Dr. Tabatha Barber explains why moderation fails with alcohol: one drink impairs the prefrontal cortex enough that your brain starts rationalizing the next one. Once that control system shuts down, you convince yourself you can handle it, and the spiral begins.
Alcohol is highly addictive, right? And so when you drink it, it shuts off your prefrontal cortex. So it's really hard to like stick to all those moderation rules that you have, which is why I get like to get up in arms against, um, you know, Big Alcohol Lou, who loves to tell us to drink moderately when after the first drink that's really hard because of what alcohol is, right?
Because all of a sudden you're telling yourself different stories in your head of like Oh, it's okay, I can handle this. And then you start rearranging your calendar and your schedule because of it.
