453 Transcript

Angela (00:51.672)
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. A listener sent me a message recently and asked if I had ever done an episode about transferring addiction after quitting alcohol. You stop drinking, but then all of that energy gets poured into something else. Working out excessively, working all the time, constantly dating or chasing relationships, shopping, food, television, video games, school.

All things that may look better than alcohol abuse on the surface, but may still be used to avoid whatever is happening underneath. And I have done an episode about this, and I will link it in the show notes if you want to listen to that one after this one. It’s called If You Have an Addictive Personality, You May Have Behavior Addictions Too. Because, yes, this happens all the time.

But I also want to be careful about how we talk about it because I don’t want you leaving this episode thinking everything you enjoy is secretly an addiction, right? You’re allowed to love things, you’re allowed to get excited, you’re allowed to work hard and exercise and date and watch television and buy things and play games and enjoy your life. Doing something frequently doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy. And pouring your energy into something new

After you quit drinking doesn’t automatically mean you’ve transferred your addiction. Sometimes that new thing is helping you build your life. Sometimes it’s helping you stay sober. Sometimes it’s giving you structure and stability during a time when everything feels unfamiliar. But sometimes, and I think most of us recognize this feeling, a different mechanism takes over. You have a hard time putting it down.

You spend longer doing it than you intended. You reach for it automatically when you’re bored, restless, anxious, or overwhelmed. It may not be creating serious consequences. It may not be an addiction. And honestly, it may not be a major problem at all. But something about it feels a little unbalanced.

Angela (03:15.86)
You know you’re not using your time the way you intended. You don’t feel particularly satisfied afterward, and you’re beginning to wonder why it’s so hard to put down. That’s what we’re talking about today. Not labeling every enjoyable activity as another addiction, but recognizing when a perfectly normal activity may be doing more emotional work than you realize. When I got

Angela (03:56.45)
When I first got sober, all of my energy and attention went into recovery. I went to a meeting every day. I spent my time with sober people, doing sober people things. Recovery became my life. And I didn’t date during my first year because that’s what people suggested to me. And some people get irritated by that suggestion. They don’t want anybody telling them they can’t date for a year.

But I’m a very logical person and it made perfect sense to me. Dating wasn’t something I did well anyway. So why would I purposely trigger myself in an area where I was already unbalanced while I was trying to get stable in an entirely new life? I had enough shit to figure out. I didn’t need to add an emotionally unavailable man to the pile because that’s who I always pick.

And part of getting sober is developing self-control. It’s building those muscles, it’s learning delayed gratification. It’s learning that wanting something doesn’t mean you have to have it right now. So my thought was if I don’t have enough self-control to stay out of a relationship for a little while as I repair and rebuild my entire fucking life, then I’ve got bigger issues than I thought. That made sense to me. And putting

All of my attention into recovery was intense, but it was also productive. It gave me structure, it gave me accountability, it helped me build relationships with people who understood what I was going through.

Angela (05:38.634)
It helped me build relationships with people who understood what I was doing. It protected me from unnecessary chaos. It filled my time while I learned how to live without alcohol. And most importantly, it supported the life I was trying to create. And that’s an important distinction. Not everything you throw yourself into after quitting alcohol is another addiction. Some things help you stabilize.

Some things help you build self-control. Some things move you toward the life you say you want. Other things provide a temporary escape while quietly taking you in the opposite direction.

Angela (06:25.662)
Most people don’t quit drinking with a complete understanding of why they drank, right? They’re confused. They know drinking has become a problem. They know they can’t control it the way they keep promising themselves they will. They know they feel like shit. They know they’re tired of disappointing themselves, but they don’t necessarily understand what alcohol has been doing for them emotionally.

If I said you’re using alcohol to abandon yourself because you can’t tolerate being alone with yourself, most people in active drinking or super early sobriety would look at me like I just started speaking Mandarin. That isn’t where they are. They’re thinking, why can’t I stop? Why do I keep doing this when I don’t want to? Why can’t I drink like everybody else? Why can I succeed in every other area of my life, but not this one?

Why do I keep changing the rules and still breaking them? They may understand on some level that they’re avoiding feelings, but the full picture takes time. And this idea that we drink because of one root cause is way too simple. Why we drink is layered. The first layer is what alcohol originally solved. For me, alcohol initially solved.

