Drinking every night: Wendy Wood on breaking the evening habit

To stop drinking every night, name the moment the drink begins and the job it does, make the drink harder to reach then, and have something else ready that does the same job. If your body may have got used to alcohol, see a doctor first.

Wendy Wood once handed out popcorn at a cinema. Moviegoers rated trailers and got a box as a thank-you. Some boxes were fresh; others had sat in a plastic bag in her lab for a week. People who rarely ate popcorn at the movies left the stale boxes alone. People who usually did "ate 70% of these boxes, whether they were fresh or stale," Wood told Hidden Brain, though they said afterward that they hated it (Hidden Brain, 00:27:28). Then she had people eat with their other hand. "If you add that thought to the behavior, you make people attend to it, then they quit" (00:28:55).

Wood, a professor of psychology and business at USC and author of Good Habits, Bad Habits, didn't study drinking. But the evening glass has the same parts as the cinema box: a familiar place, a familiar time and a quick reward. Kamala Greene Génecé, a psychologist who specializes in addiction, said on NPR's Life Kit: "if you develop a conditioned relationship to doing a particular behavior every day at the same time, your body is going to start craving it when it gets to be that same time" (NPR Life Kit, 00:06:56).

First, a safety point that matters most for daily drinkers.

Before you change anything: check your body

If your body may have got used to alcohol, stopping or cutting down quickly can make you unwell, sometimes seriously. Talk to a doctor before you change how much you drink. A doctor can help you cut down or stop safely, usually without a hospital stay (NICE).

Sarah Wakeman, an addiction physician at Mass General Brigham, explains: "if your body's used to having three or four drinks every night, your body's going to start to accommodate to that." Stop all at once, she says, and "you're going to feel shaky, you may have a headache, you may feel anxious, you may feel nauseous" (The Mel Robbins Podcast, 30:53). If that might be you, a sudden stop is not the plan.

If, after stopping or cutting down, you get shaky, sweaty, sick or very anxious in the hours after your last drink, talk to a doctor before going further. If you, or someone with you, notice a fit, confusion (not knowing where you are or what day it is), or seeing or hearing things that aren't there, get medical help straight away. Don't wait.

Those signs are different from the low, worried morning after a heavier night, which is common and is explained in our guide to hangxiety.

Find what starts the drink

1. Name the moment

Wood defines habits as "mental associations that we form when we repeat an action over and over again in a given context and then get a reward" (00:14:59). For the nightly drink, the context is usually home. In diaries of 43,089 drinking occasions from 17,821 adult drinkers in Great Britain in 2019, more than half of all alcohol was drunk at home or at friends' homes; big nights out held only a few percent (Holmes et al., 2024).

In interviews with 40 Australians aged 30 to 65, one woman had her first drink "at 17 hours on the dot. That's when I'll start making dinner." Another: "time to cook dinner, so time for a glass of wine, right?" (MacLean et al., 2022). In a survey of 414 Australians aged 35 to 60 who drank at home at least weekly, habit predicted how much they drank better than intention did (Aplin et al., 2021). It's one survey at one point in time, so it shows a link, not a cause.

Here's what that looks like in practice. For three evenings, write down when the first drink came, where you were and what had just happened: keys in the door, the laptop closed, the kids asleep.

2. Name the job the drink does

For many people the glass is a marker between the day's duties and their own time. In focus groups with women aged 30 to 50 in the west of Scotland, one mother said: "Six o'clock is kind of like well, the evening's starting... the end of Mummy Day" (Emslie et al., 2015). The authors noted that a wine brand had marketed "wine o'clock" as "me time" for busy mothers.

For others, the drink is relief. Wakeman's example diary entry: "I'm really stressed out at the end of the day, and so I come home and want to reach for a glass of wine" (47:08). Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford, describes the "work hard, play hard" version: "at the end of the day, I'm going to reward myself" (The Diary Of A CEO, 00:54:39).

One question tells the two apart: if the day had gone well, would you still pour it? If yes, the drink is mostly a marker. If no, it's doing a job, and whatever replaces it has to do that job too. Stress matters for some, yet in an online survey of 1,032 adults in the US, Great Britain, Mexico, Spain and Germany in spring 2023, people drank mostly to be sociable and for the feeling, and drinking to cope came last of four reasons (Rupprecht et al., 2025).

