Ep180: The Twenty-Minute Craving (And How to Outlast It)

Why does the craving hit out of nowhere? Why does wine feel like it helps with overwhelm? And why does cutting back feel so hard even when you really want to? In this episode Christie breaks down exactly what your brain is doing when you crave a drink — the dopamine loop, the habit trail, the borrowed relief — and gives you real tools to get through the next twenty minutes. Plus: the science behind vacuuming and your high school playlist. Yes, really.

Topics covered: Why alcohol feels like it helps with overwhelm — and what it's actually doing | The dopamine anticipation loop that starts at 3pm | Borrowing relief from tomorrow — and what you're paying back | The habit loop: cue, routine, reward — in plain language | Why cravings are still strong after two weeks (and what the 90-day reset actually means) | The July Fourth craving that passed in twenty minutes | Playing it forward | Nervous system regulation tools that actually work — including vacuuming and your high school playlist | The two questions to ask when a craving hits

The two questions: What am I feeling right now? What do I need?

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety Podcast, the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives, women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason. I am your host, Kristy Walker. I'm a wife, mom, and a joy-filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and I am so glad you're here Have you ever had a craving hit completely out of nowhere? Like, you're doing great, the days are going well, you haven't even been thinking about drinking, and then you're at a barbecue or sitting on your couch or standing in the kitchen at five PM and it just arrives, this pull, this want, and it feels so loud and so urgent that you start to wonder, "Is something wrong with me? Why is this still happening?" I just wanna put your mind at rest. Nothing is wrong with you. Your brain is actually doing exactly what it was designed to do, and once you understand what that actually-- And once you understand what that actually is, once you can see the machinery underneath the craving, it will lose some of its power over you. Not all of it, but some, and some is enough to get through the next twenty minutes. That's what we're getting into today. So before I get into the neuroscience, I wanted to just talk about something that's been coming up a lot inside my Sober Summer Reset, and honestly, in my one-on-one coaching work for-- And honestly, in my coaching work for years. Women are drinking to manage overwhelm, not just to celebrate or socialize or even wind down. To manage the feeling that everything is too much and there is just no off switch, and the only thing that can reliably turn the volume down is a glass of wine. And here's what I want to say about that before we go any further. That makes complete sense. It's not a character flaw. It's not a weakness And that makes complete sense. It's your brain doing something very logical. It has found something that works, and it keeps offering it to you. The problem is what it's borrowing to make that-- The problem is what it's borrowing to make that work, and we're going to get into that. But first, I wanna say something to the woman who is in the overwhelm right now, the one who is parenting a parent while raising kids, the one who lost people she loved and never fully grieved them, the one whose chronic pain or anxiety has been running her life for so long she stopped noticing how much energy it costs, and the one who nee- and the one who just needs one thing in the day that feels like hers. I hear you, and this episode is for you. Okay. Let's talk about what's actually happening in your brain. First, and this surprises a lot of women, alcohol is actually a depressant, not a stimulant. It does not give you energy the way that caffeine does. So why do so many women say it helps them get things done, get the laundry done, fix dinner? Why does it feel like it gives them a boost? Here's what's actually happening. Your brain has a part called the prefrontal cortex. We've talked about this many times. This is the part that is consistently evaluating, planning, worrying, second-guessing, and managing every decision you make. It's also the part that gets completely exhausted by a long day of parenting, making decisions, working, and managing everything for everyone. When you have a drink, alcohol quiets that part of your brain. The mental noise turns down. The constant hum of everything that you should be doing, everything you haven't done, everyone who needs something from you, well, it gets softer. And in that quiet, you suddenly feel like you can breathe, like you can actually do the dishes or make dinner or have a real conversation. That's not energy, though. That is the removal of friction. The energy was always there. It was just the friction that was making it hard to tap into. And here's another piece, dopamine. When you start thinking about having a drink, not necessarily when you drink it, but when you start thinking about it, planning it, and looking forward to it, your brain starts releasing dopamine. So by the time three PM rolls around and you start thinking about that glass of wine after dinner, you are already getting little d-dopamine hits just from the anticipation, the planning, the looking forward to it. Then you can actually have the drink, and you get a big spike of dopamine, and it feels good, really good, and your brain notices. But here's the catch. After that spike, dopamine drops below where it started, below the baseline, and that drop is what keeps you coming back for more, not just tonight, but tomorrow night and the night after. Your brain is chasing its way back to the baseline, and the easiest path is the one it already knows. This is not a moral failure. It is a very efficient brain doing exactly what efficient brains do. So here's a phrase I use with my clients that tends to make this click: Alcohol borrows relief from tomorrow. In the moment, it absolutely works. The overwhelm quiets. The mental noise turns down. You feel better. But alcohol also disrupts your gut, and nearly all of your serotonin, the neurotransmitter most connected to mood and motivation, is made in your gut. It disrupts your