High Dopamine, Low Effort Behaviors and Making Sobriety Feel Less Hard (Replay)

0:00Your brain is wired for quick hits of dopamine or high reward low effort habits that feel good in the moment but sabotage your long term goals and vision for your life. Over time, this conditions your brain to expect rewards without effort, and that makes real change feel harder than it actually is. In this episode, I'll explain how these patterns destroy motivation, fuel inconsistent effort, and keep you stuck in cycles of short bursts of change followed by slinking back to your old ways. You'll learn how high dopamine, low effort behaviors impact the brain, how this makes us resistant to putting in effort and three ways you may be making being sober feel more difficult for yourself than it needs to be and how you can shift that.

0:53And before we dig in, I'd like to thank my sponsors who made this episode possible.

1:09welcome back to the sober powered podcast i'm your host jill and today we are talking about dopamine and effort have you ever felt so bleh and sad that you're just stuck on the couch and there's nothing that you can do about it, I know that can't just be me. And then before you know it, six months can fly by and you're still spending too much time on the couch, scrolling your phone, eating food you regret, and barely enjoying what you're watching on TV. It makes the brain weird when all of our dopamine comes from high dopamine, low effort behaviors. Real life gets boring, dull, and why bother?

1:54Dopamine isn't really about pleasure. It's about motivation. It tells your brain what is worth pursuing. When dopamine is high, you feel energized, focused, and driven to act. And when it's low, everything feels harder. Even basic tasks can feel overwhelming or pointless. Alcohol spikes dopamine faster and more intensely than any natural reward. It's a high dopamine, low effort choice. You don't have to earn it, work for it, or even wait for it. You just think about having a drink and your brain floods with dopamine and rewarding feelings. And because the brain loves efficiency, it learns quickly.

2:41This is easier than trying to feel better the hard way. Because the hard way, using coping skills, taking responsibility and making changes in our lives, it doesn't feel like a sure thing either. So we're going to work harder to then maybe not even get what we want. Over time, this makes us resistant to putting in effort. Scrolling on your phone for an hour feels easy. Instant dopamine, no effort. Going on a 15-minute walk feels hard. Effort comes first. Drinking alcohol is the best thing ever. Instant relief, no work involved. Doing something to get sober, like joining a sober community and attending one to two hours of meetings a week feels so hard.

3:32Or going to therapy or coaching for one hour a week, so hard. Because that is a lot of upfront work and discomfort. This can happen with other things too, like depression. When my depression is bad, leaving the house to go on a walk feels so difficult for me. It feels so difficult that sometimes it's impossible. And I know that a walk is the better choice. And this isn't a push for medication or anything, because that's a personal decision. But that's why medication and getting support can be helpful. because medication can sometimes make the good things that we have to do for ourselves feel less difficult so that we're more willing to try.

4:16And same with support. Knowing that you have people that care about you, who you feel accountable to, is a game changer. Dopamine influences whether or not we are willing to exert effort for rewards. When dopamine levels are low or when the brain gets used to easy dopamine, mean we are less willing to pursue tasks that require us to put effort in, even if the reward is meaningful and important. So this means after long-term drinking, your brain might want to feel better, connect with people, or accomplish things, but your motivational circuitry is all weird. The reward feels too far away and the effort just feels too high.

5:02So it's like, why bother? or maybe you put in short bursts of effort and then it goes back to normal. And that's why in sobriety you might struggle to do the things that you know will help you. Go for a walk, cooking a real meal, making a post, getting to bed on time. It's not laziness even though you may label it that way. It's a brain that's been trained to associate low effort with high reward and now that shortcut is gone. This happens whether you're in the back and forth in early sobriety or in long-term sobriety. It happens at any point because we have conditioned our brain to expect instant gratification.

