26:59

you’re using alcohol to get relief or reduce your stress, then your brain reacts differently to that because dopamine is subjective, meaning that it’s tied into your thoughts and beliefs. If you think that alcohol is a reward, you’re gonna experience it as a reward. You’re gonna get a bigger dopamine spike, whereas somebody who’s, let’s say, drinking because

27:26

Somebody served them wine and they’re like, okay, I guess I’ll have a glass because I don’t wanna be rude. Not that that’s a good reason to drink, I’m just saying. Their brain isn’t going to respond as strongly. So it’s not just the alcohol that causes the dopamine spike, it’s your thoughts and beliefs about the alcohol that affect how much dopamine you get. One person’s reward is another person’s tedium. What’s more is that if you are a person who believes that alcohol relieves stress,

27:56

you are more likely to ignore the fact that the opposite is true. So you’re drinking because of a belief system that you have about alcohol, not based on your actual experience with alcohol. Because anybody that drinks much alcohol and pays attention understands that less is way more. I was actually shocked the other night, we were at a concert and I had one white claw and it was fine, that was in my plan. I’m having one.

28:25

one, you know, I’m participating, everybody’s whatever, it’s fine. And so I had one drink and then my husband at halftime or whatever you say in a concert brings me another one. And I didn’t really think about it and I drank it. I swear to God, I was hung over for two days. I could feel the after effects of that. Never again am I having a white claw. I had never had one. All I know, all I looked at the label and there was only two grams of sugar. So I was like, ah, this will be fine. And the first one, maybe it would have been fine.

28:55

But I am so in tuned with my body. I’m not interested in alcohol relieving my stress. You know, I was having it kind of as a social whatever and I paid the price for it. And I didn’t ignore the subtle signs of hangover. You know, I had less energy, I had a pinch of a headache. I didn’t ignore that. I said, note to self, I’m not drinking that crap again. And I was able to do that because I was

29:24

drinking and interfacing with alcohol as it was, not as I wanted it to be. I didn’t need anything from the alcohol, and so I was very cognizant of what the alcohol did to me. And that speaks to how mindset plays a role in addiction. When our brains associate an activity as a reward at the end of that activity, it robs us of the joy of the experience. Because we’re not

29:50

let’s say drinking to enjoy the drink, we’re drinking because we want to feel differently or relieve stress. And the more you’re doing something to get something, the less you enjoy what you’re doing. And the more resentful you feel when the reward doesn’t appear, which exacerbates the symptoms of withdrawal, the anxiety and irritability and depression and all of that stuff, because you wanted something and you didn’t get it.

30:19

And now you’re even more pissed off, which I know for me led me through the cycle of, well, I guess I’ll try that again every single night, like running laps around the cul-de-sac of stupidity, not paying attention. So 30 days of abstinence is such a step one, because it may take 30 days for your dopamine to start firing again, although again, science also shows it can take up to 14 months.

30:47

But truly this isn’t about your relationship with alcohol. Once you get it out of your system, then you have to work on your relationship with yourself. And why you would be using a dopamine spiking substance is what you really want to address. Because if you’re not experiencing pleasure from normal everyday life, that’s the problem. And using alcohol to supplement your joy and pleasure and connection only decreases.

31:15

your joy and pleasure and connection. You’ve got to get off that hamster wheel. And that just takes time. You have to re establish your dopamine response to normal everyday life and that may take some work to change your normal habits and your response to stress and all the things you put on your plate and all the guilt you feel and you feel bad when you’re taking care of yourself like all of that shit has to be dealt with.

31:44

And then once you are happy in your everyday normal state of life, that is when you can consider re-engaging with alcohol or anything else. But you have to do so with the awareness that there is a dopamine spike and there is a withdrawal period and that you have to be very careful engaging with say alcohol and only do so in very infrequent and modest doses.

32:13

so that it doesn’t become a cycle again. You have to learn how to tolerate the down if you want to enjoy the up. And I can tell you, once your brain heals, you won’t get nearly as much of a high. I can have a glass of wine, and sometimes I feel a pleasant, euphoric little buzz, and other times I don’t. And I don’t chase it. Like, okay, that was my glass of wine, it was what it was.

32:43

And I don’t try to augment it or boost it in any way because I absolutely am not willing to sacrifice my pleasure and joy tomorrow or any other day. That is my first priority. And I would never pour alcohol on a low dopamine situation, on a low day where I’m not feeling pleasant. Maybe I’m going somewhere I don’t wanna be. Well, the answer is not to have alcohol in order to make that easier. The answer is to go home.