Drinking alone is common too: in British diaries from 2015 to 2019, about one occasion in five was solitary, often short (Wilson et al., 2025). Put those quick ones in your diary.

Make the old move a little harder

3. Add friction where the drink starts

Wood's advice for a habit you want to break is to "add friction to the behaviors that you don't want to engage in. That makes you stop and think and, perhaps, gives you a bit of a chance to realize, oh, this is not really what I intended. Maybe I can do something better" (00:30:07).

At home, nothing slows the next drink. Summing up what heavier drinkers told them, the Australian researchers wrote that home "allows a person to drink for as long as one wants and as much as one wants." One woman added: "you can order online late at night, which is really not a great thing for people like me." US public advice is plain: "If drinking at home is a problem, keep little or no alcohol there" (NIAAA).

So buy only for the days you plan to drink, with nothing "just in case." Delete the delivery app. Keep any bottle out of sight and awkward to reach, away from the counter you pass when you walk in. No trial has tested clearing the house, so treat it as a sensible first step, not a measured one. If your body may have got used to alcohol, agree the pace with your doctor first.

4. Stop counting on willpower at 6 p.m.

"Willpower is not actually, we have found, the best way to achieve our goals and to change our behavior," Wood says (00:06:41). She describes a German study in which people with good self-control "didn't actually experience many temptations" (00:11:45). If there's cake in the fridge, "they don't see it" (00:12:31).

Lembke describes a lift, then a dip after the first glass, "that moment of wanting to have one more shot" (00:19:03). She calls her picture of it "a metaphor. It's an oversimplification" (00:16:26). Our guide to alcohol cravings covers that moment. The practical point: decide before the first drink, while deciding is easy.

Give the moment a new first move

5. Keep the time, change what marks it

Génecé suggests a new routine at the old hour: if you usually have a glass of wine around six after your last meeting, "I would recommend going for a walk at that time or maybe, you know, pulling up a favorite podcast" (00:07:26). The moment keeps its meaning, and something else marks it.

Wood borrows a method from chefs, who learn mise en place, laying everything out before they cook. She calls it "a metaphor for behavior change because if you structure the environment ahead of time... but then we make it so much easier" (00:39:33). Set out the new first move in the morning: walking shoes by the door, sparkling water in the fridge, a glass you like at the front. When the moment comes, give it ten minutes, then decide about the drink.

If the drink's job is relief, choose something that does that job: a walk or a shower after a hard day, a call when the evening feels empty. Our guide to non-alcoholic beer covers when an alcohol-free drink helps as the swap.

6. Use a fresh start

Wood points to research on "habit discontinuity": when life changes, through a move, a new job or a new family, old cues drop away, and "it actually turns out to be an opportunity for them to act more authentically on their values" (00:45:39).

7. Give it about two months, with a review date

Forget 21 days. In a study of 96 volunteers adding a daily eating, drinking or exercise routine, the median time to feel automatic was 66 days among the 39 people whose progress followed a clear curve, and one missed day didn't undo it (Lally et al., 2010). A 2024 review of 20 studies put it at two to five months (Singh et al., 2024). Both looked at healthy routines, not alcohol.

Wakeman's advice is to make the goal "specific, measurable, time bound," then reassess (47:45). Fewer drinking nights, a break or stopping are all valid goals; it "doesn't have to be that you stop drinking entirely," she says (16:14). Our guides to moderate drinking and how to drink less help you choose.

Start with the next ten minutes

The popcorn eaters stopped when the wrong hand made them notice. "So it made the eating more thoughtful," Wood said (00:28:33). Your evening needs the same small interruption. If you do one thing today, set out tonight's new first move now. Our guides to being sober curious and to alcohol and sleep go further.

To do this for your own evenings, try the 1h Protocol to Reduce Your Drinking. Its free first chapter asks a few short questions, including how your body reacts when you drink less, finds the pattern your evenings follow (one is the Evening Reset, the drink that marks the end of the day) and gives you one thing to do next time. The full program is practical education and takes about an hour. You choose the goal: drink less, take a break or stop. You leave with a one-page plan, a moment card for your lock screen, a fourteen-day sheet, and day-7 and day-14 reviews in your calendar. Check-in emails follow on days 1, 7, 14 and 30. Start free

Frequently asked questions

Is it bad to drink every night?