5:46When you take alcohol off the table, it's common to unconsciously reach for other sources of quick dopamine. You're not drinking, but you might notice yourself zoning out with social media, binging on sugar, obsessively checking your email, online shopping, using cannabis, or even just chasing drama to feel some excitement, even if it's negative. Those are all high dopamine, low effort behaviors. They give your brain a hit of stimulation without requiring much engagement, presence, or challenge. And just like alcohol, they feel really good in the short term, but then they leave you feeling drained, unfocused, or ashamed afterwards.

6:34But the good news is the dopamine system can rewire. Over time, your brain relearns how to pursue rewards that require effort, especially when you repeat those actions consistently. You might not feel motivated at first. I mean, you definitely will not, but showing up is what restores your ability to enjoy the things that actually matter. So while drinking gave you dopamine, it also made your brain less willing to work for better dopamine, the kind that comes from movement, connection, creativity, fulfillment, presence. In sobriety, you're not just getting your life back, you're building a system that helps you care about it again.

7:20And that's what this is all about, willingness. And like I described in episode 265, exposure to artificially high dopamine spikes, whether that's through substances or behaviors, desensitizes dopamine receptors over time and reduces the brain's sensitivity to natural slower rewards. So that would be going on a walk, eating healthy, or having a real conversation can feel meh by comparison to a quick fix. Our nervous system isn't learning how to tolerate boredom, delay gratification, or experience fulfillment, or find deeper sources of joy. We are still outsourcing mood regulation and happiness to something external.

8:10And that's how getting your dopamine from another mindless activity can become a trap. You're not drinking, but you're still avoiding, numbing, and escaping through distraction. It may feel like self-care or being proactive about work in the case of obsessively checking emails, but it's not. There's a different motive behind it. And it's important to say too that when you're in early sobriety, eating sugar is normal and fine. And I covered sugar cravings in episode 263. This is not an argument for cutting things out and making your life extra hard just because. This is an argument for when you know deep down what you're currently doing isn't working, then you should probably find a way to be willing to put some effort in.

8:58It's not about all or nothing thinking, it's about caring enough about future you to make some changes. The whole process of sobriety isn't just about not drinking. It's about retraining your brain to pursue what is actually meaningful for you, even when it's harder. Sustainable joy, confidence, and energy don't come from the easy way out. They come from things that we earn. So if you find yourself chasing dopamine hits all day, but then you're still feeling flat or unmotivated, you're running on a system that hasn't healed yet, and you may not be doing it any favors in the healing process. When you're comfortable with not drinking, the work becomes to stop feeding the shortcuts and to start building the kind of life that you actually like to live.

9:53Our baseline dopamine levels come from genetics, lifestyle factors, how much distance you have from alcohol, but also from the amount of dopamine that was in your brain in recent days. If you condition your brain with high dopamine, low effort behaviors, then your baseline levels of dopamine are impacted, which means that you need more dopamine to register in your brain as rewarding and worth it and motivating. And in episode 265, I explained how after repeatedly drinking alcohol, the reward system becomes desensitized and only big hits of dopamine register as anything worthwhile. If we continue to get big spikes of dopamine from scrolling, spending money, eating unhealthy food, or whatever else, then the reward system struggles to heal.

10:49That doesn't mean give up every guilty pleasure or you're dooming yourself, but if you're finding yourself feeling tired with a lack of motivation often, then this may be something to consider. Motivation doesn't come to people who wait. We were talking about this in one of my community meetings recently, and one of our members said, but where will I get my dopamine from? And it was hilarious, but also very true. When we're drinking, we have to go through life until we can get to the reward checkout part at the end of the night or on the weekend. And in sobriety, life becomes a reward. And I know that might make you want to roll your eyes, but it's true and you can get there too.

11:36It just takes time and effort and willingness to put the effort in. When I was drinking, I hated my life and I rushed through my day with stress and a bad attitude to get to the good part, drinking. It was the only thing that I looked forward to after a while. And when I got sober, it took time and work, but eventually my life is now the reward. And I know that's so cheesy, but today I love my life. It's difficult to get there though, and high dopamine, low effort behaviors make your life easier now and much harder later. And I fell into many of them and I still love my life, so please don't stress about that.