Anxiety and insecurity.

Angela (07:58.572)
I felt uncomfortable, I felt less than, I didn’t always know how to fit in or feel okay in certain environments. Then I drank and all of that discomfort went away. Suddenly I could talk, I could laugh, I could connect, I wasn’t analyzing myself every second, I wasn’t worrying about whether I belonged. Alcohol worked until it didn’t. And that’s what makes this complicated. In the beginning,

Alcohol usually does something for you. It changes how you feel. It gives relief. It creates confidence. It quiets your brain. It helps you forget. It gives you permission to behave in ways you’re too scared or inhibited to behave sober. Your brain learns when I feel this way, this is what fixes it. And the second layer is why the discomfort was there.

My anxiety and insecurity didn’t appear out of nowhere, right? There were experiences underneath them. There was trauma. There were things that shaped the way I saw myself and other people and the world. But I didn’t have all that language when I was drinking. I wasn’t sitting at the bar thinking, I believe I’ll have another because I have unresolved trauma and an underdeveloped ability to regulate my nervous system. No.

I was drinking because drinking made me feel better. Like that’s it. That was the level of understanding I had. And that’s the level many people have when they first decide to quit. They know alcohol has become destructive, but they don’t yet understand everything it’s been covering. And the third layer is that drinking creates more reasons to drink. So you drink for a while and you do a bunch of dumb, humiliating shit.

You hurt people, you lie, you disappoint people, you break promises, you embarrass yourself, you stop trusting yourself, other people stop trusting you. Now you have guilt, shame, anxiety, damaged relationships, and real consequences. And alcohol is still the fastest way you know to stop feeling all of it temporarily. So now you’re not only drinking because of the original anxiety or insecurity, you’re drinking

Angela (10:16.492)
Because of the pain drinking created. That’s how the cycle keeps feeding itself. You feel terrible because you drank, then you drink because you feel terrible. And when alcohol is removed, all of those layers don’t magically disappear. You’re sober, thank goodness, but now you have feelings. You have time, you have restlessness, you may have boredom and anedonia. Things don’t feel exciting yet. You may be

Terrified of the future. You may not know who you are. You may not know how to relax or reward yourself or connect with people or get through an uncomfortable night without wanting to change how you feel. And your brain is still looking for an answer. Change how I feel right now. For years, alcohol gave you one reliable strategy change how I feel right now. Anxious drink, lonely drink, excited drink.

Bored drink, insecure drink, overwhelmed, drink, celebrating, drink, angry, drink, don’t wanna think about your life, definitely drink. That pattern has been practiced thousands of times.

Angela (11:30.562)
Then you quit drinking, but the expectation of immediate relief may still be there. You still want something to change your energy, occupy your brain, create anticipation, give you validation, or just make the discomfort stop. And there are plenty of candidates waiting to take alcohol’s place. Shopping is a perfect example.

Shopping is huge right now because our environment is designed to keep the entire cycle moving. You get a dopamine hit from browsing. You imagine the new thing in your house, on your body, or in your life, you compare options, you find the perfect one, and you click buy now. There’s another hit. Then you track the package. It’s shipped. It’s out for delivery. There’s anticipation and excitement. Then the package appears at your door. That’s another hit.

You open it, another hit. You have the new thing. Then the excitement fades and you go back online. Amazon, Instacart, saved credit cards, same day delivery, all of those things have removed almost every natural pause between wanting something and having it. You don’t have to get dressed, you don’t have to leave the house, you don’t physically watch the money leave your hand, you don’t have to wait long enough to reconsider.

And if you’re a high functioning person with some dis disposable income.

Angela (13:16.908)
And if you’re a high-functioning person with some disposable income, you may be able to hide the consequences for a long time. You aren’t losing jobs or getting DUIs because of Amazon. So it looks harmless. But are you buying things when you know you shouldn’t be spending money? Are packages arriving that you’re hiding from your spouse? Are you using shopping to create excitement because your actual life feels flat? Are you

constantly searching for the next product that will make you organized, attractive, successful, comfortable, or finally okay, the object isn’t the object isn’t the problem. The experience may be.

