Nutritional Mental Health Podcast: How Alcohol Affects ADHD Brains Differently & How To Reduce Alcohol If You Have ADHD

Annika: Hello and welcome to the nutritional mental health podcast. This is Annika, your host and today we are talking all about how alcohol affects the brains of people with ADHD differently and then also how we can approach alcohol reduction through a neurodivergent lens because the way that alcohol reduction works for neurotypicals is going to be very different for if you are a neurodivergent person specifically with ADHD. Now this episode brings together two parts of my three-part series on my YouTube channel about alcohol and ADHD. So, if you watch that there, then you probably won’t get anything different out of this.

But if you haven’t, I hope that you enjoy this episode and let me know in the comments if there’s anything that you want to share. Now, all the things I reference in this are going to be linked in the show notes below, including access to my free PDF, a few other things in my storefront, and then also my Patreon. Now, I’m really grateful you’re here, and I hope that you enjoy the episode. If you ever notice that alcohol hits differently for you, or that you just can’t stop at one drink like another person can, there’s actually a biological reason for this, and so let’s talk about it.

Hey, I’m Annika. I’m an ADHD nutrition research expert with my masters in health psychology. I help people understand what the research says about ADHD nutrition so that you can do all the things that are helpful for your brain without any of the shame or guesswork. If that’s something you want to see more of, hit that subscribe button and like the video.

That way, you can stay on top of the research that will literally show you how to change your brain. So, today we’re going to talk about how alcohol actually affects the brains of people with ADHD. Now, when you drink, alcohol immediately starts messing with your brain’s chemical messengers, aka neurotransmitters. That’s what gives you that different state of feeling.

The five ones we’re going to talk about here are GABA, glutamate, dopamine, serotonin, and then also histamine. So, first, GABA. I like to call GABA the chill out chemical. Alcohol releases GABA.

That’s why you feel a little bit more relaxed when you drink. At the same time, it suppresses a neurotransmitter called glutamate. That’s like your on switch. So, when glutamate suppresses it, it can actually decrease your reaction time.

Your perception of time slows in general. That’s kind of what happens. Now, interestingly, people with ADHD actually have abnormalities in glutamate signaling in their brains already. And usually that comes from living with chronic stress.

And let’s be honest, living with an ADHD body in this society, that is pretty chronically stressing. Now, since abnormal glutamate signaling is actually common in people with ADHD, and since it’s connected towards attention, memory issues, overthinking, yeah, makes sense that a lot of people with ADHD report actually feeling more in control when they drink compared to a lot of people who say that it pulls them out of control, somehow making us more focused or more able to remember the things more clearly. And then comes dopamine. That’s the reward and motivation chemical that you’ve probably heard way too much if you’re a person with ADHD.

Now, alcohol gives us a very quick and large dopamine spike in our brain. And this especially happens in the brain’s reward center. Now, since people with ADHD already tend to have dysregulated or lower levels of dopamine in their brain, that surge can give us a sense of relief, like we’re finally regulated, we’re finally present, we’re finally motivated to do the things that we’ve been trying to do forever. Basically, it’s almost like we’re functioning at the same dopamine levels as the rest of the general population is.

So whereas it might make neurotypicals feel like they’re finally relaxing, it actually might feel like it’s giving us motivation to finally clean our house. And then there’s serotonin. So alcohol also temporarily boosts serotonin. That’s the neurotransmitter linked to mood stability, sleep, and then also impulse control and reward perception.

This is why we might feel a little bit more confident, more loose, more affectionate after a few drinks. That’s serotonin. For a lot of people with ADHD, we have a lot of issues already with connecting to our body, connecting to our emotions. So this boost of serotonin can honestly feel so liberating, maybe more so than a neurotypical would feel.

And then last, alcohol also stirs up something that’s not as talked about as much when we talk about alcohol, and that’s histamine. So it causes your brain and your body actually to release more histamine, and at the same time, it blocks something called diamine oxidase. That’s the enzyme that helps us break down histamine. Now, if you’re histamine sensitive or already prone to inflammation, which a lot of people with ADHD are prone to inflammation, this could lead to things like sleep disruption, over stimulation, and irritability, all of which are unfortunately common ADHD symptoms without alcohol added to the mix.

So, in this sense, it might actually make you feel worse than a neurotypical. Now that I said all this, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Alcohol just sounds like the perfect medication except for the histamine Bert.” And yeah, that’s why a lot of people with ADHD tend to drink a lot because it’s actually a form of self-medication. Unfortunately, alcohol can actually make your ADHD worse in the long run, unlike ADHD medication. So, let’s talk about that part.

