Many of us can handle pressure all day and still come undone when work is over. We make decisions, solve problems and keep everything moving. Then we get home, pour a drink and tell ourselves it's how we deal with stress.
And for a short time, it might feel as though it works. But if alcohol was really managing our stress, we should be getting less stressed over time. Most heavy drinkers know that isn't what happens.
Alcohol changes the feeling, not the problem
A drink can slow us down and make the workday feel further away. That's why it gets linked with relief.
The deadline is still there. The difficult conversation still needs to happen. The money problem hasn't moved. We've only changed how much we care about it for a while.
Then alcohol wears off and brings its own problems with it. We could sleep badly, wake up anxious, lose part of the morning or spend the day trying to get our head clear.
So the original stress comes back, and now we're dealing with it with less energy.
Why high performers miss the cost
The thing is, we can still get everything done.
We still turn up, answer the emails and run the meeting, so from the outside nothing looks wrong.
But getting everything done doesn't mean alcohol isn't affecting us. Work that used to feel easier might now take far more effort. We could be impatient, foggy or counting the hours until we can drink again.
Being able to push through the effects doesn't make alcohol harmless. It just makes the cost easier to hide.
Deal with pressure before the evening
We often wait until work is finished before we think about stress. By then, we're tired, hungry and full of unfinished thoughts.
So it helps to notice pressure earlier. We could take a proper break, eat before we're running on empty, write down what needs doing tomorrow or step away after a difficult call.
None of this is exciting. It also won't make a hard job easy. But it can stop ten smaller pressures turning into one desperate need to escape.
We can do a quick pressure check before the usual drinking time. What is unfinished? What is physical? What is emotional? And which part is simply the old belief that alcohol is how the workday ends?
Once we know which one it is, the next step is usually clearer. If it's unfinished work, we can make a note for tomorrow. If we're hungry or tense, food or movement might help. If we're angry, the conversation may need to wait until later. And if it's the old belief about alcohol, we need to remember what drinking actually did to the next day.
Work out what kind of stress it is
Sometimes the pressure needs action. We need to make the call, change the deadline or deal with the problem we've been avoiding.
Other times, the workday is over and our body is still acting as though it isn't. Then movement, food, quiet, a shower or time away from the screen could help us come down properly.
And sometimes we're not only stressed. It could be anxiety or low mood that needs more attention than another evening routine.
It's also worth looking at the pattern across the week. If the same meeting, person or deadline leaves us wanting to drink every time, the problem isn't only our evening response. Something in the work might need a boundary or a decision.
We don't have to solve that decision tonight. But if the same problem keeps coming back, we shouldn’t keep calling it ordinary stress and expect ourselves to breathe our way through it forever.
We don't need to become calm people
Stress is part of life, especially when we're responsible for a lot.
A practical stress plan can stay short: notice pressure earlier, deal with the basic physical needs, close the workday properly and question the idea that a drink is relief. Then review what keeps creating the same pressure.
Some days that plan will work neatly. Other days we'll go to bed still stressed. If we haven't added alcohol, poor sleep and another difficult morning to the original problem, that's still a better result.
We may still feel tense or overwhelmed. We’re learning to stop reaching for alcohol automatically every time those feelings show up.
Alcohol changed the feeling quickly, then left us with more to manage afterwards. So when we look at the whole thing, it doesn't look like stress relief anymore. It looks like part of the stress.
— Brent