Think about how you feel after a long day. You’re wired and tired at the same time — that specific kind of exhaustion where your body is done but your brain just won’t stop. And somewhere between walking in the door and starting dinner, you pour a drink. Not because you want to get drunk. Not because you’re particularly excited about it. Just because it’s the fastest way to make heading into your evening feel a little more manageable.
And it works. At least for a while.
The problem isn’t that you have a drink while you’re making dinner. The problem is why you can’t just tell yourself no when it’s not in your best interest.
Here’s what’s actually happening in your body.
What You’ve Been Told About Alcohol and Stress
We’ve all grown up thinking that alcohol is medicinal if you use it responsibly. For decades, even doctors believed that having a glass of wine at the end of the day is heart-healthy.
And our culture actively promotes drinking. We’ve got happy hour, wine o’clock and mommy juice. Alcohol is seen as an adult-beverage for hard-working people who’ve earned the right to imbibe. Advertisers have spent decades planting sexy images in our heads to make us believe that alcohol is a socially acceptable form of stress relief that makes everything better.
And honestly, that can feel so true. I can remember the feeling of relief that would wash over me from simply hearing the cork pop and the sound of teek–teek–teek as my first glass was poured from the bottle. I felt better before I even took a sip. That wonderful feeling was real. I’m not going to tell you it wasn’t.
But here’s what was actually happening. Most of the relief I felt wasn’t actually coming from the alcohol. It was coming from the story I was telling myself about what it meant to pick up that glass. Pouring a drink was a ritual. I was giving myself permission to be done for the day, to let go of whatever might be bothering me and to just be okay for a while. The alcohol helped me transition from go-mode to chill-mode.
I just had no idea that I had the power to do that on my own–nor any understanding of what it was costing me to not know that.
What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Stress
Pharmacologically, alcohol is a biphasic drug. Meaning small amounts and large amounts have opposite effects. The biphasic line is .055 blood alcohol level. Which is about two drinks in an hour for women. Anything below the biphasic line can be therapeutic. It’s the buzz you’re looking for — you feel cozy, relaxed, maybe a little chatty.
But when you cross the biphasic line and go from buzzed to intoxicated, the negative side effects start to compound.
Here’s why. Alcohol is a sedative. It depresses your central nervous system. And your brain, whose number one job is to keep you alive, is not going to let you get so relaxed that you forget to breathe. So it counteracts the depressive effects by releasing stimulants like cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine — your stress hormones — to compensate. The very thing you were actually trying to manage.
Alcohol is also an analgesic. It temporarily reduces pain, including sensations of fatigue. That’s why you might plan to have just one drink – because you’re tired and want to go to bed early, only to find yourself changing your mind because you’ve perked up. The alcohol has numbed your tiredness. And once you cross the biphasic line, the stress hormones give you even more of a boost.
Which explains why it’s easier to just keep drinking until you pass out. And then you wake up at 3 a.m. because the buzz has worn off but your cortisol levels are jacked. Your mind is racing, your heart is pounding and everything that’s wrong in your life wants your attention.
And if you’re a daily drinker, you need to understand that cortisol doesn’t just spike and drop. Levels can remain elevated for days. When you’re not taking time to recover between drinking sessions, stress becomes chronic.
I can remember having labs done and the only thing that was off was my cortisol. It was so high that my doctor literally assumed there was an error. She wanted to test me again. Of course, I agreed and also never followed up.
Why Your Stress Keeps Getting Worse
Here’s where it becomes a cycle. Every time you use alcohol as a way to cope with stress, your brain learns something. Think of your brain like the algorithm on your social media feed. The more you click on a certain type of content, the more of that content you’re going to see.
The same thing happens once your brain learns that alcohol can make a stressful situation a little more tolerable. It starts applying that solution in more and more contexts. Like the Netflix algorithm that recommends new shows based on the shows you’ve already watched, your brain says — if you enjoyed two glasses of wine, may I suggest a third? Since drinking helped you survive that wedding with your in-laws, may I recommend you bring a flask to the funeral? And if you like happy hour on Fridays as a way to end the week, it’s probably a great idea to pour a toast on Monday to kick off the week.
