The Reset Loop Behind Overdrinking
episode
Journey to the Sunnyside | Mindful Drinking & Alcohol Health
10 min
1 speaker
3 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, the podcast that helps you build a better relationship with alcohol and uncover the secrets to mindful living. Each episode brings you real stories, expert insights, and practical tools to support your goals. Whether you're cutting back, taking a break, or thinking about quitting for good. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, best-selling author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. This show is brought to you by Sunnyside, a personalized science-backed program that helps you to drink less through habit change, coaching, and community. And for added support, we now have Sunnyside Met. A clinical option offering access to compounded naltrexone. A prescription medication that reduces cravings and helps prevent binge drinking.
Ready to start your journey? Get your free 15-day trial at Sunnyside.co. Hey everybody, welcome back. Today I want to start with something that might sound a little bit strange at first. What if the thing that is keeping you stuck? isn't just alcohol or the drinks. What if part of that hook is the whole cycle around the alcohol and the drinks? And when I say cycle, I mean the cycle of overdoing it. Then the next day regret that reset that you have, maybe clean eating and working out and that feeling that I'm back, you know, kind of feeling. And then you kind of slowly drift right back into that same pattern. And I don't think this is true for everybody. But for a lot of high functioning people, people who still show up, still perform, still get things done.
There's this rhythm that develops. The fall off, the feel bad, the recommit. Feel strong again and then repeat. And after a while, that whole cycle, it kind of starts to feel normal, maybe even productive. So if any of that rang true for you, that's what I'm gonna dig into today. That reset feels like true progress, but sometimes it's just the other side of the same pattern. And here's what makes it hard to see. Sometimes that reset feels so good because the crash felt so bad. The contrast is actually doing some of the work. And if you're someone like me who likes achievement, intensity, maybe a comeback story, and a lot of people listening to this are exactly this person, the reset starts to feel strangely satisfying.
You get to prove something to yourself again. You get to become that person who pulled it back together. And this is where it can get tricky, especially for high performers, because you're really good at recovering. It's easy to tell yourself, hey, this pattern that I'm in, I'm gonna get out of it. And it's not really in the moment costing me that much. And that's one of the pitfalls. A lot of people stay stuck because their life, it's not falling apart. They stay stuck because they're good at pulling it back together. Sit with that one. When you're functional, the consequences they're pretty easy to explain away. You know, I still got my workout in, I still got up, I still showed up. I still handled the kids.
And while that might all be true. The better question, however, is how much of your energy is going towards recovering from something that you could have prevented? How many Mondays are you spending climbing back to the baseline instead of actually moving forward? Now I'm not saying that as a shame question. It's just one to get honest on. And this isn't all about alcohol either. You see this pattern everywhere in work and fitness and food. relationships even. Some people push hard, then they crash, they recover. And then they call the recovery growth. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it's just that familiar loop. And I've noticed this in my own life, not just with alcohol, with work, with my ambitions, with even fitness at times.
There's a part of me that really gets comfortable pushing hard and overdoing it.
What is the core problem with the “reset” cycle in overdrinking?
And then pulling myself back together. And the pullback, it does feel productive. It feels like I'm being disciplined, like Okay, I am the kind of person who can take this hit. And come back. But at some point I had to ask, am I actually growing here or am I just getting really good at recovering from the same pattern?
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