Have you ever found yourself romanticising your experiences with alcohol, which seems in stark contrast to when you were so pleased three weeks before to be taking a break? Or do you seem to find yourself in a cycle of taking a break from drinking due to the negative impacts, later thinking: ‘it wasn’t that bad’, then going back to drinking and realising it really WAS that bad. This may be because of something called the Fading Affect Bias (or FAB for short).
June 2025 |
9 minutes
Mandy Manners is an Alcohol Change UK Ambassador, author and recovery coach. Mandy is passionate about sharing the positive impacts that an alcohol-free life can bring. She shares her wealth of coaching experience to help us get clued up about Fading Affect Bias.
What is the Fading Affect Bias?
FAB is a psychological phenomenon in which memories associated with negative emotions tend to be forgotten more quickly than those associated with positive emotions. This is a useful mechanism in many cases, for example, if you didn’t get the job, had a car accident, or given birth to a baby – you’re more likely to do it again if you don’t remember so clearly the negatives attached to that experience.
Having been through childbirth once, would I really have done it again if I had remembered the pain in all its excruciating detail? Not so sure…but thank goodness I did!
“The disappointment of not getting the job, or a relationship breaking down, can feel deeply painful at the time, but mostly, after a period of time; we dust ourselves off and try again and this is in part thanks to FAB.”
This isn’t however, so helpful when it comes to changing our behaviour around drinking. When we make a change in a behaviour such as drinking alcohol, it’s often (although not always) reactive due to negative emotions and experiences. We may feel shame, anxiety, worry and quite possibly HUNGOVER too! These are great motivators to move away from that behaviour. However, due to FAB being not so fab, over time these negative experiences don’t feel so raw anymore. Also, positive emotions we had in relation to drinking don’t fade as fast, making it more complex to maintain a real picture of what the past was like.
“This can lead us to question why we’re making this change and why we should carry on. In order to make this change sustainable and be motivated to carry on we need to be aware of the FAB phenomenon and take steps to move through this somewhat warped past reality...”
What can we do?
There are different tactics we can use if we find ourselves with rosé tinted spectacles when we think about the past and our drinking experiences:
- Connect with our why – Why did we start Sober Spring? Why did we want to take a break or reduce or quit alcohol? Be really honest with yourself. I’ll wager those reasons haven’t changed.
- Write a diary - The more we document our experiences the more evidence we will have when the Fading Affect Bias kicks in. We can read old journals and connect with what it was really like for us.
- Set some “move towards” goals – When we first stop, we probably have some strong “move away from” goals, i.e. putting distance between us and alcohol due to negative experiences, but what happens when those negative experiences fade? We can set some future hopes based on our present positive experiences of being alcohol-free or drinking less. For example: “Right now, I feel less tired, my mental health has improved, I feel more patient with my family… I wonder how much more that will improve if I keep going?”
- Be mindful of emotional triggers that play on the romanticism of old drinking experiences -These can be people, places, things, holidays and festive seasons. Think of it this way, a holiday doesn’t make the impact of alcohol less (in fact drinking in the sun makes hangovers worse!).
- Use the Addictive Recognition Technique – This essentially means that any voice in your head that says drinking is a good idea, is the addictive craving searching for a fix. So, when that voice comes up telling us: “The effects of drinking for me weren’t that bad”, we now know that we might not be able to remember it so well due to FAB, however that doesn’t mean that voice is correct.
- Keep going! – As the saying goes, we haven’t come this far to only come this far! In trickier moments, we can try things like connect with a community group, get involved in a new activity and make sure we take lots of rest. If we’re romanticising alcohol, we can ask ourselves what is underneath that? Is it stress, tiredness or perhaps being lonely? We deserve to meet our needs in a way that doesn’t harm our health and we can do this!
Mandy Manners will be eight years alcohol free this year. She is an award-winning, trauma-informed, life, wellbeing and recovery coach. A trainer, mentor, author and public speaker. She is an Alcohol Change Ambassador and a Trusted Advisor for the She Recovers Foundation. She lives in France with her family the dog and the cat.
