The Emotion Drink Connection: Why We Reach for Alcohol and How to Interrupt It

Have you ever noticed that the urge to drink rarely appears out of nowhere?

It usually shows up after something happens — a stressful day, an uncomfortable conversation, a moment of overwhelm, or a feeling that seems too big to sit with.

Many women don’t drink because they love alcohol. They drink because they’re trying to change how they feel.

In this episode of The Pink Cloud Frequency, we explore the connection between emotions and alcohol — and why the urge to drink is often a response, not a coincidence.

If you’re sober curious, newly alcohol-free, or navigating your sobriety journey, understanding this connection can be a powerful shift. Because when you learn to recognize what’s underneath the urge, you can begin to interrupt the pattern.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Pink Cloud Frequency. I am your host, Brianna Wynne. And today we are going to discuss the emotion drink connection, why we reach for alcohol and how to interrupt that process. Because most of us aren't drinking because we love alcohol, right? That's not the reason, that's not the reason that I drank, and it's not the reason that you drank, or maybe you're still drinking today. Women are drinking because they're trying to change how they feel. Sure, people might say that they like the taste of alcohol, which maybe in some cases might be true. For me, I know I've said that, and I think it's more of an acquired taste, right? Like coffee. If you start to drink a wine, then you kind of sort of you have that taste for it. But really, alcohol doesn't taste good. You know, think about the times where you are going to sip on a beverage and then you just make that face after because it's really just potent and acidic, and it doesn't always go down smoothly, right? Like it's really genuinely not the best tasting drink. Juice tastes better, or you know, water, or maybe you like a soda. I don't know. Everyone's different. But long story short, my point in saying all that is women are not necessarily drinking because they like the taste. Because if they like the taste, they could drink something else that wasn't a mind-altering substance. So it's really not about taste. Why would you drink something that has off flavors or off aftertastes or has calories when you could just have something else? What you're doing is looking for that effect. You're trying to change the way that you feel. And that comes down to emotional regulation. Your emotions are psychological and physiological responses to events, right? To your environment. So how you feel, the sensations that you feel in your body, the behaviors that you exhibit, all of those things are helping you respond to your environment, to information that you're presented with. So whether you're experiencing, you know, fear or sadness or anger or even happiness. It doesn't have to be a negative emotion, right? It can be a positive emotion too. But as humans, we're always trying to regulate our emotional state. And we're not necessarily doing so consciously, but everything we do affects our emotional states. So you may exercise, or maybe you enjoy talking to friends or family. Maybe you scroll social media, or your eating habits, or shopping, right? A lot of us, I mean, have shopping addition addictions. I know I have moments where I can just splurge and you know, buy something and just keep buying and buying and buying, and I can do that for a weekend straight and then be like, oh my gosh, I spent thousands of dollars and then and then I'll stop. But it's this, it's still right. I'm I'm obviously doing so for a reason. And yes, as women, we can always justify our shopping habits because there's something we always want or need, let's say. But the reality is it's like it's sort of an addiction as well. Um, maybe you gamble or drink alcohol, but alcohol works to regulate our emotional states because it works quickly, right? It's not like you're ordering a bottle of alcohol online and you don't get it for three to five days. No, you walk in the store, you get your bottle of wine, you come home, you pour it out, you drink it, and immediately your state is affected. So you don't have to wait. And what happens is alcohol affects your dopamine, like we've talked about, that reward system in your brain. It affects your GABA. So your relaxation, how you feel, your cortisol levels. So those stress hormones, those are temporarily lowered. And that's why alcohol becomes associated with this sort of quick relief. But what happens in that process is your brain experiences an emotion, again, whether positive or negative, and then you drink alcohol in response to that emotion because you are trying to regulate, and then you get that relief. So now you have that condition pattern in your brain. But the thing is, you don't actually want alcohol in and of itself. What you want is the response, the relief, the way to regulate your state, right? So many women are drinking in response to stress, for instance, right? I mean, think about whether you're at work or you're at home and you're inundated with emails, just constant emails from your job, from family trying to plan out