I know it’s not as fun to hear, but you made it this far, so you can totally finish watching. All right, bear with me. We’re going to go through a metaphor. Think of alcohol as getting takeout.

When we feel super overwhelmed, it’s really easy to just get takeout instead of making food ourselves. And in the moment, it can actually be really helpful. I mean, you might not have eaten otherwise, but if you didn’t address the root cause of why you needed that takeout, either there was a lot of stress, or your executive functioning wasn’t functioning, or maybe none of the food in your fridge was giving you that desire, or a lot of the food in your fridge was too much effort to actually create. And so, because we didn’t address the root cause of why you needed the takeout, you start getting more takeout because it’s just so much simpler.

And then it gets to a point where you’re eating out almost every single day. And let’s be honest, this metaphor probably actually just hits home way too much. I just think of myself when I was working a full-time job and I was getting Taco Bell every single day. Besides the point, let’s go back to the metaphor.

All right. Now, let’s think about the neurotransmitters as the food that’s actually in your fridge. When we get a lot of takeout, we actually don’t need a lot of food in our fridge. And that’s exactly what our brain realizes, too.

Because it’s consistently getting neurotransmitters from the other places, it starts to expect it, therefore reducing the overall dopamine, serotonin, other neurotransmitters that it makes. Not just that, but it also stops being as receptive to the neurotransmitters that we already have. Just like how when we get takeout almost every single day, the food in our fridge just starts to feel like not as tasty. Our brain is doing the exact same thing.

So, not only do we have less food in our fridge, that food in our fridge just doesn’t taste as good as it used to. And now add on to that ADHD. To keep with the analogy, a person with ADHD has a hungrier brain than a neurotypical. So, when you order takeout or the alcohol, you need more than another person to stop feeling as hungry.

But what happens when your money runs out and you can’t afford takeout every single day anymore? Essentially, nothing sounds good at all. Everything’s too much effort and it’s like your fridge is almost bare and the only thing in there is leftovers from a week ago. Now, thankfully, over time, these neurotransmitters can reset.

We’ll start getting groceries again. And eventually the groceries start tasting better, but it goes slow and it takes a lot of time, a long time, depending on how empty your fridge was and how many support systems you have around you, like a person who could help you go grocery shopping or meal prep or even sit next to you while you try to eat. For some people, going back to regular dopamine, serotonin, other neurotransmitter levels, and that receptor sensitivity to those transmitters could take a year or so. For others, it might be 3 months.

It really depends on how often you’ve been drinking and how much you’ve been drinking during that time. But just like how ADHD starts to get a little bit more manageable when we start eating consistently and eating more healthful, reducing and eliminating alcohol will also make ADHD more easy to manage. I will say here that unfortunately there are some brain structure changes that happen with drinking that aren’t entirely reversible. And that’s why it’s really important to be aware of how these substances can actually be impacting us over time.

That way you can make the most informed decision for yourself and ideally quitting or reducing alcohol if possible. That being said, obviously it’s really hard and probably harder if you have ADHD. Okay, so let’s be honest. Most quitting alcohol advice out there is not helpful for ADHD.

I mean, there’s good stuff, but the truth is that if you watch the episode previously in this series, people with ADHD actually get affected by alcohol differently in their brains. That means we need to think differently about how to approach reducing alcohol as well. And that’s exactly what we’re going to go through today. We’re going to go through the four steps that are actually going to help you with your ADHD while you’re trying to reduce your alcohol.

Also, I want to throw this in here. If you are drinking a lot or if you’re trying to reduce, this video might feel a little long. Part of improving your ADHD brain on top of the alcohol part includes training the brain. So, I really want to challenge you to just watch one more minute when you start to feel that boredom or feel like you just need to stop watching.

Pushing your brain 1% farther, focusing, making sure that you are spending more attention on one thing for a longer time, that is going to help your brain rewire and improve that dopamine deficit. And we’ll also talk more about that in the fourth step. Okay. Okay, so if you watched the last video in this series, you know that people with ADHD experience alcohol differently and their brain responses are different as well.

And seriously, most of us who drink alcohol don’t drink it for the fun. We drink it because it makes us feel a little bit more normal. And so if you’re watching this, honestly, I commend you because feeling normal is really, really enjoyable, right? Like we can actually function in the world.

At least it kind of feels that way. But there’s a part of you that thinks, you know what, maybe this is not the best idea for me. And honestly, it’s not. But that’s the first thing I want to address before we get really into those four steps of how to reduce our alcohol use ADHD friendly approaches.

So yes, the first thing is noticing the shame that comes up. If you have ADHD, we are more likely to have that what we call the negativity spiral. So there’s a lot of things that go on here because of our brain and how it’s wired. But essentially for a lot of people, we have more of what’s called emotional dysregulation.

