One more sip, one more glass, one more round. Most people assume that’s a willpower problem, but it’s not. It actually has to do with a psychological and physiological phenomenon called diminishing returns. This is episode 435 and once you understand what that means when it comes to your drinking, and how it shows up with alcohol, you’ll stop blaming yourself and start making very different choices.

Whether you want to drink less or stop drinking, this podcast will help you change the habit from the inside out. We’re challenging conventional wisdom about why people drink and why it can be hard to resist temptation. No labels, no judgment, just practical tools to take control of your desire and stop worrying about your drinking. Now, here’s your host, Rachel Hart.

I’ve always been someone who believed more is better. At least that’s what I told myself for a really long time, even as a kid. So, there was more candy? I was the first one in line. More Girl Scout badges? I wanted all of them, even the ones that I didn’t have that much interest in. More attention from boys? I definitely wanted that. More achievement, more gold stars, more validation. I was all in. And eventually in college, that mindset of more is better transferred over to my drinking.

One beer was fine, but two felt better. Three felt great. Four felt even more fun, and I would just keep going from there. Back then, I didn’t understand why I had so much desire. I just genuinely believed, “Well, if one is good, more will make me feel better.” What I didn’t know, and what most people don’t know, is that I was bumping up against something called diminishing returns.

Diminishing returns simply means that the benefit of something goes down the more you consume it. And it shows up in a lot of different areas in life, not just with alcohol. You keep telling yourself that more is better. Yet in reality, the more you have, the less benefit you get. In fact, you reach a point where how much you’re consuming starts to diminish your actual experience. And that’s exactly what happened with my drinking.

But understanding how diminishing returns work and the different ways that they show up with alcohol can really help you make different choices. Now here’s the thing, you still need to work with your drink archetypes. Because a lot of people will say, Rachel, I already have plenty of evidence that more isn’t actually better, but that doesn’t stop me from having more in the moment. This is where your archetypes come in. 

And if you haven’t taken the quiz to find out which of your archetypes are showing up in your drinking, go to FindYourDrinkType.com. You can take the quiz there for free. Having the information on diminishing returns plus the information on your archetypes can really work together to be incredibly powerful when it comes to changing your relationship with alcohol.

Because alcohol has three forms of diminishing returns. And if you don’t understand how they work, it’s easy to keep chasing something that isn’t actually available. So the first diminishing return is probably the most obvious and that has to do with taste. So you might experience the first sip of your favorite drink as a full body experience. Your taste buds are lit up. You are engaged and you smell the aroma, you feel the cold glass, the carbonation, everything is lit up. That novelty of the first sip triggers a little bit of dopamine and your brain says, hey, this is new, this is pleasant, pay attention. But novelty in all areas fades fast. By the second sip, your brain is already adjusting. By the third, you might not really be paying that much attention anymore. You’re just drinking.

Now, the exact same thing can happen with food. Think of that first bite of a warm brownie or a slice of your favorite pizza or a piece of sushi. It’s incredible. Bite five or six, it’s still good, but you’re not really registering it in the same way. Part of you may be eating out of habit because you’re like, well, I haven’t finished the brownie so I’m just going to keep going. Part of you may be chasing the memory of that first bite.

This is why the first sip of a drink or the first bite of food is often the most satisfying. Your senses are fully engaged, the experience is new. But the more you consume, the less your brain registers the reward. And that’s why just one more almost never delivers the magic of the first. It’s not that the drink has changed, it’s that your brain has just stopped responding to it in the same way. That is diminishing returns in action. The more you consume, the less reward you get.

So, just think about some of the cravings that you have. When you think about craving your favorite drink, what are you picturing? You’re probably picturing that first sip and the memory of how good it will feel. Most of us don’t spend a lot of time imagining sip number 15. And speaking of sip number 15, when you’re at that point, are you actually present or are you just on autopilot? This matters because when the taste no longer delivers the same reward, your brain will start looking somewhere else for satisfaction, which brings us to the second layer of diminishing returns, the buzz you get from alcohol.

The buzz is that early effect of alcohol on your central nervous system. You might experience it as warmth in your chest, a sense of relaxation, a little lift in your mood. Maybe some of the anxiety that you have softens, things might just feel a little easier and you’re a little more open.

Here’s what nobody tells us though, that feeling peaks. Your body starts processing alcohol almost immediately and at the same time, your brain is trying to regain balance. So it releases chemicals that blunt alcohol’s effect. And at a certain point, the buzz just isn’t going to go higher. It’s only going to start to go sideways. And that’s when the chase starts.

So, I remember thinking all the time, maybe one more will keep this feeling going. But it doesn’t keep going. That’s the moment when pleasure starts turning into chasing.

I was talking about this recently with one of my clients about day drinking, and I remember that I really never liked day drinking because I didn’t like the comedown. I didn’t like that sluggish, heavy feeling that started to come over me once the buzz wore off. And I could avoid the comedown when I drank in the evening because eventually it was time to go to bed. I didn’t have to stay awake during it.

But it’s really fascinating to think about this and remind yourself that the buzz is ephemeral. It’s fleeting. It’s not supposed to last. There’s always going to be a peak and then a comedown. Chasing it, trying to keep it going, is part of the problem. In part because of how alcohol works, it’s a nervous system depressant.

I think back on my own fixation with chasing the buzz, and it truly was like no one ever explained this really key part of our internal chemistry. In part because we’re just not educated about alcohol in school and in part because I think that alcohol is a little bit confusing. What’s confusing is that it can act both like a stimulant and a depressant. That initial buzz is often stimulating. You feel more energy, more chatty, etc. But it’s short-lived.