events, you know, a couple months ahead. Or how about the school emails? You know, the schools are sending emails once every week, and then you have to, you know, click on the link and then click on another link that's embedded in that, all of this just to get the information about what's going on at the school. And then on top of it, you're getting emails with parent-teacher conferences or reminders, you know, of your calendar, where you have to be, what you have to buy, what you have to do. It's like that alone can be very stressful. Or you're trying to fit so many different things into your day, helping your kids with homework or cooking dinner for yourself and your family, you know, maybe you're breaking up sibling arguments, or I mean, whatever it is, there is always stress in our days. And by the time 7 p.m. rolls around, maybe earlier for some of you, 5 p.m., maybe a little bit later for some of you. It could be 9 or 10 p.m. By the time that clock strikes, you are feeling like I deserve a glass of wine. And again, that's not because you want the glass of wine itself, or that you're parched and you really want something to drink. No, it's because you want relief from your stressful state. You drink because you feel overwhelmed. All of those responsibilities, those family obligations, those social expectations, all those tasks, your nervous system becomes overloaded. And alcohol is the pause button. You drink because you feel lonely. And just because you are in your home and you may be surrounded by, you know, family or friends, it doesn't mean you're not lonely. A lot of people can feel emotionally alone, even if you're in a relationship. Maybe your partner you feel is emotionally unavailable, or your children are growing more independent, right? They want to drive themselves everywhere. When the weekend comes, they don't want to make plans with you. They want to make plans with their friends or their girlfriend or boyfriend. Your friends, your friendships change over the course of years. And alcohol can become that temporary companion, right? It feels like you have something you know you can rely on. When you need alcohol, it's there. If it's not there, you're going to go get it and then it's going to be there for you. But it's it's like this little acquaintance, this friend. You know what to expect. You know how you'll feel at least, you know, the first five or 30 minutes after you drink, you know how you're gonna feel. Alcohol can also be, or at least feel like, a solution for anxiety, right? How many of you've drank before because you're feeling anxious? Maybe about a work meeting or a social gathering or a school event. The drink helps you quiet that internal noise, right? That chatter. You drink because you're trying to relieve your anxiety, but what you don't realize is alcohol actually causes anxiety. So you're constantly in this cycle of having anxiety, relieving anxiety, and then having anxiety all over again. Drinking helps you escape boredom, right? For women who feel stuck in their routines, and that can feel mundane at times, depending on where you're at in your life or with your family or your children, if you have them, that can feel very mundane. Wake up, go to work, come home, clean up, cook dinner, you know, tend to your family life, go to bed. And then you wake up and you do it all over again. So if you're not actively working on your life in ways that help you remain present and optimistic and focused on other things, right? Yourself, your goals, just you know, maybe you meditate or journal or you exercise or all these other things. If you're not actively doing those things, and sometimes even if you are, but the point is, is life can feel very structured and very mundane. It gets boring. And alcohol adds that artificial excitement. It makes you feel like you're doing something more than you're actually doing. And I know this would be this would happen to me, where, and I do, I feel like I have a very exciting life. And I would honestly say, even more so now that I quit drinking. I my life just feels so much more full, but that's also because I'm able to enjoy the smaller moments now in a way that I couldn't when I was drinking. So, in addition to everything that I do, I'm also able to enjoy and show up for every little moment in a way that I couldn't when I was drinking. But when I did drink, uh there were times when the alcohol would just help situations feel more stimulating than they actually were. I was never really trying to escape an emotion or, you know, escape any trauma, nothing like that. For me, drinking was always fun, exciting, upbeat. And I could be home by myself and drink a bottle of wine and several tequila shots. And I would be excited. That would help break up the monotony of the day. It was something I could look forward to. I could sit on the couch watching a TV show or watching a basketball game or a football game, but add a few shots in the mix. I'm having a great fucking time by myself. So when you have that, you know, same schedule every day and you feel bored, alcohol helps break that up. It gives you that level of excitement you feel like you wouldn't otherwise have if you weren't drinking. So the reality