Cravings and Triggers in the Brain

Cravings and Triggers in the Brain

Understanding cravings and triggers from a brain-based perspective changed everything for me. It took the shame out of the experience and gave me tools—not just to resist, but to retrain the source of those urges.

Let’s start with what happens in the brain during a craving.

When you drink or use substances repeatedly, the brain’s reward system becomes sensitized. Specifically, the mesolimbic dopamine pathway (which includes areas like the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens) learns to associate alcohol with intense pleasure or relief. Over time, the brain begins to anticipate the reward before the substance is even consumed. That anticipation alone—sparked by a smell, a memory, a time of day—releases dopamine, which creates a craving.

This is where triggers come in. A trigger is anything that reminds the brain of the reward it used to get from alcohol. It could be external (a bar, a commercial, a song) or internal (stress, loneliness, even excitement). These cues light up your brain’s cue-reactivity networks, which include not just reward centers but also areas involved in memory (like the hippocampus) and emotion (like the amygdala).

Your brain isn’t trying to sabotage you. It’s doing exactly what it was trained to do. It remembers that alcohol once made you feel better, and it’s trying to help you feel better again. But here’s the twist: the brain doesn’t update these reward associations until you teach it something new.

That’s why the space between trigger and response is everything. In that space, you can pause. Reflect. Redirect. And that’s how you begin to rewire your brain.

Here’s what helped me:

• Name the trigger. Saying, “I feel triggered right now because I’m alone on a Friday night,” activates your prefrontal cortex—your brain’s reasoning center. This interrupts the autopilot loop.

• Breathe or move. Physical activity or breathwork calms the nervous system and reduces the intensity of the craving. It also creates a new response that your brain can begin to associate with the trigger.

• Repetition and reward. Each time you choose a new response, your brain begins to build a new pathway. But you have to reward it. Celebrate the win. Track it. Reflect on it. This reinforces the behavior and strengthens the new neural wiring.

Over time, this process—called extinction learning—weakens the old craving circuits. The trigger loses its power. The brain learns: “I don’t need that anymore.”

You can’t control every trigger, but you can control your response. And with practice, your brain will adapt. It’s always listening, always learning.

So if you feel like your cravings make you weak, remember: they actually make you human. And your brain, just like your story, is still being rewritten—one decision at a time.

If you are ready to get control of your triggers and cravings, schedule a 1-on-1 Sober Reset Call with me today! https://calendly.com/alexgarner/sober-reset-call

Or email me at [email protected]