Perhaps the last time you overdrank, your intention was to just go out and have a couple of drinks with a friend. Instead, you wound up staying out until 2 a.m., having more shots than you can remember, and missing an early morning meeting.

Overdrinking is like overeating and overspending. You intend not to eat seconds, but you do, and maybe you take thirds. You intend to stay within your budget, but you don’t.

A recent study found that most people are surprised when they overdrink. When I told that to a friend, she said, “Why? Hasn’t it happened a lot of times before?” Yes, probably it has. But how many times have you come home from a vacation and been surprised that you spent more than you thought you had?

Metastability

A new idea from neuroscience may help: metastability. Everything seems to be stable—but it isn’t. The best example of metastability is an avalanche. Everything on the surface of the snow looks stable, but then something, perhaps quite small, happens, and an entire side of a mountain comes crashing down. Then everything seems stable again.

Another good example is a tornado. Not all menacing-looking thunderstorms spawn a tornado. Meteorologists now know that it takes four factors: shear, lift, instability, and moisture. If they come together, something very destructive will happen.

How does metastability impact overdrinking? My client Jake consulted with me because he occasionally overdrank and it was creating problems with his wife and at work. The last time he went out for drinks with a friend, everything seemed fine, that is, stable. His work was going well and he hadn’t overdrunk the last five times he went out. He wasn’t worried. But then it happened again. All his efforts to learn how to drink moderately came crashing down.

What happened? It takes four factors to create a tornado. In Jake’s case, six factors that he was hardly aware of came together to create a different kind of storm:

1. He hadn’t slept well all week.
2. He hadn’t eaten lunch.
3. He went to a bar where he had overdrunk in the past.
4. Some other, heavy-drinking friends were at the bar when he arrived.
5. He had just had a fight with his wife.

And what’s the sixth factor? He thought he no longer had a problem with overdrinking. Everything seemed fine.

You can help yourself by figuring out what factors increase the probability that you will overdrink. Overdrinking isn’t something that just happens; more than one thing has to come together, as Jake’s case shows.

1. A great deal of research shows that lack of sleep decreases your ability to make good decisions.
2. Drinking on an empty stomach is setting yourself up for a problem.
3. Your environment has a much bigger effect on your behavior than you may want to admit, and luck can play a role. You may run into friends who drink a lot.
4. Negative affect and an I-don’t-care attitude can contribute to overdrinking.

Finally, thinking you can interact with one of the sneakiest chemicals on the planet without being mindful and on guard is foolish. You will be surprised.

Brain Lies

A seventh factor also crops up after about the third drink. When you add alcohol to your brain, it changes. With that brain, you will think differently and make different decisions. For example, you’ll think, I’ll just have one more and leave, which you won’t in most cases. That’s what I call a “brain lie.”

Professor Laurie Santos, who teaches Psychology and the Good Life, the largest undergraduate class ever at Yale, says, “The brain lies.” She is correct. Or least parts of your brain lie. You have a lot of neural networks. I like to refer to them as “the Committee.”

We all talk to ourselves. That’s one way we guide our behavior. Maybe you have already noticed that members of your Committee aren’t always in agreement. One voice says, “You’re tired. You should really go home,” while another says, “You haven’t gone out with Ted and Sam in a long time. It’s important for business.” One says, “You’ve had enough” and another says, “One more shot won’t matter.”

“One more shot won’t matter” is most likely a lie. It’s helpful for people who are trying to avoid overdrinking to recognize that brain lies play a role in what happens in their lives.

Six Ways Not to Be Surprised

1. Just because your thinking remained okay the last time you went out doesn’t mean the same will be true this time. If you are an extreme skier, just because you managed to ski across an avalanche-prone slope one day without incident doesn’t mean you will be able to do it again.
2. Everything changes your brain. Lack of sleep, arguments with significant people in our lives, and especially chemicals, like alcohol, added together may all contribute to an unwanted “storm.”
3. You will not make the same decisions with that different, changed brain. Why do you think caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and Adderall are so popular?
4. Genetics makes a difference. Some people after two drinks have had enough. In dramatic contrast, some people want more after two drinks, not less. They are genetically different.
5. Your brain lies. If you do not recognize that some of what you tell yourself, especially after a few drinks, is complete b.s., you are going to continue to be surprised.
6. Remain vigilant and mindful. As the Buddha said, “Hard to control, unstable is this mind.” This is correct, but neuroscientists call it metastability.

You have to remain vigilant or a surprise overdrinking tornado may destroy what is important to you in your life.

thanks to Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash