Whether sports are your passion, something you tolerate having on the TV or just a good excuse to hang out, drinking can feel like it’s part of the deal. This is episode 454 and I’m helping you understand how your brain’s expectations shape your experience more than the game.

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.

Alright everybody. Well, here in the US, Super Bowl Sunday is right around the corner and it’s a moment when drinking can feel assumed. The parties, the game, the commercials, they can all feel like they are centered around alcohol. And I don’t know how true this is, but in the US at least, we joke that the Monday after the game is one of the most commonly called in sick days of the year because we don’t just expect a big spectacle, we expect the hangover. Drinking and watching sports can feel like they go hand in hand and well beyond just Super Bowl Sunday. So, when you’re trying to drink less or take a break or even just considering doing something about your drinking, this can be a real sticking point for a lot of people. It really can feel like part of your life just won’t be the same, something important will be missing.

So this episode really is for you, whether or not you love sports, you just merely tolerate them or you just feel like they’re an excuse to get together and hang out. I want to really help you understand why this feeling can be so common and what to do about it. So, if you remember one thing from today’s episode, let it be this. What feels missing is often just expectation talking. I’m going to explain more about what that means.

You know, sports and alcohol are really deeply intertwined in our culture. There’s beer commercials and tailgates and parties and at some point, drinking can feel as central as the game itself. And people will come to this experience from very different places. Some of you truly loved your sport or whatever sports you watch long before alcohol ever entered the picture. That was me. So, growing up in my family, sports was always on the TV. I grew up a fan.

Now, others of you, maybe you’re drinking to make it less boring. It’s not something that really was part of your life until maybe your partner entered your life or maybe you moved to a particular area that seemed very obsessed with sports and so you might be feeling like, yeah, I mean, it’s not really my thing. There’s a lot of you who would maybe not want to spend every Sunday with the game on or you’ve never just been really into following sports, but now here you are at this point in your life and the people around you are really into it.

And finally, for some people, it’s just more that drinking feels like part of the social contract. It’s just what you do when you’re tailgating. It’s what you do when you’re at a watch party. So, how you come to this experience may be very, very different, but the underlying pattern is actually very similar. At some point, your brain learned. It actually came to expect that when the game is on, alcohol will be part of the experience.

Again, for me, my love of sports started long before I ever started drinking. I was not an athletic kid, but I really did love watching it on TV. I loved going to games. I was watching baseball with my dad growing up. I was watching tennis with my mom. The whole family was losing their mind over UConn basketball. So I think in some ways, looking back, sports, they were a safe place to feel whatever I was feeling without the need to hold back or police myself. I could be really excited and I could be really loud and I could be really angry and I could yell at the TV and I could even shed a tear or two, right? All of that was welcome and accepted. And so my nervous system learned all about the anticipation, the excitement, the heartbreak of sports long before I ever started drinking. My love of the game predated my relationship with alcohol.

Yet at some point along the way, watching the game truly felt like it would be incomplete if I didn’t have a beer in my hand. Watching sober felt weird, it felt almost wrong, like it couldn’t truly be done. Certainly not done by me. Not because something was actually wrong, but because of my brain’s expectation that alcohol was supposed to be there too. And here’s a key thing for all of you to understand, no matter what situation you’re in.

Your brain doesn’t learn through logic, it learns through repetition and timing. And when two things happen together often enough, your brain will link them. So your brain doesn’t say, “I enjoy drinking during the game,” it says, “This is supposed to happen when I watch, when sports are on the TV or when I’m at a sporting event.” So when alcohol isn’t there or even if you just simply contemplate not drinking at a Super Bowl party, the brain doesn’t register the absence of alcohol in a neutral way. It registers it as a problem.

Something has gone wrong. So that anxious, uncomfortable, restless feeling that you have, it’s your brain’s fear that its expectation won’t be met. And the tendency in these moments is to misinterpret that feeling as, uh-oh, I can’t enjoy myself if I’m not drinking. When really, it’s just your brain confusing unexpected with a problem.

So, what does that mean for game day? The goal here is simply just to slow down what is happening, what feels very fast, very automatic, very unconscious. If you love the game, the internal conflict usually sounds like, it just isn’t the same if I’m not drinking. Here’s what’s happening. The game didn’t lose its excitement. Your love of sports most likely predates whenever you started drinking. Your brain just learned to expect that your enjoyment should be accompanied by alcohol. So without it, things can feel initially quieter. But listen, when you love the game, there’s no way that it’s going to stay quiet for long because the game is on. So you can try to reframe what’s happening as nothing is missing. I still love the game. My brain is just adjusting its expectation.

Now, for those of you who don’t really like sports, but you drink maybe because it just helps make a couple hours of football more tolerable, it helps pass the time. The internal conflict might sound like, I wouldn’t even be watching this if I wasn’t also drinking. In this case, your brain learned that alcohol didn’t just accompany the game, it was the entertainment. So, guess what will happen? Boredom will show up quickly when it’s not there and you need to reframe what’s going on with that.

You can say something like, my brain just expected alcohol to supply the entertainment right now. So that restless feeling that you have when you feel bored, it’s not a problem to solve. It’s expectation recalibrating. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re magically going to enjoy the game, but maybe you can just allow it to be boring. You’re allowed to not enjoy it. You’re allowed to just have it on because it’s important to your partner or your friends are really into it or maybe you’re just there for the commercials and the halftime show. You’re allowed not to like the whole spectacle of it. The key is remembering that the more you keep trying to pour a drink so that you won’t feel bored, the less able you are to handle boredom without alcohol. That’s the real problem.

And finally, if you find yourself drinking because it just feels like it’s part of the social contract, that inner conflict can sound more like, this is just what everybody does at a Super Bowl party. Now here, the expectation isn’t about the game, it’s about belonging. Your brain expects if everybody is drinking and you join in, then you will automatically become part of the group. So, what’s really going on, the urge to drink can really often be about trying to avoid any potential awkwardness that you might feel. Now, you can reframe this as, nothing is wrong. My brain just expected sameness.

The key thing to remember is that belonging doesn’t come from mimicking other people. Belonging happens when you feel safe to be exactly as you are around others. And yes, we often look to other people to grant us that safety. But the truth is, your brain is the only one that decides whether or not it is safe to be you. And that’s something that you can start practice giving yourself even in a room when you’re doing something different.

So remember, in every case, the problem is just that the brain’s expectation isn’t being met. And that the expectation for a drink was not created by actual necessity. You don’t need a drink to enjoy the game. You don’t need a drink to deal with boredom and you don’t need a drink to feel part of the group. That expectation was created by repetition. So, for those of you who will be watching the Super Bowl this weekend or attending a party, the goal doesn’t have to be about drinking less or even not drinking. The goal can simply be to relate to what is happening inside of you differently.

So ask yourself, maybe when things feel flat or boring or awkward or you feel a little anxious or just when you notice your brain thinking about drinking, ask yourself, is something actually missing or is my brain expecting that alcohol should be here? You don’t have to fix this feeling. You don’t have to make the urge go away. You just have to slow down so that you can reframe your brain’s unmet expectation from a problem to a normal and natural part of the process of change. Alright, 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.