E331: Wanting to Quit Isn’t the Same as Being Willing to Quit

0:00There's a difference between wanting the pain to stop and being willing to change the pattern. between wanting the benefits of sobriety and being willing to accept what sobriety requires from you, between saying, I want to quit, and then actually becoming someone who protects that decision after the urgency fades. Wanting will keep you in the same loop if part of you still hopes that alcohol will stay available as an option.

0:44One of the most confusing places to be is knowing that alcohol is hurting you, wanting to quit, and then still going back to drinking. Drinking creates pain. Pain creates urgency. Not drinking helps you feel better. Feeling better makes the urgency go away. no urgency creates doubt and doubt opens the door to drinking again and this is why i think we need to separate wanting to quit from being willing to quit wanting the consequences to stop is not the same thing as being willing to change the pattern that keeps creating them the painful part of drinking can make you want sobriety but willingness is what determines whether you'll protect sobriety once that pain fades.

1:32And this is where a lot of people get stuck and stay stuck. They want sobriety when drinking hurts, but they still want alcohol to be available when life feels hard, boring, social, stressful, lonely, or uncomfortable. Alcohol usually has a job. It's not just a drink. For a lot of people, it's relief, comfort, confidence, escape, reward, a way to shut off your brain, a way to feel less awkward, less tense, less bored, less resentful, less trapped, or less overwhelmed. so of course part of you wants to keep it available and that doesn't mean that you're weak or an idiot it just means that your brain believes alcohol gives you something valuable even though it's also taking a lot from you that is the internal conflict and it doesn't require you to believe that alcohol is a poison see that it has no value or grow out of it to successfully quit drinking.

2:37One part of you wants to quit because you can see the negatives, but another part of you still wants to drink because you remember the good stuff, and that's normal. You've probably had some moments where wanting to quit feels very real. You may think, I never want to feel this way ever again, and you mean it. And that's what I really want to emphasize here. wanting to quit after consequences is not fake in that moment you're seeing the truth clearly alcohol is costing you more than it's giving you but the problem is the consequences create urgency and urgency is not the same thing as willingness when the consequences are fresh your brain is focused on relief.

3:22You want that hangover gone, the anxiety gone, the shame to go away. You want to stop feeling like you're ruining everything and you hate yourself. So you stop drinking for a bit and then the immediate pain starts to fade. And that is where the loop restarts because the part of you that wanted to quit was being fueled by fresh pain and urgency. Because once the pain fades, the urgency fades with it, and then you start bargaining. Maybe it wasn't that bad. Maybe I just need a reset. Maybe it'll be different this time. Maybe I don't need to quit forever. And that's why consequences alone usually don't create lasting change.

4:08They may wake you up, but they don't automatically build the structure, honesty, support, and behavioral changes that sobriety requires from you. And this is why a lot of us will have the same painful drinking episode over and over again and then still go back to drinking. The suffering created a desire for relief and once that relief arrived the old attachment to alcohol came back right in the front of your mind. You drink, you feel awful, you want to quit, so you take a break, then you feel better then you minimize rationalize and drink again and then you're shocked that it happened and every time you go through the loop it can become more confusing because you think why do I keep doing this if I know how bad alcohol is for me but the answer is knowing how bad alcohol makes you feel or knowing how bad it is for your body is not enough to make you willing to change the pattern.

5:13You can know that alcohol hurts you and still want the version of alcohol that gives relief, fun, confidence, or escape. You can know that the consequences are real and still hope that there's some version where you get the good parts without the bad parts. And you can know that you feel better when you stop and then still use feeling better as a reason to question whether you needed to stop in the first place. Wanting to quit has to evolve into something deeper. It has to become willingness. Not just willingness to avoid another painful morning, but willingness to change how you do things before the painful morning happens again.

5:58Wanting sobriety usually focuses on what sobriety will give you. Better sleep, mornings, less anxiety, not hating yourself, wanting to have your body look a certain way. And of course you want those things. Those are all good things to want. But willingness is different because willingness has to look at what sobriety will require from you. And that's the part that we resist. Sobriety is probably going to require you to be uncomfortable at social events, leave early, skip things, change your routines, tell people the truth, ask for support before you're desperate, and feel bored, anxious, lonely, resentful, or ashamed without turning it off.

6:46That process is not comfortable or convenient and it feels really unfair. Sometimes it feels like everybody else gets to be normal and not have to do anything and you have to think about alcohol all the time and do all this work. The discomfort of sobriety is in the beginning and you get the payoff later. That's why it's hard for us. We have to say no, leave early, get through cravings, tell the truth, change the way that we do our evenings, or let ourselves be new at something. So a lot of people want the outcome but they're still negotiating with the process. They want all of the benefits but they're not yet willing to be visible, use support consistently, avoid situations where alcohol is the expected outcome, or close the door for good on the version of drinking that they hoped would work someday.