And so essentially, it’s harder for us to appropriately respond to different inputs. For example, if your manager says, “Hey, let’s meet tomorrow at 2.” Your brain might think, “Holy crap, I probably did something horrible.” And that’s not everyone’s response. So, since we’re more likely to have that emotional dysregulation, that negative affect, I really want to encourage us to figure out how to identify that shame so that it doesn’t become part of us. So, there’s three ways to identify shame in specifically neurotypical people.

So, let’s talk about how to identify the shame spiral. if you have ADHD because if you have ADHD we have a lot more things going on in the background like interoception issues which is that understanding of how our body is in the world. So the first thing is noticing when you say I did something versus I am something. So for example saying I did something that I don’t think I should have done.

That’s more of a guilt response versus I am a mistake or I’m horrible for doing this. So we really want to notice our language and start shifting it into more of the this is what happened versus this is who I am. And that goes into the second one of solving versus punishing. So when we recognize the shame of ourselves instead of trying to punish ourselves for doing that bad thing that we did that we feel like we are, I encourage you to start thinking of how can I solve what I did.

So it’s that same aspect of did versus am. Because when we say I am this then we are going to punish ourselves versus when you say I did this then we can solve what we did. And then the last one is fight or flight responses. So, this one doesn’t get talked about a lot, but I think it’s really important to address because like, let’s be honest, a lot of us don’t actually think about our thoughts, especially if we have ADHD, because our thoughts are so much all the time.

And sometimes we don’t even know what we’re thinking because we’re thinking of too many things all at the same time, you know? So, when we get this sudden urge to hide or to quit or to disappear, things like that, that is actually a shame response. It’s a more intense response because it’s making us want to completely take ourselves out of the equation. So, say you made a mistake at work.

Instead of confronting the thing that we did, if we’re in that shame cycle, we are actually going to be more likely to want to quit our job entirely. So, noticing those intense feelings and those intense impulses are going to help us recognize when we’re in the shame spiral versus when we’re in the guilt and restoration cycle. All right, now that we talked about shame, let’s talk about the four steps to actually reducing alcohol through an ADHD lens. Now, the first thing that’s going to be really helpful is tracking what our feelings are, especially in our body.

I know that’s really hard, but tracking it without judgment. We talked about the shame aspect. Remember, we do not want to have shame here. And that can be really hard, but approaching it through more of a lens of logic, right, or data collection, that’s going to be helpful.

And as you’re journaling about what you felt, why you felt like you wanted to drink, perhaps what you were needing in that moment that you felt like you needed to drink, whether that was maybe you were dehydrated or you felt like you needed to clean your house. Identifying those things without judgment is really key here. So just start a journal or if a journal is too much effort, write some sticky notes or maybe have a little conversation with your partner if you are with a partner or a housemate about those things that happened. The more that we do this, the more we’re going to be aware of our body in those moments as well.

And that means we’re going to be able to actually understand when is our real limit. Because like we said before, interception is a difficult thing for a lot of us with ADHD. The only way we can get better at understanding our body is through talking about it and through practicing understanding our body. I know that kind of sucks to hear, but it’s the truth.

But anyway, the most important thing is that we have visible data. Whether that is just through talking so that they can talk back about it or through journaling about it. If you notice some of that shame language coming up, I encourage you to rewrite it or retalk it in a way that reduces the shame and moves it more into that guilt aspect where we can actually start to make real progress instead of making ourselves feel worse and then spiraling even more. All right, so now that we did that first step, we need to figure out if we are someone who needs to cut it out completely or if we’re someone who can reduce.

I have to be honest, a lot of us with ADHD are not people who can just reduce. I’m seeing this as one of those ADHDers who doesn’t have a lot of addictive or impulsive tendencies. That being said, yeah, some people can just reduce, but a lot of us are going to need to cut it out completely. The thing is, you need to decide this for yourself because you’re the person who knows yourself the best.

Now, unfortunately, it can be hard to both reduce and cut it out completely. And for a lot of it is why do we want to and why do we not want to? So making a comparison list of why do I want to quit or reduce my alcohol intake versus why do I not want to is really important because when we identify things then we can actually work through them. So if you want to hear a little bit about my personal life, I didn’t used to drink all the time but I used to drink very heavily when I did drink and I even knew what it was doing to my brain.

The fact that it was harming my brain and making everything worse for me in the long run wasn’t what was going to help me. And honestly, the only thing that actually helped me quit was the fact that I got really, really, really sick and I felt like I was, it was a horrible experience. I would not recommend it. And that was the catalyst for me quitting.