Because no matter what, alcohol at its core is a depressant. It’s ultimately going to slow the nervous system, not speed it up. So with each drink, you’re trying to recapture the high that you got from your first one. But with each drink, you’re adding to the overall depressant effect that it has on you. Alcohol really isn’t built to keep the fun going or to keep your energy up because it’s not a stimulant.

And this sounds so obvious. I mean, I knew that alcohol was a depressant, but I really didn’t understand it. I really didn’t understand how it didn’t make sense that I was trying to chase the buzz with a nervous system depressant. But when you realize this, when you start to rethink how consuming more is not going to help you recapture anything, you start to see how chasing the buzz really is a fool’s errand.

And think about it. In your own life, think about the comedown that you have experienced at times from drinking. So I’m not talking about the hangover the next day, I’m just talking about the moment when you start to notice that initial effect that you got, it wasn’t lasting. Maybe like me, you experience that most profoundly with day drinking. Or think about a time when the buzz went from, oh, this is nice to, oh, I actually don’t feel great right now. That’s the plateau of diminishing returns.

And finally, there is a third diminishing return when it comes to alcohol and that is the diminishing return of tolerance. Your body isn’t just incredibly adaptive, it’s also constantly trying to maintain balance or homeostasis. So, when alcohol starts showing up in your life on a regular basis, your brain and your nervous system basically say, okay, well, this chemical keeps showing up, we better adjust so we’re not overwhelmed by it.

Here’s how this happens. So your liver gets better and faster at breaking down alcohol. Your brain starts producing more of the chemicals to counteract alcohol’s effects and your receptors become less sensitive to the dopamine and the GABA that alcohol releases.

Now, all of this is your body’s incredible way of trying to protect you. But the tradeoff is that it now takes more alcohol to feel the same effect. So, that one drink that used to help you unwind, now you need two. The two drinks that used to give you a really nice buzz, now you barely feel it. You keep increasing the dose trying to get the old payoff, but even when you drink more, the reward feels weaker and the consequences are a lot stronger. That is the result of tolerance.

And it’s why people often say, I don’t even get that much out of drinking anymore, so why do I keep doing it? Because your brain has literally recalibrated its response. And just to be clear, even though your body and your brain have adapted, alcohol isn’t any less detrimental or less harmful to your system. Your tolerance may be higher, but the impact on your organs, your sleep, your hormones, and your overall health is still very real.

Diminishing returns in all of these forms matter because they will keep you stuck in a loop. So the taste has faded, the buzz has peaked, your tolerance keeps rising, and you’re still drinking, hoping to recapture something that’s not there.

And listen, none of that means that alcohol is bad or that it’s wrong to drink it. It simply means that if you choose to drink, you need to engage with it consciously. And a first step is just understanding and knowing about these three forms of diminishing returns. Because when you don’t understand where these diminishing returns kick in, you keep reaching for more even when it’s giving you less. But once you see the pattern clearly, then you have options. You can say, actually, this is the point where it stops serving me, and that means that I’m done. Or you can notice that, you know what? I say that I love it. I love how it tastes. It tastes so good, but I’m not really even tasting it anymore. Or you can remind yourself that you’re engaging with a nervous system depressant. It’s not going to keep you buzzed. It’s going to send you into sluggishness.

None of this is about willpower, it’s about engaging with more awareness. If you’re going to drink, are you willing to check in with yourself and start asking questions? Questions like, am I really still tasting this drink or am I caught up in the memory of the first sip? Am I still feeling the buzz or am I trying to extend something that’s already passed? Am I able to feel the effects or am I getting clear signs that I’ve developed a tolerance?

Those questions can change everything. And by the way, if you notice yourself resisting asking those questions, that’s okay too. It means that you’re trying to protect yourself from potentially losing an archetype. Our archetypes are all about the meaning that the brain has assigned to alcohol, and in many ways, the problem that our brain thinks alcohol is solving for us. So it makes a lot of sense why even having this kind of curiosity might bring up a lot of resistance for you.

And listen, if you want help making this shift and understanding why you reach for a drink in the first place, I really encourage you to start with the drink archetypes quiz. FindYourDrinkType.com is where you can take it. It’s totally free. It will help start to peel back some of the hidden parts of the habit. And remember, the reason just one more never lives up to its promise is because taste loses its novelty, the buzz is always going to peak and start to fade, and the more you drink, the more your tolerance will rise, which has you consuming more and getting less.

You’re not doing anything wrong if these diminishing returns are showing up. You’re just facing down the reality of how alcohol works. And once you understand that, you can stop chasing more and you can start choosing what actually serves you.

All right, that’s it for today. I will see you all next week.

Hey guys, you already know that drinking less has plenty of health benefits. But did you know that the work you do to change your relationship with alcohol will help you become more of the person you want to be in every part of your life? 

Learning how to manage your brain and your cravings is an investment in your physical, emotional and personal wellbeing. And that’s exactly what’s waiting for you when you join my membership Take a Break. 

Whether you want to drink less, drink rarely, or not at all, we’ll help you figure out a relationship with alcohol that works for you. We’ll show you why rules, drink plans, and Dry January so often fail, and give you the tools you need to feel in control and trust yourself. 

So, head on over to RachelHart.com and sign up today, because changing the habit is so much easier when you stop trying to go it alone.