is, is alcohol is helping you to regulate all of these different emotions that you feel. But and there's a big but the root emotion beneath many of our feelings is usually fear, right? And even in a positive way, like the example I was just giving, like the fear of dealing with isolation or feeling like wow, I don't actually have that much going on in my life right now as it seems. As soon as that busy schedule dies down, and I'm sitting here and I'm by myself, I may have a fear of getting in touch with my feelings and my life. And am I working on anything? Was I actively working on goals? You know, like what was I actually doing? And like the fear of okay, yes, I'm raising a child and he's an amazing child, and so much of my life revolves around him. But what about that piece of life for me as well? Right? What about my desires and my interests and my aspirations? What about my future? You know, the children are going to eventually, obviously, they age, they get older, and they build their own families. So, in a way, that drive to always want that excitement or that companion, that actually was stemming from a fear beneath the surface. And that fear really was what does my life look like? So many emotions that you experience, they're actually different expressions of fear, right? Fear is your brain's alarm system, if you will. And its job is to detect threats in your environment. But the reality is, is those threats, they're rarely physical, right? They're emotional. So if you are experiencing boredom, for instance, like in some cases I was, that's really a fear that your life may in fact be stagnant. Even if it doesn't look like it is, deep down inside, you may know that you are living out of alignment with what it is you're really looking for and what you really want to create. Stress, right? Stress can be fear of not being able to keep up with those responsibilities and with the chaos that comes with being a mother, for instance. Overwhelm. We're often overwhelmed as moms, as women, but really that's just a fear of losing control. Anxiety is often fear of judgment, and loneliness is fear of disconnection, right? So when women drink, they're often trying to quiet that alarm system that your brain feels. You're trying to quiet those underlying emotions and that fear. You can think of it like our emotions, they're sort of like a crying baby, right? When a baby cries, the baby's intention is not to annoy you, the baby is communicating a need, whether the baby is hungry or tired or uncomfortable or overstimulated, the baby feels an emotion and is communicating that with you. But if you don't check on what that actually is that the baby needs, right? The baby's crying, and instead of checking and going and finding out, hey, what's wrong, you throw on a pair of headphones so you can't hear the crying. The baby still has a need, right? The baby is still experiencing discomfort for whatever reason. So that signal, the crying, still exists. But throwing on headphones to that cry is what you do when you drink alcohol. Drinking alcohol does not solve the emotion that you're feeling, it doesn't remove that cry from the baby. But what it does do is temporarily quiets that signal so you can't hear it. So there's a psychological concept referred to as urge surfing. And this concept is is widely used in addiction psychology. But urge surfing is a psychological technique used to ride out cravings without actually acting on them. So the idea is that your urge that you're experiencing, the urge that the urge to drink that rises out of any of those emotions that we just talked about stress, happiness, anxiety, fear, that urge is temporary. It rises, it peaks, right? But then it falls. So if you don't immediately react to the urge, the urge is naturally going to fade away. So emotions are like waves. In most emotional waves, they're going to pass in a very short period of time. Maybe 60 seconds, maybe 90 seconds, they're not going to be permanent. But when you react immediately with alcohol, what happens is you never learn that those emotions naturally are meant to move through you. So instead of trying to fight the urge that you feel, or instead of trying to suppress it or cover it up or immediately distract yourself from it, what you can do is observe it and process it and allow it to pass. Much like, you know, riding out a wave if you were in the ocean. And so that technique, it's going to help you understand that cravings are just, they're just sensations, right? In your body and in your mind. They are only sensations. They are not commands that you have to act on. So So when you're feeling something, right? When again, if you're having a stressful day at work, and then you know, okay, I can't wait to go home and have that glass of wine. When your brain expects alcohol, it's going to release the dopamine in anticipation, right? That dopamine release already occurs before you have that glass of wine. And that's what creates the feeling of anticipation. But cravings usually peak and diminish within a very short window if you don't act on them. So if you stop viewing the glass of wine as the reward while you're at work going through stressful, stressful emotions, right? If you stop