Health bodies say no amount of alcohol is free of risk; WHO Europe says there is "no safe amount that does not affect health" (WHO Europe, 2023). The UK's Chief Medical Officers (2016) advise spreading up to 14 units a week over three or more days, and say a good way to cut down "is to have several drink-free days each week" (UK Chief Medical Officers). Our standard drink guide shows how to count yours.

Does drinking every night mean I have a problem?

No label settles it, and frequency alone can't answer it. Two questions matter more: is your drinking going where you want it to, and may your body have got used to alcohol? If the second might be yes, talk to a doctor before you change how much you drink. If a plan isn't enough, talk to a doctor or a local alcohol service.

How do I stop drinking every night after work?

Treat the end of work as the cue. Plan a new first move for that moment, have it ready before you leave, and keep nothing at home you didn't plan to drink. Long days may add to the pull: in studies following 100,602 workers in nine countries, working more than 48 hours a week went with a slightly higher chance of moving into risky drinking, a small, observational link (Virtanen et al., 2015). See also drinking at work events.

What can I do instead of a drink to relax?

Something that does the same job, ready before the moment: a walk, a bath, a call, a favorite podcast, a drink you like in a glass you like. Changing your drinking can stir up low mood or worry for a while. If it feels like too much, see your doctor.

Why do I want a drink when I'm stressed?

Partly speed: Wood says the rewards that build habits are "the rewards you experience immediately" (00:32:22). In lab experiments, people put in a bad mood drank more afterward, though studies of everyday life found a less clear link (Bresin et al., 2018).

Sources

This article draws on Wendy Wood's interview on Hidden Brain, Kamala Greene Génecé on NPR's Life Kit, Sarah Wakeman on The Mel Robbins Podcast, Anna Lembke on The Diary Of A CEO, and the studies and public guidance listed below.

• Creatures of Habit (podcast episode with Wendy Wood, Hidden Brain, 2021 rebroadcast of the 2019 conversation)
• Americans Are Drinking More During The Pandemic. Here's How To Cut Back (podcast episode with R. Lorraine Collins and Kamala Greene Génecé, NPR Life Kit, 2020)
• What Alcohol Does to Your Body (podcast episode with Dr Sarah Wakeman, The Mel Robbins Podcast, 2024)
• The Dopamine Expert (podcast episode with Dr Anna Lembke, The Diary Of A CEO, 2025)
• Holmes et al, How is alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking spread across types of drinking occasion in Great Britain (diaries of 43,089 drinking occasions, 17,821 adults, Great Britain, 2019 data, 2024)
• Aplin et al, The explanatory roles of habit and intention on alcohol consumption by adults at home (survey of 414 Australian adults aged 35 to 60, 2021)
• MacLean et al, Affordances of home drinking in accounts from light and heavy drinkers (interviews with 40 Australians aged 30 to 65, 2022)
• Emslie, Hunt & Lyons, Transformation and time-out (11 focus groups, women aged 30 to 50, Scotland, 2015)
• Rupprecht et al, Alcohol use and drinking motives across five countries (online survey of 1,032 adults, 2025)
• Bresin, Mekawi & Verona, The effect of laboratory manipulations of negative affect on alcohol craving and use (meta-analysis of 41 lab studies, 2018)
• Wilson et al, Solitary drinkers in Great Britain (271,738 drinking occasions, 83,952 adults, 2015 to 2019 data, 2025)
• Virtanen et al, Long working hours and alcohol use (systematic review and individual-participant meta-analysis, BMJ, 2015)
• Lally et al, How are habits formed (study of 96 volunteers, 2010)
• Singh et al, Time to form a habit (systematic review of 20 studies, 2024)
• NIAAA, Rethinking Drinking (US public self-help website)
• UK Chief Medical Officers, Low risk drinking guidelines (government guideline, 2016)
• WHO Europe, No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health (news release, 2023)
• NICE, Alcohol-use disorders: physical complications (CG100) (clinical guideline, 2010, updated 2017)