The 3-Step Approach to Changing Your Relationship with Alcohol by Addressing Neurotransmitters
When it comes to changing your relationship with alcohol, willpower alone isn’t enough. If you’ve ever tried to cut back or quit drinking but found yourself struggling with cravings, anxiety, or feeling emotionally off-balance, there’s a deeper reason at play - your brain chemistry.
Alcohol impacts our neurotransmitters—dopamine, serotonin, and GABA—creating an artificial sense of relaxation, pleasure, and stress relief. Over time, our brains become dependent on alcohol to provide these feelings, leading to cravings and emotional struggles when we try to stop.
That’s why my approach focuses on addressing neurotransmitter imbalances first, before working on beliefs and behaviours. When we restore balance in the brain, the need for alcohol naturally diminishes, making lasting change possible.
Step 1: Discover – Rebuild Your Neurotransmitters
The first and most critical step is assessing for neurotransmitter deficiencies and working on rebuilding these through nutrition, lifestyle, and supplementation. This reduces the physical cravings for alcohol and improves overall mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
The most common neurotransmitter deficiencies I see in women who struggle with alcohol are:
Dopamine – The “reward” chemical, responsible for motivation and pleasure.
Serotonin – The mood stabiliser, keeping us feeling happy and emotionally balanced.
GABA – The calming neurotransmitter, reducing anxiety and helping with relaxation.
When we work on restoring these neurotransmitters, cravings drop significantly, and the emotional rollercoaster of quitting alcohol becomes much more manageable. I guide women through this process in my group workshop inside my 30-day alcohol-free challenges, where we take a deep dive into personalised strategies for neurotransmitter support.
Step 2: Challenge – Rewriting Your Beliefs About Alcohol
Once we’ve addressed the physical cravings, the next step is tackling the mental and emotional attachment to alcohol. Most of us have deeply ingrained beliefs about drinking - many of which have been shaped by society, advertising, and personal experiences.
In my online group workshop, I take women through a specific, proven exercise to:
Identify old beliefs about alcohol ( “Alcohol helps me relax,” “Drinking is the only way I can have fun,” “I need wine to cope with stress”).
Challenge these beliefs by looking at actual evidence from our experiences.
Replace them with new, empowering beliefs that support a life without alcohol.
This step is key for rewiring our neural pathways, so we no longer associate alcohol with relief, fun, or connection. Once we break those mental ties, the urge to drink fades away naturally.
Step 3: Replace – Finding New Ways to Cope and Enjoy Life
Here’s the truth: If we take alcohol out, we must put something in its place. Otherwise, we’re left feeling deprived, and that’s not a sustainable way to stay alcohol-free or to live.
This step is about understanding why we drink - what our biggest triggers are -and finding new ways to navigate these triggers without alcohol. This could be:
Creating new night-time rituals to unwind without wine.
Finding social alternatives that don’t revolve around alcohol.
Learning emotional regulation techniques that reduce stress and anxiety naturally.
By replacing alcohol with healthy, fulfilling alternatives, you’re not just quitting drinking - you’re building a life that genuinely feels better without it.
Why This Approach Works (and Why My Challenges Are So Successful)
The reason this method works so well is that it’s not about forcing yourself to quit drinking. Instead, we work with your brain, body, and emotions to make alcohol less appealing and help you build a lifestyle that naturally supports sobriety.
If you’re ready to explore this approach and finally change your relationship with alcohol in a way that feels empowering and sustainable, check out my group programs here, my monthly membership here and my book Beyond Booze, How to Create a Life You Love Alcohol Free here.