E97: Why We Keep Believing it’ll be Different this Time

Gill discusses our ability to learn and adapt from our experiences. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and that doesn’t feel too far off from what we do with our drinking. We always seem to believe it’s going to be different this time, even when it’s consistently been horrible every single time before. In this episode you’ll learn about cognitive flexibility, how being inflexible greatly increases the risk of developing a problem with alcohol, and one reason why addiction is progressive. She has a lot of interesting studies to go over about how alcohol affects our ability to adapt the way we think and learn new information, and at the end of the episode she explains 5 tips for becoming a more flexible person.

What to listen to next:

E30: Gray Area Drinkers

E60: How Alcohol Affects Our Cognitive Abilities

E61: How Alcohol Memories are Triggered in Sobriety

E68: How Heavy Drinking Changes the Way We Make Decisions

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Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

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