33:13

and give myself whatever it is I really need instead of making it worse. So I’d like to share with you now some steps and tools that you can use to heal your dopamine response so that you do feel pleasure and connection and joy in your everyday life. And one of the first things is to cultivate a growth mindset, telling yourself that you like to do hard things.

33:43

The reward centers in your brain, your dopamine response system, is in your primitive part of your brain. Your cognitive frontal lobe, that’s your consciousness. That’s your intelligence. And the thing about your primitive part of your brain is it’s not cognitive. So you can make a plan to trick your primitive brain. And even though you’re aware of that plan, your primitive brain will go along with it.

34:12

And so what I mean by that is you can tell yourself you like to do hard things even if you don’t like to do hard things. And when you first quit drinking and you’re dealing with a dopamine deficit, that’s hard. That is hard. It’s a marathon to get your brain functioning again. And the best way to accelerate your recovery is to bring your awareness into experiences that you want to like.

34:40

before you like them and use positive self-talk. This is something hard. I’m enjoying doing this hard thing. Or noticing the effort and associating, telling myself that I’m enjoying it will actually boost my dopamine response to this activity. You can be very cerebral about the emotions of enjoying your own life. And you can program your brain.

35:06

to respond. And of course, it doesn’t respond amazingly in the beginning. But the more you make it a habit to remind yourself why you’re doing something, and to pay attention to that sense of effort, that sense of striving. So you’re rewiring your brain from the instant gratification, I’m in this to win it, and I want the reward. You’re rewiring your brain to enjoy the actual experience, which requires you to stay present.

35:36

and actually at least start with the desire to enjoy the actual experience, just like exercise. If the only reason you’re exercising is to be skinny and, you know, to check the box, then you’re not present during it. You know, you may be listening to music or boosting your dopamine with caffeine or workout supplements or whatever, and you’re not really focused on the experience of the exercise.

36:06

Well, that decreases your dopamine response to it because you’re boosting your dopamine with the music and the supplements or whatever. And that’s not that there’s anything wrong with that, with boosting it. But if you could intermittently do those things and sometimes just experience the exercise or the experience of whatever you’re doing, just be in that.

36:33

even though it’s not making you feel like a rock star or lighting your dopamine circuits up like it’s a Vegas slot machine, and you’re just willing to be a little uncomfortable and push through that, that will quickly accelerate your dopamine response system. So cultivating a growth mindset and really focusing on staying present in different experiences that you want to learn how to enjoy will accelerate your recovery.

37:01

And there’s a whole list that I’m going to go into now of daily self-care routines that also dramatically improve your dopamine response. So if you’re in a dopamine deficit, doing these things every day have been scientifically proven to boost baseline dopamine levels so that you feel better and enjoy your life.

37:25

as you’re living it and you’re not constantly just reaching for something to spike your dopamine, but it’s actually engaged with your real life. The first thing is sleep hygiene. And so I say sleep hygiene, because of course, you know that getting eight hours of sleep is so important. Sleep is the foundation of mental health, not one of the pillars. Like if you do nothing, but protect and nurture your sleep cycle, you will

37:54

see drastic improvements in your dopamine. And I say sleep hygiene, because I don’t like this either. But science shows that going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time in the morning balances your circadian rhythm. You know, we’re animals. There is so much primitive evolutionary processes that are part of our daily cycle that we’re so unaware of, like our cortisol

38:24

that going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at the same time every morning and getting a solid eight, at least. I know in early sobriety, I needed closer to 10 every day. And if you want to accelerate your recovery, then giving yourself the sleep that you need to allow your brain to heal is one of the best things you can do. So sleep hygiene, you know, going to bed at the same time, staying off your phones and devices so that your cortisol and melatonin systems

38:54

regulate on their own and you’re not interrupting that is really, really important. Another thing that has been shown is morning sunlight. And I tell you what I attribute my new habit in the last couple years I’ve been building it this last winter, I was outside every single day, walking my German Shepherd thanks to my German Shepherd. I you know, I had good reason to go even when I didn’t really want to go but exposing your eyes to natural light, not through a window.