7:45And that doesn't mean that they don't want sobriety. They do. It just means they're still deciding whether they're willing to pay the cost of changing. But willingness doesn't mean you have to love the cost. You don't. You don't have to be thrilled to make changes. It just means that you stop pretending that there's a version of change that doesn't require any sacrifice from you. So at some point you have to ask yourself, am I? Cut that out. One reason that willingness can take so long is because alcohol has a high perceived value. For some people, alcohol is relief. It's the thing that takes the edge off after a stressful day.

8:29It creates that feeling of finally being able to exhale. For others, alcohol is confidence. It makes them feel more outgoing, interesting, relaxed, less awkward, less self-conscious, and just easier to connect with other people. and for others alcohol is a reward it's how they mark the end of the day how they celebrate how they make ordinary life feel like an occasion for others it's escape it's the thing that lets them stop thinking stop feeling stop caring stop trying stop managing stop being so responsible and for others it's part of their identity it's how they see themselves the fun one the party person, the wine connoisseur, the craft beer guy or gal, the person who's always down for a good time.

9:23So when we talk about becoming willing to quit, we have to understand that you're not only giving up a drink, you're giving up what you think alcohol was giving you. And that's why willingness is a whole lot more complicated than just knowing alcohol is bad for you.

9:47wanting to quit can stay very passive you can want to quit while keeping alcohol in the house just in case or by still going into the same drinking situations with basically no plan or still observing or thinking about joining something or still saying i know what i need to do or I know I can't go there again and then not doing the thing that would interrupt the pattern. People keep waiting for wanting to become strong enough that their behavior changes automatically. They think if they want sobriety badly enough or they learn enough or maybe they hear me and other people say enough things that they'll feel ready and it'll click.

10:35But that's not how change works. Your behavior has to change before feeling ready catches up. You may have to go to a meeting while part of you would rather hide. You may have to skip the event while part of you feels left out. You may have to stop going certain places while you miss having fun there. So ask yourself, where has my wanting stayed passive? Where am I hoping for change without changing anything? Where am I keeping the decision private because I still want room to back out just in case? Where am I consuming information instead of applying it? Where am I saying I want sobriety but still protecting the option to drink?

11:21When you are not fully willing yet, you want to quit but then you keep the pattern private. You keep a lot of it to yourself. You might say, I've been struggling, but then you don't share what's happening. Or you say, I need to get back on track, but then you don't look closely at what pulled you off track. Or you say, I know what I need to do, but then you never let anyone get close enough to ask why you're still not doing it. It's much easier to say, I deserved a treat, than it is to say, I drank because I had a feeling that I didn't want to feel. It's easier to say, I'm overwhelmed, than it is to say, I keep saying yes to everyone, building up resentment, refusing to ask for help, and then using alcohol as my way to opt out.

12:16It's easier for you to say, I slipped, than it is to say, I went into the same situation with the same people with no plan and hope this time would be different than the last 57 times. but the specific truth is what helps us learn from it so we can interrupt the pattern in the future because if you keep everything vague the only advice that you ever get is also vague try harder be careful do self-care remember why you started and those things are well-intentioned but they're usually not enough to help interrupt a specific pattern if your pattern is drinking when you feel socially awkward then maybe willingness looks like skipping the event if you're in the early days or if you feel concerned that you can't stay sober or telling someone before I'm nervous about being every around everyone sober and I need a plan if the pattern is drinking after a good week then willingness might look like going to the meeting every single week even when you feel fine and telling people this is when I usually convince myself that I don't need support.

13:28Support only works if you let it get close enough to interrupt you. You can be in therapy and still protect the real pattern. You could be in a group and still hide. You can listen to every single episode and still avoid applying the one thing that would make you feel uncomfortable. wanting is more like i hope i don't drink and then you do life nearly exactly the same willingness is i'm going to make it harder for the old pattern to run automatically you can still think that a drink would be nice right now because it would but that doesn't mean that you have to drink people who are willing to quit are willing to make changes in their lives to protect their decision they accept that the way they've been doing things hasn't been working and they become open-minded about doing things differently and hearing from others before writing off their input immediately because they don't understand so what i want you to understand it's not about you not wanting it badly enough it's about not being willing to do the things required to make the change happen sobriety is a major life change it's not like you're stopping drinking soda alcohol gives us a lot of things we rely on it we build our identities around it it is a major life change and it takes time i think one thing that i've heard from a lot of people who have reached willingness is first of all the desperation kind of settles down and secondly they accept that their way isn't working and they become open-minded about doing things differently and i'm not sure if you could hear cat sneezing through this entire recording i hope i edited it out but I do have a sick kitty in my lap while recording this so that's what you've been hearing if you could hear it but anyway thank you for listening and I will talk to you next week

16:04Bye.