Sometimes we need experience in order to do something that we want to do. All the knowledge in the world isn’t going to help all the time, but making that list of why I want to versus why I don’t is really helpful in understanding our emotions, and that can help be that catalyst. So, now that you figured out if you want to reduce it or if you want to cut it out completely, we’re going to go to this next step, and that is planning. I know, the worst thing ever. (MAKE A PLAN)

So, the thing is, when we’re drinking, it’s usually later at night. It’s usually when there’s a lot of overstimulation, and in general, we’re at a heightened risk of being more impulsive. Our executive functioning is reduced. Essentially, our ability to make decisions is almost gone.

That’s why we need to make decisions before, and that’s where planning comes in. So, if you’re planning on just reducing your intake, the first thing I want you to do is write down how many drinks you plan to have. And then the second thing is writing down what alternatives you’re going to drink instead once you reach that number that you wrote down. And then gradually, you’re going to reduce it and reduce it and reduce it.

You might need to have an accountability partner here. So, if you’re going out with a friend, telling them, “Hey, this is my plan. I’d love if you can help me stick to it.” Because let’s be honest, we need that external support. A lot of people with ADHD do not rely very well on internal motivation.

Now, if you’re planning on cutting it out completely, the most important thing here is communicating it beforehand. Now, writing down some strategies that we’re going to be talking about in the final step is really important as well. But simply communicating with the person that you’re going to be going out with if you’re going out, say, for some drinks. Maybe you choose to be the designated driver.

That means you’re essentially forced not to drink already, which is that external motivation that again is really helpful for ADHD. More things you can write down are phrases that you’re going to be able to pull out of your hat when someone asks you, “Why aren’t you drinking?” or when someone’s like, “Hey, can I buy you a drink?” Now, a lot of these strategies are strategies that are assuming you’re going out into the community and drinking or say you’re going to a friend’s house or picnic. We also want to think about the ones at home, too. Obviously, the most helpful thing is if you’re working on completely quitting it all together, just make sure you don’t have anything in your house and being honest with yourself about how does that make you feel?

And if you need have an accountability person who’s around you as well, whether that’s a roommate, your partner, if they are there to help you stay on top of this, that’s going to be super super helpful here as well. Now, if the person living with you is not supportive of that, that’s a really hard issue to handle. And it might mean you need to reassess what your priorities are with friendships now. Because to be clear, you’re not a burden.

And reducing your alcohol intake is a thing that is helpful for you and helpful for everyone around you. If your journey through alcohol reduction or elimination is making them feel like they don’t want to hang out with you as much or they’re making fun of you for it or think you’re frankly an idiot, it might be helpful to figure out if that is the type of person you really want in your life anymore. Because the truth is, we grow, we change, and alcohol is such an important part in a lot of people’s lives. All that being said, the most helpful thing here is probably figuring out what can you say when people are asking you about it or when they start to push you for it.

And then again, just communicating all of this beforehand. Communication is the key for a lot of this, especially since we need that external motivation. All right, so that was step three. And now, let’s talk about the final step, and that is realizing that your brain is going to hate you.

And we need a plan for that. Whether you’re quitting or you’re reducing, your brain is just going to really not enjoy what’s going on. If you watch the previous video in the series, you’ll know exactly why this happens. I’m not going to go into it because we already talked about that.

But the consequences of that when we reduce or quit our alcohol, we are going to have not fun experiences. We’re going to have a lot of brain fog. Your sleep initially can actually get worse. And then other things to look out for is food not starting to sound as good as it used to, which then can make eating really difficult.

And by the way, if that’s something that you experience, I do have a free PDF here. I’ll put the link to get it in the description, but I definitely recommend looking through that because it will help you through this aspect of your time. Eating is really, really, really important when we’re working on reducing our alcohol. Now, you might also have the other experience of the food just doesn’t hit in the brain as well.

So, you’re going to overeat instead. Now, both of those experiences are super common, and I just want to prepare you for that. The other one is going to be more hyperactivity or restlessness. You’re probably going to feel a lot more just jitters, like you’re on the go, moving, moving, moving.

It can be really hard, but when we know that’s going to happen, then we can plan for it. We’re also going to have more emotional instability, some more mood swings, some irritability. And if you have a female hormone cycle, this is just going to be so fun for you. Some things to help this are some nervous system regulation skills, you can pick up my ebook for $7.

People have said it’s the only book that’s helped them understand their ADHD body in relationship to nervous system regulation. It has over 50 skills in it, as well as how to identify what type of nervous system dysregulation you’re experiencing. So, I’ll have that in the description below, too. And then the last thing to really expect is those short intense cravings for dopamine because the brain’s been expecting all this dopamine to come regularly.