39:23

but actually sticking your head out the window right there with the dog, breathing in the air, and getting that natural light as little as 10 minutes every morning significantly boosts your dopamine throughout the day. So again, your normal everyday activities will feel more rewarding. Another one is movement. If you, like I, have a sedentary job where I’m at my desk, more hours than I’m at my desk or I’m in bed,

39:51

I’m not moving a lot of the day. I have to put in movement. So for me, I have a standing desk. So I try to spend a couple hours of my day standing. I take frequent breaks and move around. Again, we are animals. And just like you wouldn’t leave your dog in a cage for 8 to 10 hours a day, don’t leave your ass in a chair for that long either. You have to move. And I’ll talk about exercise in a minute. But.

40:17

For this list, I’m just talking about movement, just regular movement. And that also helps you connect with your body, getting out of your mind, stopping the, you know, what is it? The dog chasing its own tail in your brain, and just breathing and experiencing. That will fire your dopamine for everyday life. Very, also very important is good nutrition, making sure you’re getting protein rich meals three times a day.

40:46

I know I was an intermittent faster, and I tried to sustain that in early sobriety. Because it was my habit, it actually felt good, and I had no idea that when you are repairing baseline dopamine, there’s specific amino acids that you need on a regular basis to give your brain everything it needs to function and fire. And that leads to beyond good nutrition, there are specific amino acid supplements, and I have talked about those in other episodes

41:15

podcast, but tyrosine is one that you can use. And I still use that some days. On days that I have brain fog or I don’t feel like I’m really focused, I will use tyrosine. Amazing results with amino acid supplements if you’re experiencing a dopamine deficit. And then finally on this list, taking digital breaks. So your phone is putting you on a dopamine rollercoaster.

41:44

And so maybe one day a week, you take a digital Sabbath where your phone stays on the charger all day long. Of course, you can still use it, but just not carrying it around like you’re a dog on a leash, responding to every ding and notification. I don’t really take a break for a full day. I haven’t gotten to that point yet on a weekly basis. I mean, if I’m on vacation, for sure I do that.

42:10

But I will just leave my phone in the bathroom for several hours. It helps me get more work done. I’m more focused. It’s amazing. The phone really has become a leash. And taking breaks from that, learning how to read a book again, there’s a reason why reading a book feels hard. And it’s not because reading has become hard. It’s because you’re out of the habit, and you’re so distracted. Like if you’re reading a book and your phone is next to you,

42:38

Your chances of really losing yourself in that book are so much lower. Just seeing your phone, even if it doesn’t go off, your brain will be like, hey, you should check Facebook really fast, or hey, you know, I wonder if anybody responded to that email, or whatever. So out of sight, out of mind with the phone, taking digital breaks is very, very important. And then another strategy for healing your dopamine deficit is to invite.

43:06

painful activities that stimulate dopamine production. So remember, pain and pleasure are a teeter totter. And you don’t just have to stop pursuing pleasure, high levels of pleasure, unnatural dopamine spiking pleasure. But you can also lean into pain. So just for one basic bottom line, rigorous exercise has been shown.

43:35

to be far more effective than any pill when it comes to sustaining positive mood or dealing with anxiety or improving your cognition or improving your energy levels or even sleep. Energy, especially rigorous exercise if you can get yourself into a sweat and exercise is more effective than any pill. So leaning into that pain of exercise.

44:03

and telling yourself you enjoy it, staying present for it, and doing whatever you can to push the boundaries of your comfort zone. Really, really helpful. Making your body stronger makes your body more enjoyable to live in. Another pain strategy that I use that has been a game changer is cold water immersion. And in as little as 11 minutes a week, there’s studies that show.

44:32

as little as 11 minutes a week, drastically improve everything from energy and mood to weight loss and metabolism. I guess cold water stimulates burning of the brown fat, which I’m not an expert on that, but that got my attention. I tend to use the, I do a cold shower at the end of my regular showers and I try to go up to three minutes. And I tell you, there is

45:02

about the first 10 to 15 seconds of that, it is pain. But it’s really cool to learn how to tolerate. And I can tell you that I can now sit in an ice bath for three to five minutes, and the first 10 to 15 seconds suck. And then my body responds. It’s so cool to kind of be present to the physiological responses. It’s like my engines turn on. And when I really pay attention to the sensation of the cold on my skin, I can’t tell if it’s cold or hot.