viewing that glass of wine as the reward and you start looking forward to something else, for instance, right? Maybe it's, oh my God, I can't wait to go to the gym when this day's over, that's going to change how your brain responds. You're going to upset that neural activity, so to speak. So what you have to realize is everything that you feel is just temporary. It's up, it's down, it's forward, it's backward, right? But what you have to do is outlast that peak emotion, right? You have to interrupt that process where every time you're feeling something, you decide that a drink is the solution. You have to disconnect those two things. So, first, the very first thing you're going to want to do is name the emotion. What are you actually feeling in the moment when you're going through experiences? Are you feeling stressed or hurt or overwhelmed? Are you bored? Are you lonely? Are you angry? What happens is when you name the actual emotion, you're already, you're already pausing. You're already interrupting that process. Because that's going to activate your prefrontal cortex and that's going to reduce the intensity of what you're feeling in the moment. So if you're, you know, super angry, for instance, for some reason, and you just kind of keep moving along in that state of anger, you're going to amplify that state. But if you just stop and say, okay, I am experiencing anger in this moment. Not I am angry, right? You don't want ownership over your emotions. What you want is to identify them because yes, they are still separate from you. So when you stop to say, I am experiencing frustration or anger, and this is the reason why, you are already taking the first step in that process to reduce the likelihood of having a drink to solve that emotion. The next thing you want to do is breathe, right? After you pause and you name your emotion, the next thing you want to do is just some deep breathing. You can take a few slow breaths, but that's going to activate your nervous system, and that's going to signal safety to your brain. And of course, when you feel safe, it's going to reduce the urge to escape what it is you're feeling. The next thing you're going to want to do is change your physical state because your body influences those emotions. So maybe you just step outside for a quick, a quick dose of fresh air, right? Or you drink a glass of water, or do some quick stretching, take a short walk, wash your face, whatever you do, those little physical resets, those also help regulate your nervous system. I personally enjoy sprinting in place. Like if my energy is low and I'm about to start working or work on an activity or a project, and I feel a little bit down in the moment, I quickly will sprint in place for at least 60 seconds. And that just gets me up and going. Like if I was feeling down or maybe a little bit sad, once I do that activity and my heart rate goes up really quick, it's like that completely changes my emotional state. So whatever you have to do, the point here is to just put yourself in a different emotional state. Then once you do that, you're going to ask yourself, what do you actually need in that moment? Because again, the need is often not alcohol. You might need rest or movement or support, right? Like you might just need 10 minutes to yourself if your children are arguing in front of you and you can't get them to stop and you're starting to feel really overwhelmed. Like the solution may not be to pour a glass of wine. The solution may be to walk outside for 10 minutes and get some fresh air and let your mind quiet down, right? Because in those moments, it's like we can't even hear our own thoughts. And that can be so overwhelming. Because of course, when you can't feel your own thoughts, you don't know what to do next. So you really want to get in touch with your true internal needs because they aren't alcohol. You might just need some quiet time or some movement, and maybe you do need rest. I mean, it's certainly possible that you're overworked or exhausted from a long weekend, or, you know, just from your daily responsibilities. Maybe it's, you know, based on obviously women, we have cycles, and depending on where we're at in that cycle, we can feel very energized, and then we can feel very exhausted. And so it's important to stay in tune with that and do what you need to do or provide your body with the nourishment that it actually needs and not just reaching for a beverage. And in doing so, you're able to choose an actual response rather than just react and gravitate to that glass of wine. Now you're able to say, hmm, you know, maybe I'll take a shower, or maybe you'll step outside, like I just said. Maybe you can start a small task. Maybe you can organize something, organize your closet. Maybe you can do the dishes or the laundry or whatever it is. Like maybe you read, you call or you text someone. Once you know, okay, this is what you actually feel. You've paused, you've changed your physical state, you're figuring out, okay, what you really need in this moment is connection. Now you're able to connect with someone else. And however you do that is on you. Maybe you go out or you meet up with a friend, or maybe you just call a family