The brain associates alcohol with feeling confident around others.

Drinking helps quiet your anxiety and forget about insecurities so that you can enjoy socializing.

This archetype commonly appears in unfamiliar social settings, especially when you feel pressure to make a good impression.

It can also appear in familiar situations with people you know well.

The Mask tends to show up when:

• • Meeting new people or trying to make friends.
  • Dating or newly single.
  • Facing obligations to socialize, entertain, or network.
  • Perceiving that other people are more accomplished, worldly, smarter, funnier, etc.

When The Mask is activated, saying no interferes with your desire to feel confident and enjoy yourself, making it hard to abstain or moderate.

“If I’m not going to drink, I’d rather not go.”

When alcohol starts being in charge of whether or not you can have a good time, your anxiety actually increases.

“The Mask teaches the brain that alcohol is necessary to have fun. ”

Humans have a long history of using alcohol as “liquid courage.”

But when drinking becomes your go-to way to feel more confident around others, it makes your insecurity worse, not better.

Here’s an example of the thoughts, feelings, and actions associated with The Mask.

Together, they create a learned behavior and influence your relationship with alcohol.

Circumstance: You feel uncomfortable while socializing.

Thought: A drink will help me loosen up and get out of my head.

Feeling: Desire

Action: You reach for a drink, hoping alcohol will help you feel less insecure. Notice what you’re not doing:

• You’re not practicing compassion for yourself. Instead, you’re likely shaming yourself: “I’m too old to care what people think” or “I should be over this by now.”
• You’re not viewing insecurity as a shared experience. Everyone—yes, even the most confident people—sometimes feels insecure. You’re not considering that someone else in the room may feel the same as you. 
• You’re not challenging your “compare and despair” thought patterns. Instead of identifying, questioning, or reframing self-critical thoughts, you accept them as facts.

Result: Short-term: alcohol makes you feel temporarily confident around others. Long-term: your anxiety in social situations grows.

Here’s why:

• Alcohol slows down activity in your cerebral cortex. With less access to self-critical thoughts or fears about what others think, you temporarily appear more confident. 
• But alcohol has done nothing to change the underlying self-critical thoughts. They will continue to appear in social situations. 
• Because you don’t have tools to manage the self-critical thoughts, over time, you may start to believe—whether consciously or unconsciously—that alcohol is necessary to feel confident in social situations.
• The more you believe that alcohol is necessary in social situations, the more anxious you will feel without it.
• All of this contributes to overdrinking. You may start drinking early to take the edge off before seeing people. Or you may rush your first couple of drinks to get rid of the discomfort. 
• Even though your self-critical thoughts don’t feel good, your brain is incentivized to keep them. Because the more you judge yourself, the more likely you are to drink. 
• Finally, your tendency to be self-critical of yourself will migrate to your choices around alcohol. You’ll worry what others will think if you decide to abstain or limit yourself. Or,  after sobering up, you’ll immediately assume your behavior was embarrassing. 
• Meanwhile, the root cause of your insecurity—your negative thoughts about yourself—remains unchanged. As these thoughts become more entrenched, your anxiety only grows.
• As a result, you keep believing the thought, “A drink will help me loosen up and get out of my head,” and reinforce The Mask archetype. When, in reality, alcohol is allowing your insecurities to fester and grow. 

The Mask often uses anxiety to sabotage rules, drink plans, and Dry Januarys.

Keep in mind, not all obstacles will apply to everyone with this archetype:

• • You worry that if you don’t drink, you’ll always feel socially awkward.
  • You tend to drink quickly so you can loosen up faster.
  • You think that drinking is the only way to unlock your fun side.
  • If you don’t drink, you’re worried everyone will notice, or it will be a big deal.
  • You can’t believe you still care what people think about you, but you do.
  • You drink while getting ready so you don’t pick apart your appearance.
  • You like having a drink to take the edge off before heading out.
  • You like to show up early and have a quick drink before people arrive.
  • You find it easier to accept the drink rather than answer people’s questions.
  • You find it difficult to come up with the “right” answer for why you’re not drinking.
  • You’ve felt the need to disguise that you’re drinking something non alcoholic.
  • If you’re not drinking in social settings, you notice that you’re eating more.

The Mask’s deeper desire is self-appreciation.

The deeper desire is what the drink represents.

Self-appreciation allows you to feel secure with who you are without the need to “fix” yourself or be someone else.

Here’s what it sounds like:

• I like who I am and people like me. 
• I am smart, talented, and accomplished. 
• My thoughts and ideas matter, and I have so much to offer.

Without self-appreciation, you’ll fixate on all your perceived flaws.

These beliefs will only become entrenched the more you try to silence them with a drink.

This is why, with The Mask, it’s essential to foster self-appreciation alongside managing cravings.

“Confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety. It’s knowing exactly what to do when it shows up.”

Letting go of The Mask will make you more comfortable.

Here are some of the superpowers waiting to be unlocked:

• • Liking who you are is your default setting.
  • Feeling comfortable in your skin no matter the setting.
  • Watching your anxiety around others bubble up and then quickly subside without a drink.
  • Naturally scanning for similarities with others over differences.
  • Quickly and believably challenging your inner critic when it swoops in.
  • No longer wanting to “fix” yourself.