12:19But it's difficult for us to care about future us when we're stuck in the cycle. And relying on high dopamine, low effort behaviors can create a lot of stuckness in our lives. And this isn't because you're a loser or a moron. It's because you've trained your brain to prioritize quick fixes and you've driven up the cost and effort of delayed gratification behaviors that actually work. We aren't used to having to put effort into our lives. So when you get sober or you're trying to get sober, it can feel hopeless. So let's talk about what's going on in the brain to make us resistant to putting in effort.

13:06A 2012 study looked at the differences in the brains of people who work hard for rewards versus those who do not. They found that the go-getters had higher levels of dopamine in the reward and motivation portions of the brain, and then the slackers had a higher level of dopamine in the area of the brain associated with emotion and risk. And those labels do not come from me, by the way. They assessed their willingness to work through a button pushing task where putting in more work earns you more money. So remember, dopamine is all about motivation and it makes us pay more attention to the experience that we're having.

13:50So if more dopamine is released in areas of the brain associated with emotion and risk, then you may pay more attention to the perceived costs and discomfort of the behavior. A 2020 study published in Science looked at 50 people between the ages of 18 and 43 and measured their natural levels of dopamine to get a baseline. They gave them memory tasks with varying difficulties, but the more challenging the task, the more money they would get for completing it. People that had naturally higher levels of dopamine were able to focus on the benefits of the task, like the money. People with naturally lower levels of dopamine focus more on the perceived cost of the task, meaning how difficult it would be for them.

14:40And these two studies are examples of just what you start out with. It's just the way that your brain operates. So next, the researchers gave the participants either a placebo or an antipsychotic that increases dopamine levels. They found no change in choosing more difficult tasks in people with naturally higher levels of dopamine, but this medication boosted the likelihood for the low dopamine people to choose a more difficult task. The additional dopamine in their brains adjusted their cost-benefit analysis, and they were able to feel that the reward of doing the harder task was worth it for them to try.

15:24So the researchers concluded that dopamine increased how much weight people gave to the benefits when considering whether or not to even attempt a task. And there's an application here too for people with ADHD. So in ADHD, dopamine signaling in the brain is lower or dysregulated, especially in areas that are responsible for attention, motivation, and executive function. That makes it harder to focus, stay on task, and feel motivated to start or complete things. I talked about ADHD in episode 145, by the way, but medications like Ritalin or Adderall work by increasing dopamine and norepinephrine levels in the brain, which can then boost motivation and make it easier to engage with a task.

16:16And then as a result, focus improves. So the thing here is that dopamine has a big impact on whether or not we are even willing to try. And this is all about instant gratification versus delayed gratification. Alcohol will cause a ton of dopamine to be released in the brain, but over time when you continue to repeat the behavior, your baseline levels drop, making you feel miserable without alcohol. I see people complain about not being able to stay motivated to quit drinking, but your frequent drinking has depleted your dopamine. Alcohol is the reason that you aren't motivated to do anything, and more alcohol is going to make you less motivated.

17:06Quitting drinking isn't really about being motivated to do it unless you hit a rock bottom, but most people are not motivated to do something that sucks and is really hard. Getting sober may be the most difficult thing you do in your entire life. You need something other than motivation to get you to stick with it. And again, motivation does not come to those who wait for it or those who passively engage with resources and look for inspiration. Real motivation comes from taking action and continuing to take action. And that's difficult because a lot of people will take action in bursts. They'll be super motivated, take a little bit of action, then it feels too hard and they stop and they slink back to their old behavior, suffer, then they get a burst of motivation and the cycle continues.

17:58So if you're a living a sober powered life member or a private client, then you should see a deep dive on how to work with your dopamine system to sustain motivation for behavior change so that you can follow through. So hearing those studies may have felt not very motivating to you because you just get what you get with your dopamine system in the beginning and then you can ruin it even more by drinking, but there are actually three things that most of us do that make sobriety feel harder than it needs to be. The first is looking at it as deprivation. If all you're thinking about is how you're going to be missing out, then it's going to be difficult to stick with sobriety.