Over time, you build out the habit of drinking as a way to celebrate, relax and unwind. And in seemingly unrelated news, life starts to feel more stressful. Because the more you rely on alcohol, the more your neural pathways for other coping skills atrophy. Think of it as trails through the woods. If you always take the same path, the other ones become overgrown and eventually no longer exist.
So the pressure builds. Your ability to cope with life without a drink in your hand goes down. You’re no longer just drinking because you have stress. You’re stressing because you’re drinking so much. It’s officially both the problem and the solution. It’s a hamster wheel — and the reason you can’t see it is that you’re still perceiving alcohol as the thing that gives you a break from the madness, when in reality it’s slowly becoming your primary source of it.
How alcohol affects your dopamine
There’s one more piece to this. Alcohol also spikes your dopamine — the neurotransmitter that is your source of motivation— up to ten times higher than normal activities. Which feels great in the moment. But what goes up must come down.
Anything that spikes your dopamine unnaturally high leaves you with a lower baseline the next day because you’ve blown through your reserves. Think of dopamine like water in a bathtub. When you make big waves, some of the water sloshes out. Over time, the water level just keeps dropping. Which means you need bigger and bigger waves to feel the same effect. That’s what we call tolerance.
I used to think that my high tolerance was simply a sign of impeccable liver functioning. It’s not. Tolerance is a symptom of a dopamine deficit. It means your baseline has dropped so low that you actually need more alcohol than other people just to feel normal.
When you have a high tolerance, you’re not just drinking to feel good anymore. You’re drinking because not-drinking feels bad, and alcohol is the only tool you have to fix that.
Why You Still Believe It Works
If alcohol doesn’t actually reduce stress, why does it feel like it does?
There’s a difference between reducing stress and muting or numbing stress. Alcohol absolutely does provide a temporary sense of relief. But you already know that it doesn’t actually solve your problems. And the longer you go without dealing with the sources of stress, the more it all adds up. Your problems feel like they’re getting bigger, Meanwhile, your capacity to deal with those problems (without a drink in your hand) is shrinking. Even small action steps feel overwhelming because they aren’t going to make enough of a difference.
The Real Source of Your Stress
The other thing nobody talks about. The biggest source of your stress isn’t your workload or your inbox or all of the people who demand too much of you. It’s your own self-narrative — the story you’re telling yourself about why you feel bad.
It’s the shame that says you’re not good enough and not capable of doing better. It’s the regrets about things you’ve done wrong and can’t fix (you can’t go back and un-drink all the drinks!) It’s the story that says you’ve always been a certain way and always will be. Those stories aren’t true. They’re just beliefs you’ve internalized. And no amount of alcohol is going to quiet them for long. They’ll be waiting for you in the morning.
The only way to actually relieve stress is to treat it at the source — the thoughts that are telling you something isn’t right, something needs to change, something needs to be addressed. The only way to become someone who doesn’t need to drink to decompress is to learn how to manage your nervous system so you’re not arriving at the end of every day in crisis mode. That’s a skill. One that nobody teaches us — because in our culture, it’s not normal to feel good. Everybody’s overstressed and overwhelmed. The solution is to work harder, not give yourself permission to relax. Which is why alcohol is so appealing.
But just imagine how much better your life would be if you didn’t need alcohol to manage your stress. When you become your own source of power and relief, then you can enjoy having an occasional drink or two instead of worrying you’re not going to be able to stop once you start.
Not needing a drink to feel right with yourself and the world is a freaking superpower. And you already have that power–you just have to learn how to access it. My proven methodology has helped thousands of high achieving women transform into the version of themselves who lives so fully aligned with their values and goals they can genuinely just take it or leave it when it comes to alcohol.
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And if you want to learn more about my “Take it or Leave it” Methodology, check out these additional resources:
Free Masterclass
The Science of Take It or Leave It: Why Some Women Can and How You Can Too
It’s Not About the Alcohol podcast
EP323, What It Means When You’re Not Just Drinking for Fun, You’re Drinking to Cope