Angela (14:05.634)
Love and sex can step into that spotlight too. Love, sex, dating, chasing relationships are all incredibly common after someone quits drinking. Those behaviors may have already been unbalanced and unhealthy anyway. Alcohol was simply taking up so much space that everything else remained in the background. But once alcohol is gone, the relationship obsession has room to step into the spotlight. The dating apps provide endless possibility.

Angela (14:42.114)
Someone matches with you, dopamine. They send a message, dopamine. You start imagining the relationship before you’ve even met the person. Now you’re checking your phone during work. You’re analyzing every message. You’re rearranging your schedule. You’re ignoring red flags because the attention feels good. You’re terrified when they pull away, so you pursue harder. The person becomes your new source of relief, stimulation, validation, and escape.

It may look healthier because you aren’t drunk, but you still aren’t regulated. And you’re still allowing something outside of you to control your emotional state. It can be work, exercise, food, television, games. And some replacement behaviors receive applause, right? Working constantly can look like ambition. Exercising constantly can look like discipline.

Being intensely focused on self-improvement can look responsible. And sometimes those things are healthy, but anything can become unbalanced. I can get unhealthy with literally anything. Not intentionally. I’m not waking up in the morning and creating a strategic plan to fuck up my life with a video game, right? But I’m a compulsive person and I can take things too far. I do it with television.

I do it with my video game on my iPad. Of course, I can get completely carried away with work. But when I shut down, I can also overdo it with procrastination and avoidance. I’ll shut out the world. I’ll isolate more than normal, which is impressive because I already enjoy a significant amount of isolation. I’ll watch.

Hours of television while my brain consistently reminds me of everything I should be handling. That isn’t restful. I’m not peacefully enjoying a show. Part of my brain is watching television, another part is running through the deadlines and responsibilities and tasks I’m avoiding. I’m technically doing nothing, but internally I’m exhausted.

Angela (16:54.2)
Compulsion doesn’t always look productive and energetic. Sometimes it looks like overworking until you shut down. Sometimes it looks like disengaging and refusing to restart. The behaviors look opposite, but both can be difficult to regulate.

So, how do you know when something has become unhealthy? The question isn’t whether you enjoy it. The question isn’t whether you do it every day. The question isn’t whether another person thinks you do it too much. Ask yourself, can I regulate it? Can I stop when I intend to stop? Am I doing it longer or more often than I planned? Is it cutting into my responsibilities? Am I continuing despite natural consequences?

Shopping when you know you shouldn’t be spending, scrolling while you’re missing deadlines, spending too much time on dating apps during the workday, playing a game when you wanted to be in bed an hour ago, and knowing you’ll be exhausted and not functioning at your best tomorrow. Watching one more show alone in your room while your family is together and connecting and having dinner. Working so much that your health and relationships are deteriorating.

Exercising through injuries or becoming panicked when you can’t work out. Part of you knows what this is costing, part of you wants to stop, but you keep going anyway. That’s when I recognize that a different mechanism may be running the show. The behavior isn’t necessarily bad, but I’m no longer making a clean conscious choice. It’s taking up more of my time than is reasonable.

It’s taking valuable energy away from valuable activities, and I find it challenging to shut it off.

Angela (18:46.626)
What do you do when you recognize it? Well, first, don’t turn this into another reason to beat yourself up, right? You’re learning. Sometimes the replacement behavior is what reveals the next layer of recovery. But compassion doesn’t mean pretending it’s fine either. Compassion means understanding why you’re

Angela (19:10.552)
Compassion means understanding why you’re struggling. Accountability means you still have to do something about it. Also put boundaries around the behavior. You may not be able to just stop, especially if you’re highly emotional or overwhelmed or activated. Start by containing it. Set a timer. Choose how many episodes you’re gonna watch before you start watching. Set a bedtime alarm. Take shopping apps off your phone.

Decide that dating apps remain closed during work hours. Create a stopping point before you begin, not while you’re already in the middle of the dopamine tornado trying to negotiate with yourself, right? You’re building the muscle of interrupting the behavior when you said you would. And at a counterbalance. Sometimes I need to isolate. I’m an introvert. I need time alone to regulate and recover. But I also know.

