The line between drinking that you enjoy and drinking that takes over your life isn’t always that easy to pin down … but a sure sign that this has happened is how you feel when you aren’t drinking.

What do I mean by that? Addiction literally sucks the joy out of your life. Scientists who’ve studied what happens when the brain gets accustomed to steady drinking have identified the biological basis for addiction, which actually changes the reward circuitry in your brain. Dopamine is the chemical (neurotransmitter) that the brain releases when we experience pleasure; the more dopamine that pours into the brain, the greater our feeling of pleasure. For example, dopamine is released when you eat or have sex. When we use alcohol (or drugs) to stimulate the release of dopamine – again and again, more and more – all that “pleasure” literally floods the brain’s pleasure-reward pathways. The brain rewires itself to accommodate the altered flow and, ironically, the net result of this ends up being that the brain is less sensitive to feeling pleasure.

It works like this: You have a drink or use a drug and you feel good – the drug/alcohol that so relaxes you has triggered the release of dopamine. When this happens continually, your brain reacts to the excess of dopamine and cuts back on how much it produces naturally and also decreases the number of dopamine receptors your brain has. The fewer receptors for your dopamine, the less pleasure you are able to feel when you aren’t drinking or using drugs. You now become accustomed to getting your dopamine from wine, beer or whatever else is your “drug of choice” – and when you try to go without you don’t feel good. Before addiction, going to a movie or taking a walk on the beach felt great but now those activities don’t provide enough pleasure to be worth the effort it takes to get up and out of the house. You may try to cut back (perhaps because someone who cares for you has pointed out that it is becoming a problem) but it makes you feel lousy. Your brain is no longer as sensitive to this feel-good chemical on its own.

This decreased ability to feel pleasure (and, possibly, the symptoms of physical withdrawal) make it very difficult to conquer a substance abuse problem on your own. The brain is no longer working properly. It loses its ability to “just say no” when triggered by people, places or things that are associated with drugging/drinking.

All this explains why the biological odds work against sobriety. If you are trying to beat an addiction, it’s so important to have social and spiritual supports – and sometimes, medications too – which will play a strong role in abstinence and recovery. It’s not easy to do and the results take a while – specifically three months – to kick in. If you’re able to stay abstinent and completely avoid drugs/alcohol for 90 days, your brain’s chemistry will have an opportunity to begin to heal and reverse the damaged circuitry so that you can, once again, begin to feel pleasure in life.