member. But the point is that you're separating your urge from your actions, whether that urge is physical or mental, you know, it can be one and the same, but you're going to separate it from your action. And it's going to allow you a wider array of solutions for your emotions, for what you're feeling. Because alcohol is not the answer. But we have trained our minds and our bodies to believe that it is. So what ends up happening is no matter what you're feeling, again, physical or emotional, positive or negative, alcohol is always the solution. So that's what your brain now knows: alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. So now, if you can just move away from that sensation or that craving, and then move into the next moment after you've interrupted that feeling. Once you move into the next moment and you've and you have a new solution, and then you move into the next moment and the next moment, you realize the emotions, those aren't problems that you need to escape, they're simply you know, messages for you to understand, they're states for you to process. It's that wave for you to surf. But the overall goal is to learn to sit with your emotions instead of numbing them, and in that process, you will start to develop emotional resilience. And every time you ride out and urge successfully, every time you do something different, you strengthen your self-efficacy. And we just you know we just talked about this on on um on the last episode, how to build your confidence in your alcohol free life. And so you know that that process that builds self-trust and it builds your confidence and it builds your belief that you can handle future urges, and then that keeps building up that confidence bank, right? And that bank is what you need in order to know that you have the resources and the ability to be able to deal with life's circumstances, how you need to deal with them. Like you don't have to keep spending your money on one thing. Alcohol is not the solution to what you're going through. Now you have a bank stacked up and you have the resources to be able to spend your money in other places, right? So even though your emotions might feel very powerful and overwhelming, they don't stay at that peak forever. It's going to break, right? How you feel is going to break. You're not going to stay in a heightened state for a very long time. And again, it's the matter of seconds and minutes. So you just have to get through that and find better and more healthy coping mechanisms. And when you do that and you practice that over time, it just starts to become more of a habit. And you and you stop viewing alcohol as the solution and you start looking for more internal solutions. And honestly, sometimes everything isn't is not a problem that needs to that needs to be solved. Again, it's just a matter of sitting with an emotion, an emotion, which we all feel from time to time. I used to get, you know, I used to feel anxiety quite often when I drank. And then when I stopped drinking, I literally, it was like night and day. I mean, I did not have any anxiety at all. And it was just such a good, good, good feeling. But then, you know, like I want to say a month ago for the first time, I felt a little bit and I was like, oh my goodness, like, what is this? How do I, how do I get through this? Because when I was used to dealing with it, I drank alcohol, not knowing alcohol was actually the main contributor of it. So now when I had to experience that emotion in my alcohol-free life, it was like it was just something new, you know? And again, finding better ways to cope with it and just to being like just identifying and and pausing and then going for a walk and finding other ways to get to the root of why am I feeling this way? What's going on in my life that's that's that's making me feel anxious. What is the underlying fear here? And so there's nothing wrong with processing that in a healthy manner. And what happens is once you process it, then you're able to do other things to deal with it and then reduce the likelihood that it's going to occur again. Like once you feel it and you experience it and you go through it, once you get to the root of the problem or the emotion or whatever it is, it's not going to keep reoccurring and reoccurring and reoccurring, right? And if it does, I mean, maybe that's indicative of something greater, something that you may need to see someone about or something, you know, that could be going on in your body or in your mind that actually is going to require a bit more attention. And that's fine too, because in your alcohol-free life, you have the clarity to know the difference, to know what requires full head-on investigation and what just requires a few moments to pass, right? So, for your reflection today, the next time you feel an urge to drink, just pause and ask yourself: what are you actually feeling right now? And is alcohol truly a solution? So, thank you so much for listening today. Um, please go ahead and subscribe to the show if you haven't already. And also, if you would leave a five star written review, that would be super helpful for the show and just helping more women like yourself find it. I will talk to you all next Wednesday.