I can get too comfortable there. So I can give myself permission to isolate for a while, and I’ll schedule a coffee or dinner with a friend. That way the isolation has an ending. You’re allowed to withdraw and recover. You don’t need to build a permanent residence there. So if you’ve been isolating, schedule a coffee with somebody. If you’ve been sitting all day, take a walk. If you’ve been working constantly, plan actual downtime.

It’s not about eliminating the behavior, it’s about restoring some balance around it. And build some self-soothing into your day. If your nervous system is already overwhelmed, you’ll have less ability to regulate anything. You need moments throughout the day that lower the temperature. Quiet, movement, a shower, music, breathing, meditation.

Going outside, call someone safe, eating actual food, going to bed, whatever genuinely settles you rather than stimulates or numbs you. Self-soothing isn’t a reward you earn after becoming completely overwhelmed. It’s part of how you prevent yourself from reaching completely overwhelmed.

Angela (21:31.414)
And if you’re avoiding, make the thing you’re avoiding smaller. If you’re escaping because something feels enormous, break it into tiny pieces. Don’t finish the whole project. Just open the document. Don’t clean the entire house. Clean one surface. Don’t solve your whole financial life. Open the account. Look at the number. Don’t rebuild the entire relationship. Just have the first honest conversation. Big, undefined problems create overwhelm.

Small specific actions create movement. Also tell yourself the truth. This is where I have to talk to myself directly. Like, come on, Angela, you’re getting

Angela (22:15.566)
Come on, Angela, you aren’t getting the success you want through the fucking video game. Grow the fuck up and do something. And this isn’t me being hard on myself. I mean, I do, I like direct talk, right? I’m not one for sugarcoating. Don’t beat around the fucking bush. Tell me where I’m fucking up so I can fix it. Period. And I speak to myself the same way, right? It’s not me being hard on myself. That’s me refusing to lie to myself. I can understand that I’m overwhelmed, anxious, tired.

Or discouraged and still expect myself to take responsibility for what happens next. Both are required. I can be compassionate about why I shut down, and I can stop letting myself off the hook for it. I don’t need coddling. I need truth and an expectation that I grow instead of allowing myself to do the same old bullshit day in and day out and then act like the victim when my life doesn’t change.

Right? So sometimes it’s just time to grow the fuck up.

Angela (23:21.26)
And keep feeding the part of you that wants to grow. I keep self-improvement top of mind always. I listen to books and podcasts that help me understand myself. I keep building mental stamina. I keep increasing my tolerance for discomfort. I stay connected to ideas and people that remind me who I want to become. That doesn’t mean every moment has to be productive.

Rest is necessary, pleasure is necessary, fun is necessary, but I don’t want escape to become the most well-fed part of my personality. I want to keep feeding the part of me that wants more, more stability, more honesty, more discipline, more peace, more success, more life.

When the new thing starts creating real problems, sometimes the behavior isn’t destroying your life. It isn’t getting you arrested. You aren’t losing your job. Your family isn’t staging an intervention, but it is creating friction. Your wife has repeatedly told you that she wants more time with you, but you continue golfing every available day. Golf isn’t the problem, the imbalance is the problem.

Your spouse is telling you the relationship needs your attention and you keep choosing the activity anyway. Or your husband has asked you to slow down on spending because it’s interfering with your retirement plans. You agree, you understand the concern, you genuinely intend to cut back. Then Amazon has a sale, or you get an Instacart notification, or you start browsing because you’re bored and three packages arrive two days later. Shopping isn’t inherently unhealthy.

Buying things you enjoy is not a moral failure, but you are repeatedly spending money you agreed not to spend, creating tension in your marriage and interfering with the financial goal that supposedly matters to you. That deserves your attention.

Angela (25:32.034)
Maybe it’s food or sugar. You don’t feel good physically. You don’t feel good about yourself. You keep saying you’re gonna slow down. But every afternoon or evening, you find yourself doing the same thing over again. You’re not confused about whether the fourth cookie is going to move you closer to how you want to feel. You know it isn’t. But in that moment, immediate comfort wins. Or maybe you’re dating, you’re on three dating apps.

Checking them throughout the workday, writing the emotional roller coaster of matches and messages, and becoming more disappointed every week. Dating is hard. People disappear, they say weird shit, they misrepresent themselves. You get excited about someone and then they stop responding. Over time, you start building resentment toward men or women or whoever you date. You tell yourself you’re deleting the apps because this isn’t serving you.