18:46It's very normal to feel sad or angry that other people can drink and you can't, but eventually you will get over that because you are not as deprived as you think you are. Drinking the way that you do is deprivation. You are depriving yourself of a full life. When I was struggling with quitting drinking, I was so focused on my silly wine connoisseur identity. I focused on how sad it was that I could never go to a wine tasting ever again, or that I could never drink in Vegas or wine country. There is more to life than drinking in different locations. The second thing that makes sobriety feel harder than it needs to be is looking at it as a punishment.

19:38And again, it is normal to think that being sober is a punishment for being a weak-willed loser who has no self-control. But that is one of the main points of this podcast to convince you it's not true. So if you still feel that way, listen to more of my episodes. You are not being punished and believing that being sober is a punishment makes it so hard. The real punishment is getting to the end of your life and realizing you spent the whole thing thinking about whether or not it's been long enough and you can drink again, or how you'll stick to your moderation plan, or how you're such a loser for drinking, that is the punishment.

20:24The third thing is being othered. I was really worried that everyone would call me an alcoholic, that I would never fit in in a social setting again, because the drinkers would all be vibing and I wouldn't, and that I would lose my friends, and probably my relationship too. This stigma makes us feel like we're going to become othered by getting sober, but this isn't true either. No one cares as much as you do about what is in your cup. Other problem drinkers care, but we are the minority in most social settings. Even if you think everyone drinks like you, I promise they do not. Sobriety becomes more difficult when you focus on the wrong things.

21:16Is it really about how sad it's going to be that you can never drink ever again? Or is it actually about how you don't have to hate yourself anymore? It's a shift from deprivation to hope. What's really sad is the amount of time that we dedicate to thinking about our drinking when instead we could be living our lives. I'm not saying you have to be grateful because I thought gratitude was stupid and I was never even able to start to access gratitude until I was past six months sober. But you have to have some hope that your life can improve. if all you're focusing on is how hard sad lonely and boring it's going to be then of course sobriety feels like it's way too hard a lot of people will focus too on how they have to think about it all the time or they have to go to meetings once or twice a week or listen to me once a week for half an hour but how much time have you spent per day thinking about your drinking way more time than the time you're going to spend thinking about being sober.

22:29Two of the biggest fears that I had about getting sober was that everyone would call me an alcoholic and that I couldn't control my drinking because I was a weak, will loser. I focused so intensely on those two things that I kept talking myself into pursuing moderation longer when it clearly wasn't working out because I thought if I could moderate, then these two things would not be true. When I hit my limit and I made the decision to get sober, I didn't care anymore if people would call me an alcoholic and if this meant I was weak. Yes, both of those things were still unpleasant and I didn't want to be labeled or think I was weak, but they were less important to me than ending my suffering.

23:16Finally, my focus had shifted to the right thing, the thing that was actually going to move me forward. So yes, things feel much harder than they are when you're trying to quit drinking in early sobriety, or if you are still using high dopamine, low effort things and behaviors in longer term sobriety. This is something that we have to learn to work with, but also the way that you think about things and the way that you set up your life can make things easier or harder too. Are you hanging out with drinkers and watching them drink? Do you keep alcohol in the house? Has your routine for the past several months been sitting and watching mindless TV and scrolling on your phone?

24:01Those probably aren't making you feel very good, right? If this episode resonated with you, then you should probably be getting emails from me. I send them out every Friday. Sometimes they have jokes. Sometimes they have personal experience. Sometimes they have science and pictures and diagrams, but they always have direct to the point info to help you shift your thinking so that quitting drinking feels a little bit more manageable for you. So if you don't get emails from me, you can use the link in the show notes and otherwise I invite you to spend some time thinking about how you set up your life and how you think about your life and see if there are any changes you can make and I will talk to you next week.

25:04Thank you.