45:32

It’s really weird. And I don’t stay in there long enough to get hypothermic. But by the time I get out of a cold bathtub, I’m telling you, I feel toasty warm. And maybe I just snorted Adderall. It’s crazy. And doing cold water exposure can increase your baseline dopamine levels for up to three to five hours. So that right there, especially in early sobriety, when you’re dealing with.

46:01

the dopamine deficit, you’re feeling lethargic and depressed, you know, lack of focus, get yourself into a cold shower or a cold tub. It’s a game changer. Another some more psychological tools of leaning into pain would be like anxiety immersion. Like let’s say you have a lot of social anxiety, controlling situations that you purposefully put yourself into to practice.

46:29

tolerating the pain of social anxiety. So it might not be going to a party with all your family and friends, like that’s a mountain. But getting out of the car instead of doing the drive through at Starbucks and going in and making eye contact with the people. Or if you have a work environment where you’re like, all right, I’m going to get up and do a lap and say hi to three people and make eye contact. And practice feeling that anxiety and pushing through it.

46:59

makes your brain dopamine respond. So just like the pain that somebody like I said, the extreme example of cutting themselves, if you lean into your anxiety and allow that to be first of all, you will also heal your anxiety. But specifically in the moment in your brain, when you do hard things, your brain rewards you, it feels good to do the hard thing and get through it. And so

47:27

finding little ways to do that throughout the day, leaning into the hard, your brain responds to that and that boosts your baseline dopamine. And the last thing I’ll talk about that you can do this psychologically is with honesty. So as adults, on average, there’s a study that shows most adults tell at least one lie per every day. And the reason is honesty can be painful.

47:57

itself, telling your truth, balances pleasure and pain in your brain because telling your truth is pleasurable. And there’s a couple of reasons for that. First of all, when you don’t tell the truth, even little white lies, even subconscious lies, where you’re not really present and somebody’s like, how’s your day? And you’re like, oh, it’s great. How’s yours? But your day is not great, even if that’s of no consequence, right?

48:26

But subconsciously, your body is keeping the score. And when you say things that aren’t true, you get latent anxiety. So if you’re a person that struggles with anxiety, adopting the radical honesty challenge might be a way to reduce your anxiety, tell your truth. This doesn’t mean hijack every conversation with all your bullshit. It just means finding a way to honor what you’re going through and who you are.

48:55

and not being afraid to speak, not feeling like you have to adapt and reflect with all the people around you want to see, but allowing yourself to be where you are. That not only reduces anxiety, but it also generates a feeling of acceptance because once you hear yourself say something, your brain isn’t going to... the arguments in your brain that go with anxiety, the back and the forth, you’re able to quicker, quick early

49:24

not a word, move into acceptance, where it is what it is. And once you can accept a problem, you actually have the foresight to work on that problem, where if you’re still arguing if the problem exists, or maybe if you’re crazy, then your anxiety just perpetuates. And when you deny that you have a problem, and I think of alcohol use disorder for myself, the biggest problem was not even what alcohol was doing to my body and my dopamine systems.

49:54

It was that I was in denial. And denial itself disconnects your frontal lobe from your reward pathways. And it produces feelings of detachment and disconnect. So the more I drank and pretended that I didn’t have a drinking problem, the more detached and disconnected I felt, not just from other people, but from myself. When we are.

50:22

Trying to project an image of who we are that is different from our actual experience, we’re not able to have that experience of ourselves. And of course, if we’re in pain, that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. But it’s only by embodying the pain that we’re in that we’re able to actually deal with it. So again, radical honesty counters that disconnect.

50:50

between the projected image that you’re putting out there and your authentic self. And the real goal is to become the person you say you are, right? That is authenticity, to be able to be in your integrity and in your truth. So radical honesty reconnects you with your authentic self. And that feels good too, which also boosts your baseline dopamine levels. Because you know when

51:18

you’ve got this feeling that you’re full of shit, that doesn’t feel good. And that’s not rewarding in your brain. So starting where you’re at with being okay with where you’re at is the first step to actually getting to a place that you wanna be, where you are okay. And when you’re honest about where you’re at, it allows for an accurate narrative in your brain. So you’re not living in this imaginary, what if someday, whatever, you’re living in the present moment.

51:47

and you’re able to assess your actions for their clear consequences, and then also plan for the future. So radical honesty is a powerful tool that’s a little bit painful that produces a big bang on the other side. And the last thing I’ll say about honesty is that being vulnerable produces intimacy. There’s an oxytocin release that fires when you tell your truth. And.