Then you reinstall them two days later because being off the apps creates a different discomfort, the fear that you might miss someone. Now, dating is disrupting your work, controlling your mood, and leaving you more discouraged than connected. Again, that doesn’t automatically mean you have a dating addiction. It means the behavior has become unbalanced. It means something that was supposed to add to your life is beginning to interfere with it.

And that’s usually how these patterns show themselves, not through one dramatic catastrophe, but through smaller, neutral consequences that keep repeating. The argument with your spouse, the money you didn’t intend to spend, the deadline you missed, the sleep you sacrificed, the promise you made to yourself and broke it again, the family dinner you skipped, the mood that changed because a stranger didn’t message you back.

physical discomfort you keep creating even though you genuinely want to feel better. This is where the layers of recovery become important.

Angela (27:33.934)
When you first quit drinking, you may not understand why you’re compulsively shopping or dating or eating or working or exercising or gaming or isolating. You’re trying to stay sober. That comes first. You deal with the craving, you get through the witching hour, you create structure, you find sober support, you learn how to make it through an uncomfortable evening without drinking, you solve the immediate problems because you need enough stability to keep alcohol out of your life. Then your head starts to clear.

The chaos settles, you become more aware of your patterns, and you start noticing that alcohol wasn’t the only place where you struggled with regulation, immediate gratification, avoidance, obsession, or self-control. That doesn’t mean recovery isn’t working. It means recovery has made the next layer visible. Now you can ask better questions. Why do I keep golfing when I know my marriage needs my attention?

What am I getting from shopping that feels more urgent than our retirement plan? Why does sugar keep winning when I know how I’ll feel afterward? Why am I still on dating apps when they’re disrupting my work and making me resentful? Why is it so difficult to step away from something that I know isn’t serving me right now? And you may not have those answers immediately. That’s okay.

You don’t have to understand your entire psychological history before you can start changing today’s behavior. You begin with what’s happening right now. You acknowledge that something feels unbalanced. You pay attention to the natural consequences. Stop pretending that your intentions are the same thing as your actions. Then use the tools you have to create some regulation and make the next better decision.

That’s recovery. Not uncovering one magical root cause and becoming perfectly balanced forever, right? It’s recognizing the next layer when it appears and being willing to work on it.

Angela (29:47.84)
Recovery is learning how to live without continuously escaping your own life. Again, the goal isn’t to become a perfectly balanced person who never gets obsessed or overwhelmed or avoidant or carried away again. I’m 20 years sober and I still have to catch myself. I can get unhealthy with anything. I can overinvest in whatever my brain decides is the primary source.

Of stimulation in that moment. The goal is to recognize when something has started running the show a little too much. And to have enough tools, support, and self-control to interrupt the pattern before it takes over your life. What are you having trouble putting down? What are you continuing despite the consequences? What responsibility keeps getting pushed aside? What is giving you immediate relief while

Quietly creating a bigger problem? And what is one small action you can take today to begin regulating it? Or if it’s become unbalanced enough that it’s compulsive as set.

Angela (31:09.23)
Or if it has become unbalanced enough that it is compulsive, obsessive, taking over your mind space, creating bigger consequences, then you have to be honest enough with yourself that it may be time to give it up entirely or find support to manage it effectively. Because the object may have changed, but if the pattern is still costing you your money, sleep, responsibilities, relationships, confidence, and presence.

Then it deserves your attention. You worked too damn hard to stop drinking, just to hand your life over to something else. And if you’re realizing that quitting alcohol exposed a whole set of patterns you don’t know how to manage, that’s exactly the kind of work we do in my signature program. We don’t begin by trying to excavate and repair your entire life at once. We start with what’s hardest today: the craving, the anxiety, the isolation.

The relationship, the overwhelm. We get you practical tools for the immediate problem so you can get stable. Then we work through the layers together. You don’t have to have yourself completely figured out before you ask for help. That’s what the help is for. And if you want to talk to me and see if we’re a good fit to work together, schedule a free consult call with me, addictionunlimited.com forward slash call.

Of course, that link is always in the show notes, addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. I love you guys. I hope you’re having a fantastic day, and I will see you next week.