hormones. It fragments your sleep. Even when you think it's helping you fall asleep, it's actually robbing you of the restorative deep sleep your body needs to recover. And don't think that it's helping with your anxiety. It may quiet it for a little bit, but it increases anxiety the next day as stress hormones rebound. Oh, and it reinforces the belief that you need it to function. So tomorrow, you wake up a little more depleted than yesterday, a little more anxious, a little more overwhelmed, and by three PM, the craving is back, probably louder than before because your brain has learned this is how we get relief. You are not drinking more because you have less willpower. You are drinking more because the cycle is self-reinforcing. The relief is real. It just comes with a loan that you pay back with interest every single morning So let me give you one more piece of the picture that I think is really helpful. Your brain is incredibly efficient. Its whole job is to conserve energy by turning repeated behaviors into automatic habits, and the way it does that is through a loop: a cue, a craving, a routine, a reward. The cue is anything that signals your brain that a reward is coming. It might be the time of day, the end of the workday, after dinner. It could be a location, your kitchen, your couch, that specific chair. It could be a feeling like overwhelm or stress or lor- loneliness or even triumph. Yes, success. Some women notice that they crave a drink, they crave a drink when things are going really well, not just when things are hard. The brain cues up the celebration reward just as reliably as the relief reward. Routine is the behavior The routine is the behavior, reaching for the drink. And the reward is the dopamine, the quiet, the relief. Your brain has run this loop so many times that it has become the path of least resistance. It's like a well-worn trail through a field. The grass is flat. Maybe it's even a bald path. It's easy to walk, and every time you walk it, you know, it just gets easier. Building a new habit is like walking through the part of the field where the grass is still tall. It's hard at first. You have to pay attention, but every time you choose a new path, every time you pause and do something different, you're actually cutting down some of that grass. You're building a new trail. And here's something I want you to hear. And here's something important that you need to know. And here's something you need to know. Dopamine receptors can take up to 90 days to fully reset after regular alcohol use. So if you've been cutting back for, so if you've been cutting back for two weeks and you're thinking, "Why do I still crave this so much?" That's why. You are in the middle of the rewiring. It's not that you're failing. You are in the hardest part of building the new trail. So just keep going Now I wanna tell you something that happened to, with a client of mine recently. She's been doing really well not having alcohol, barely even thinking about it Now I wanna tell you something about something that happened with a client of mine recently. I wanna share a little something that happened with a client of mine recently. She's been doing amazing, not having alcohol, barely even thinking about it. She's taking care of her body, eating well, getting protein, and moving, and it's just made a real difference in her cravings. She was at a Fourth of July gathering with friends. She had her non-alcoholic wine that she-- She had her non-alcoholic wine that she genuinely loves, and nobody was making a big deal about what was in her glass. Everything was fine. And then she said out of nowhere, a cri- a craving hit. And then, out of nowhere, a craving hit for the real thing, strong and sudden and completely unexpected given how well things had been going. And she just let it be. She didn't white-knuckle through it. She didn't spiral into shame about it. She acknowledged it and just sat with it. And twenty minutes later, she said it was gone. When I talked to her about it afterward, I said, "How did you talk yourself out of that?" And she said, "I just let it be, and it was gone." That is a woman who understands her brain and her habit well enough to know this feeling is not an emergency. It will pass. And it did. So here's the neuroscience behind what she did. Most cravings peak and pass within fifteen to twenty minutes if you don't feed them. The craving can feel urgent and permanent in the moment. It is neither. It's a wave, and you can learn to ride that wave instead of getting pulled under. One of the tools I teach my clients for getting through a craving is something I call playing it forward, playing the tape forward. When the craving hits, instead of just sitting in the discomfort of right now, mentally fast-forward to tomorrow morning. How will you feel tomorrow if you drink tonight? Not during, after, tomorrow when you wake up, the fog, the slight headache, the disappointment, the feeling of needing to start over. Now, fast-forward to tomorrow morning if you don't drink Now fast forward to tomorrow morning if you don't drink. How does that feel? The clarity, the sleep, the quiet satisfaction of having gotten through it. Play it forward. Let your future self vote on tonight's decision. And while you're at it, have something good in your hand, something you actually enjoy. A sparkling water with lime, a non-alcoholic option. Something that gives your hands something to do while your brain catches up to the decision that you're making. Write it out if you need to. Text someone. Pray. Do anything that creates a pause between the craving and the decision, because in that pause, even if it only lasts 20 minutes, your brain is building something new okay, so if alcohol is reducing mental friction, if it's quieting the overwhelm, what else can do that? Like, what else can you substitute for it? And this is where I wanna get really practical and maybe, maybe a little unexpected because I think we've been sold some very narrow picture of what nervous system regulation looks like. Meditation apps, deep breathing, and believe me, those things work. I'm not going to mention And those things work. I'm going to mention a few of them, but I also want to give you some that might surprise you. So movement, right? We all know movement is going to make us feel better, even just stretching, even a walk around the block. I know it's blazing hot in a lot of places right now, so maybe it's a short loop with the air conditioning on Maybe it's a short loop with the air conditioning on. Movement shifts your body chemistry in a way that sitting with a craving just doesn't I know, it's blazing hot in a lot of places right now. So maybe get a rebounder. That's a great way to, like, drain and cleanse your lymphatic system, and, like, five minutes on it is such a good amount to do that. Plus, it calms your nervous system. Movement shifts your body chemistry in a way that sitting with the craving doesn't. So find the movement that works for you, even if it's dancing around your living room, which I've been known to do. The next is, another thing you can do is box breathing. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, repeat. I know, it sounds too simple, but it works. It directly activates your parasympathetic nervous system, and that's the part that tells your body it's safe to calm down this one is one of my go-tos, and I'm completely serious. It's vacuuming. When I'm stressed, I vacuum. There's just something about the movement, the rhythm, the visible result of something getting cleaned up that just settles me. Cleaning and organizing in general does this for a lot of women, so don't underestimate it. And then this next one, I have seen several reels on Instagram about it, and it's so true, and I was excited to hear the science behind it, and that is to play music from your high school years or middle school and high school years. Researchers have found that the music you listen to as a teenager is imprinted on your brain and nervous system differently than any other music you'll encounter at any other time in your life. When you hear it as an adult, your brain releases dopamine, seroton- your brain releases dopamine and serotonin. Oh my gosh, I can't talk. Your brain releases dopamine and serotonin. It lowers your heart rate, reduces cortisol, and can even reconnect you to a sense of who you were before the world got loud. So when the overwhelm hits at 5:00 PM, put on your high school playlist, mine on Spotify is called My Jams, and let your brain remember something good. I actually play it while I'm making dinner, so the whole family gets to enjoy it with me this next one is so, so good and very powerful. That is scripture and prayer. Reading God's Word out loud, even one verse, shifts something. Not just spiritually. The act of speaking truth into the room changes the atmosphere of your nervous system. Another one of my favorites is audiobooks, something absorbing that takes your brain somewhere else without requiring anything from you. I happen to love thrillers and cozy mysteries, so find something that works for you and let someone else's story carry you for those 20 minutes. The common thread in all of these is that they create a pause. They interrupt the cue, craving, routine, reward loop long enough for a different choice to become possible I want to give you one practical thing to take into this week, just one. When a craving hits, before you pour the drink or while you're holding it, stop and ask yourself these two questions. What am I feeling right now and what do I need? Not what do I want. What am I actually feeling and what do I actually need? Maybe what you're feeling is overwhelm and what you need is twenty minutes of quiet with no one asking anything of you. Can you get that without wine? A bath, headphones, sitting outside for a few minutes? Maybe your feeling is lonely and what you need is connection. Can you text or call someone or bring that to prayer? Maybe what you're feeling is success and your brain has learned that good things deserve a reward. Can the reward be something else tonight? Maybe peppermint tea and a square of dark chocolate that you actually savor. Here's the thing I want you to hear about this. Even if you ask those two questions and then drink anyway, you are still building something. The pause itself is a new neural pathway. The question itself is creating a new path in the field. Every time you pause, even if the drink follows you, you are changing the habit loop. You are practicing. And the more you practice, the longer the pause gets, and the longer the pause, the more space there is for a different choice So here's what I want you to remember. Your brain, it's not broken. It is efficient. It found something that worked and keeps offering it. That, my friend, is not a flaw. That is how brains work. And it means that with time and consistency and the right tools, you can teach it something new. The craving will come. Let it. It will peak, and it will pass, usually within twenty minutes. You don't have to fight it. You just have to outlast it. And when it comes, ask yourself those two questions: What am I feeling, and what do I need? In that pause, even a short one, your brain is building a new trail, one step at a time, one craving at a time, one twenty-minute window at a time. You're not borrowing from tomorrow anymore. You're investing in it. Next week, we are going to talk about something I know h- Next week, I'm going into territory that might make some of you uncomfortable, and honestly, that's good. There's a conversation happening right now about alcohol and our kids that I have a lot of thoughts about. A woman on Instagram recently said that she's not going to teach her kids to drink responsibly. She's going to give them the real information about what alcohol actually is and does to the body and the brain, and people lost their minds. I wanna talk about why. Whether you agree with her or not, that reaction is worth examining, and I think it says something important about how deeply we've normalized something that maybe we shouldn't have. I'll talk to you again soon Well, that does it for this episode of the Catholic Sobriety Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well. And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing. I am the Catholic sobriety coach, and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer, visit my website, thecatholicsobrietycoach.com. Follow me on Instagram at The Catholic Sobriety Coach. I look forward to speaking to you next time. And remember, I am here for you. I am praying for you. You are not alone.