Why Alcohol Starts Your Weekend (And How to Break Free)

It’s Friday and it’s finally 5pm. What a week…

I close my laptop, turn to my coworker, and ask, “Want to hit the bar?”

There’s a bar across the street with a mechanical bull and killer Friday specials. We get to the bar, order a drink, and the weekend has officially begun.

I really need to work out tomorrow, so I’m going to take it easy tonight.

But then, I notice one of my friends jump up on the mechanical bull. Oh boy, it’s going to be a weekend…

By Saturday morning, I’m hungover, but I still get a run in. It wasn’t a good run, but at least I was able to sweat, right?

Effect: The after-work drinks turned into a bigger night, which unfortunately killed my workout the next morning. Now I need a Bloody Mary to start feeling better.

Science-y Explanation: Neural Pathways

Have you ever wondered why certain habits, like grabbing a drink after work on Fridays, feel automatic? It all comes down to neural pathways.

We have two parts of our brain: logical thinking and emotional thinking. Logical thinking is when we consciously choose to respond. Emotional thinking, on the other hand, is reactive and often out of our control. Fortunately for our safety, but unfortunately for our bad habits, the emotional brain is faster than the logical brain. To make matters worse, emotional thinking can actually shut off logical thinking when it’s activated.

Neural pathways are key to this process. They’re constantly being formed and triggered. For example, when Friday at 5pm rolls around, you have so many choices. You can have a drink, work out, watch a movie, or go to a show. Every time you make a decision, a small neural pathway is formed. Think of these neural pathways as paths in the woods—the more you make the decision, the deeper the path.

If you work out some Fridays, that path might be knee-deep. If you go to a show once a quarter, that path might be ankle-deep. But if you drink every Friday for years, that path might be so deep it’s over your head. Once the path becomes that deep, you stop having a choice—your emotional brain kicks in, and you just follow it.

That’s what used to happen to me. Since college, Friday at 5pm was a trigger to grab a drink. I did it so many times that the neural pathway became automatic. The path was over my head—I couldn’t even see another path.

The Shift: If the neural pathway is so deep it’s over our heads, what can we do about it?

The only way to get over it and create a new path is to get to the root cause. Why are we drinking? Is it to have fun? To relax? To disconnect? Typically, there’s a negative feeling or false belief that has led us to drinking. Our brains see this negative feeling or false belief and feel the need to cope, so we drink.

Once we identify this root cause, we can do two things:

1. Identify Triggers: Start identifying all the little things that lead us to craving a drink throughout the day and addressing them. If we do this successfully, we can avoid starting down the Friday at 5pm pathway. For me, my false belief was that I needed alcohol to disconnect and unwind. Once I identified this, I started realizing that I had several micro-stressors throughout the day that led me to the "straw that broke the camel’s back," and I would head down the deep "let’s grab a drink" path.

2. Create a Replaceable Plan: Earlier in the day, when our logical brain is online, we can make a plan to go down another path at 5pm. That way, when 5pm rolls around and our emotional thinking tries to take over, we don’t go down our typical drinking path.

   
   

The goal here is to use our logical brain. The only way we can do this is by thinking and planning ahead. If we don’t plan ahead, as soon as we close our laptops, our emotional brain will take over and we’ll follow the deepest path.

Outcome: By using our logical brain, creating a plan, and addressing our false beliefs earlier in the day, we are able to take a different path when we close our laptop. At 5pm, we have a plan, and we start forming a new path. The more we do this, the easier it becomes.

Call to Action: Take a moment to reflect on your Friday evening routine. Are there any automatic behaviors you’d like to change? What small steps can you take today to start forming a new pathway? Email me your thoughts or experiences—I’d love to hear from you!

Video: If you want to dig deeper into today's concept, check out my YouTube video.

Favorite Photo from the Week:

My mom and Hucky are officially best friends! By the time my mom left, Hucky was just following her around.

Till next week, be kind, be curious and work hard.

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