52:15

Almost every time you’re vulnerable, you are rewarded with somebody else. People like people who are real. Nobody likes a perfect asshole. And the more you are open with people, the more connected that you feel. And then, of course, when you feel connected, your brain likes that. Ding, ding, here’s some more dopamine. And again, your baseline dopamine levels rise. And pretty soon, you’re running on all cylinders.

52:43

and life feels good again. So to land the plane on this, looking at early sobriety and recovery from the framework of dopamine is one of the most powerful ways you can depersonalize the symptoms that you’re experiencing and looking at what you need to do as how to boost your dopamine levels. Because

53:12

You can and you will enjoy life again when your brain is running on all cylinders. And I want to leave you with a few activities, a few suggestions for you to try this week. Number one, I want you to pay attention to your sources of cheap dopamine, the dopamine spiking activities.

53:37

Basically, any instant gratification shit that you do, things that make you feel good without getting off the couch, inventory that. And then compare that to the list of dopamine boosting, baseline boosting activities that you do. And see where you need to come into more balance. Don’t just look at it on a daily basis, but look at it as an hourly. What are you doing in the morning, and the afternoon, and the evening? And where can you inject?

54:07

more fast-acting dopamine boosting activities. And dopamine boosting activities don’t have to take a lot of time. When you feel like you’re in a hole, you can crawl out in 30 second increments. When I am feeling depressed or stagnant, I stop, drop, and do five pushups, or I go clean my toilet, or I do whatever I can, the lowest hanging fruit that will give me

54:36

dopamine hit. And you just rinse and repeat that. Taking micro actions, leaning into micro discomforts is how you heal your dopamine. And the second thing I encourage you to do is to start practicing radical honesty. Just lean into the discomfort that is your truth. Notice if and when you do tell a lie, keep a lie log, if you will. I’ve had a couple clients do that.

55:04

Because you can’t necessarily change your habits overnight, but becoming aware of them, bringing them from the subconscious into the conscious is the first step. So keep a list of the lies you tell. And when you do, just notice why. Why did you do that? What situations are causing you to be less than fully honest, being fully who you are as your authentic self? And what are the consequences of that lie for you?

55:34

Because if you’re listening to this, probably you’re not a pathological liar. You think you’re lying when you lie to help other people or to soften other people’s experience. What consequence is that for you? And also, why are you taking responsibility for other people’s feelings? Just a question. And my last suggestion for the week is for you to identify a habit, just a small one, that you want to change.

56:04

giving you a cheap source of dopamine that is leading to less pleasure in your life overall and actually increasing your pain. So identify that habit and then explain why, write your why, why you want to change it, why it is problematic for you. And then articulate the obstacles. Why does that feel hard? What stands in your way? What needs to change in order for you to be able to make that happen?

56:33

And then finally, list the action steps that you’re gonna take and then take those action steps. Like, let’s do it, let’s change a habit this week. And I encourage you to make it a small habit. It does not have to be huge. Go as small as you want. For me, small things I’ve done is like, sometimes taking a walk without my podcast or my music, or making it a rule that I’m not watching TV during the week. I’m reading books or just sitting with myself.

57:02

because learning how to enjoy my own presence is a huge part of restoring my brain chemistry. And so I’m motivated to do that even when I’m bored. And just removing so many distractions has really helped with the boredom. I don’t get as bored because I know how to just be. So I encourage you to just be, thanks for listening to my TED Talk. Looks like we’re going on almost an hour here. And if you found this helpful,

57:31

I want to re-extend the invitation I shared at the beginning to invite you to the master class that I’m doing this week on the five pillars of my program. Because just listening to this information is a great start, but the practical application takes a commitment and dare I say a coach. So get in the show notes and click the link and if you’re interested in working with me, come to my free master class. Thanks for listening.

58:01

If you liked what you heard, please take the time to rate and review the show so that other people can find it. I really appreciate it. And check out the show notes for any resources I’ve mentioned, including links to follow me on Instagram and join my private Facebook group where I connect with my tribe every day. I love it in there and we have so much fun. And finally, if you’re ready to redefine sobriety so that you can feel excited.

58:30

about quitting drinking, follow the link to my 10 Days to Spontaneous Sobriety course where I will help you eliminate, eradicate, obliterate, cancel your desire to drink. Because looking and feeling your best is addictive too. I’ll see you soon.