Last week I had a few moments where I could easily have picked up a glass and partaken in a beverage if I was not fully conscious of my actions. That has caused me to ask how long do I have to abstain before the habit loop is broken and the urge to drink finally goes away once and for all?
You’ve most likely heard the old adage that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. Based on that premise, by the end of this week, my brain will magically reset, the angels will sing, and the wine rack will stop staring at me.
Spoiler alert: it’s total BS!
The Nose-Job Prophecy
This “21-day rule” actually has its origins in the observations of a plastic surgeon in the 1960s. He noted it took his patients about 21 days to adjust to seeing their new faces in the mirror, or to stop feeling a “phantom limb” after an amputation! Somehow, self-help gurus took an observation about nose jobs and turned it into a universal law for sobriety, dieting, and gym routines. Whilst I’m sure there are similarities between stopping drinking and cutting off a limb, unfortunately, rewriting deep neural pathways takes a lot more than three weeks.
Just Another Massive Highway Delay—Typical.
Much more recent research from 2009 demonstrated that, on average, it takes about 66 days for a new habit to be solidified. But it varies hugely – taking anywhere up to 254 days depending on the social, emotional, and psychological factors attached to it.
This comes down to how paths are physically worn into the brain:
- The Goat Track: The first time you do something, the neural pathway between the trigger and the behaviour is rough AF, barely visible, and if you’re not careful, you will fall over and break several bones in your ankle…
- The Motorway: The more times you travel that track, the smoother and more defined it becomes. Over a long period, the goat track turns into a multi-lane motorway with 18-wheelers running at regular intervals.
So, what happens when we want to stop using that old highway? Those 18-wheelers keep on hauling despite some poor NZTA employee furiously waving his “Stop” sign. It takes a fair bit of brute force—otherwise known as willpower—to slow them down and eventually park them up entirely.
The PFC: Keeping My Arse Out of Jail Since Way Back
So, what the hell do we do while waiting for NZTA to build a new neural pathway in my brain (which we all know may take a lifetime)?
We must rely on willpower.
Willpower lives in your Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), which is the most recent evolutionary development in the human brain (and is possibly why some individuals I have met appear to be lacking this part entirely). The PFC is the executive suite where logical reasoning occurs, where we plan, make decisions, and control our basic impulses—like throttling my kids.
The problem with relying on the PFC to override our impulses is that it is metabolically exhausting. Willpower behaves like a battery. Every single decision you make across the day—from answering work emails to refereeing arguments over who farted in who’s face first—drains that battery.
When that battery hits 0%, the PFC takes a nap. It doesn’t care how many more decisions you have left; it just hands the steering wheel straight over to the Basal Ganglia. The Basal Ganglia is effectively the DJ stuck on repeat. It doesn’t think or judge; it just automatically boots up the most well-used highway because that is just ‘what we do’ when we are tired.
The goal is to survive on pure willpower and PFC power just long enough for the new behaviour to become so well established that the Basal Ganglia takes it over as the new automatic script. Hello, beautiful new neural highway.
I quit – adulting not sobriety
For me, this means I officially resign from all decision-making over the next two months. Kids—you can eat what you like for dinner, go to bed when you like, watch what you like, and wear what you like, even if you look like a homeless hobo. Anything that is not already an automated process is simply not happening.
Actually… that wouldn’t work. The other major thing that completely tanks the energy of the PFC is stress. Watching my children eat ice cream for dinner while binge-watching Netflix would definitely stress out this Type-A Mum and have me reaching for a vino.
So, I guess I’ll just have to be highly selective in the decisions I make. This is exactly why trying to change more than one habit at a time fails. The decision fatigue is just too much for your poor PFC, and it goes offline before the new highway is even paved.
Fortunately, I have a slight home-ground advantage here. Because I have stopped drinking for several months previously, there is already an old neural pathway cleared out in there. It’s definitely not a major motorway yet, but it’s probably a bit like the Napier-Hastings Expressway—established, but still needing a fair bit of roadwork to get it up to code!
There are a few things that I can do to help my PFC other than just completely withdrawing all decision-making responsibility. Thinking through the ‘If–Then’ scenarios in advance is a big one.
I have a variety of teas (and sedatives) on hand for when life gets to be a bit too much. So IF I walk in at 5:00 PM, my kids are screaming, the kitchen is a total bombsite, and I feel the urge to drown my sorrows, THEN I will automatically reach for a nice cup of tea (or a Valium) instead of a wine. No real-time decision required. The script is already written.
The other saving grace is remembering that cravings pass. The actual, intense chemical urge we interpret as a craving only lasts for about 10 to 15 minutes before levelling out again. So, based on this neurological theory, all I have to do is lock myself in the bathroom for 15 minutes and I’ll eventually come out level, centred, as calm as a Yogi on hiatus, with my PFC fully booted back up (Though let’s be honest, the kids will probably just be sliding notes under the door the entire time).
The Upgrade From ‘Bad Habit’ to ‘Rogue Operator’
Now I am going to go there, because when I reflect upon my drinking tendencies, I would be tempted to suggest there were times where they may have boarded on addiction, more so than just habit.
If a bad habit is just a stubborn 18-wheeler refusing to leave the highway, addiction is like is a rogue operator that has hijacked the entire fleet. Addictive substances like alcohol don’t play by the standard habit rules. They flood our reward system with a surge of dopamine that can be up to ten times higher than any natural reward and the brain gets very excited! It concludes: “Holy crap, whatever we just did is more important for our survival than food or water. Lock this script in immediately!”
This massive chemical blast acts like a hyper-speed construction crew. Instead of taking the usual 66 days to slowly wear a track into the brain, it builds a multi-lane concrete super-highway in a fraction of the time.
To make matters worse, over time, chronic drinking actually weakens the physical wiring between our logical PFC and the impulse centre. It literally cuts the brake lines. So when you are sitting there at 5:00 PM trying to use logic, planning, and your big girl pants to stay strong, your PFC isn’t just taking a nap because it’s tired from refereeing the kids—it has literally been locked out of the control room.
Understanding this neuroscience is a massive relief. It means that when those intense cravings hit out of nowhere, it isn’t a personal moral failure or a lack of willpower. It is just an automated, high-speed highway built by a toxic chemical, screaming for its old script.
Rebooking the Angel Choir
So I’m digging in and have rebooked the singing angel choir for day 66 in the hope the bloody expressway will be finished by then (the one in my brain I’m referring to—we all know the Napier-Hastings one won’t be).
If you need me after 5:00 PM this week, there is a high likelihood you will find me locked in the bathroom—just get one of my kids to put a postscript on one of their notes under the door. Otherwise, I shall be back later this week for my 3-week roundup!!