And so we are going to have those intense cravings for something filled with dopamine. So let’s talk about that. (LONG AND SHORT-TERM DOPAMINE PLAN) We are going to need to plan for the short term and then we’re also going to need to plan for the long term. The short term when we get those short-term dopamine cravings, consider drinking more sugary drinks.

It acts really similarly to alcohol but it doesn’t hurt our body as much. So it can be a really great transitory thing to use. Obviously, I’m going to say we’re going to want to reduce it later, but as you’re working on reducing your alcohol, using sugary beverages could be a tool in your tool box. Another one could be more salty snacks.

So, salty snacks also release a lot of dopamine. I will say it’s more released in the body rather than in the brain typically, but if you’re more of a salty snack type of person versus a sugar snack type of person, you will get more of that dopamine released in your brain anyway. Now, these next three are ones that I would actually recommend over the other two, but they might not work as quickly. So the first thing is cold water.

Cold water can really shock the system and then it can actually help us with a huge release of dopamine really quickly which is very similar to the alcohol. The next one is intense exercise. So getting your sweat on, moving your body, picking up some heavy weights. That can also help with just regulating our body in general.

Now do I recommend people doing intense exercise often? Not really. But as you’re working on regulating your dopamine in your brain, using intense exercise could be helpful. And then the last thing I recommend to get your short dopamine is through taking all that money that you have been spending on alcohol and then actually putting it towards something that you can purchase, especially if it’s a new hobby that you’ve been thinking about doing.

Because let’s be honest, alcohol takes a lot of our money. And yes, it is nice to save that money that we’re going to be saving. But also, we can put it to other things, too, because we love purchasing things dopamine. But obviously, we don’t want to stay in that short dopamine aspect because then it’s not going to help our long-term dopamine.

As short-term dopamine is just to help us recover from our chronic use of lots of dopamine, not dopamine. So, the biggest thing here is working on our long dopamine, helping it really stay consistent and steady. To do that, unfortunately, it’s the annoying things which are the basics. That means nervous system regulation, means eating healthily.

It means exercising regularly, making sure that we feel like we belong in a social setting. hydration, taking our electrolytes, basically all of the things that are really hard to do when we don’t have a lot of motivation to start with. When we’re recovering from alcohol use, of course, it’s really important to focus on those basics, but also recognizing that it’s going to be extra hard for you to be focusing on those basics already. And that’s where the short dopamine comes in.

And then picking one thing out of the long list of basics to start with. Maybe you want to start with just drinking a liter of water a day, not worrying about nervous system regulation, not worrying about exercising three times a week, just making sure you’re drinking water. And then maybe the next week you add in making sure that you’re brushing your teeth once a day to twice a day. And then we can slowly build in going to the gym once a week, adding into twice a week, three times a week, or perhaps taking a walk every other day.

If you want help with learning how to eat healthily for your ADHD while you’re working on all of this and if the thing you want to start off with is eating healthily, I do have the six ebook and worksheet bundle. It’s the ADHD nutrition toolkit. It’s literally everything you need to start your journey through ADHD nutrition. It has an extended version of that behavioral ebook that I have and then the basics, what’s important to focus on, how do we even do this, an example menu, grocery shopping list.

It’s everything you need so that you don’t have to think about it. And I’ll have that linked in the description, too. So, those are the four steps. tracking your body, your emotions, your feelings without judgment.

Figuring out if you want to cut it out completely or if you want to just reduce it. Making a plan, and then also realizing that your brain is going to hate you for a while, and that’s okay. What I really want you to get out of this is that it is so hard to reduce or eliminate alcohol, and you’re not a failure for messing up. Because the truth is that your brain is messy now.

And that’s okay. A mantra that I think is really helpful here is reminding yourself that I am not a failure. I’m just recalibrating. I’m not a mess.

My brain is just cleaning up right now. And having those mantras in place are really helpful because it just recognizes that even though it’s hard, it’s going to get better. And then it also gives yourself the grace that you need because every single day when you’re reducing alcohol is going to be difficult. Preparing for that is going to help, but it’s not going to do everything.

And obviously there’s things that I missed. So if you have been on an alcohol reduction journey and there’s things that have helped you specifically for your ADHD as you’ve been through all of this, throw that in the comments. is going to really help a lot of people here, too. Or if you want some accountability or encouragement, send this out to somebody who’s going to be able to help you.

That way, you’re all on the same page, and it’s going to really help. Also, if you made it through this entire video, I’m really proud of you and I wholeheartedly believe in you.