This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

This is Annie Grace and I am answering readers questions.

Today I have a question from a girl I'm going to call her K to protect her privacy.

What's happening is every single day she has this incredible resolve, not to drink.

And then by the end of the day it's almost overwhelming this desire that drinking is going to make her happy

and feel better. And despite all her conscious intentions, she just cannot understand why she finds

herself drinking every single night and why she just so desperately wants to be drinking every single night.

And why it feels just like such deprivation and heartbreak not to be drinking.

So she asked recently she said can somebody please give me the concise scientific reason

that this is happening in my brain that despite my best efforts and intentions, I just cannot put down

the drink at the end of the night and I can only go a few days at a time.

So I have a few things and I'm going to try to make this as as simple but thorough as possible.

So there's three main points I want to make on this one.

First of all is this idea of dopamine. And so we generally know about dopamine because we think

things like exercise release dopamine, things like the pleasure releases dopamine.

And so for a long time scientists actually thought that dopamine was the chemical that made you

like something and enjoy something. But actually more recent studies have shown that dopamine

is the chemical that motivates us and has us seek things but isn't necessarily tied up with

actually enjoying things. So there's a big difference between wanting something and actually

enjoying something. So you're a desire and when you were first drinking, you probably had a glass

of wine and you wanted it, you desired it and then certain things happen when you drink a glass

...