460 Transcript

Angela (00:11.15)
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. I wanna talk about something today.

Hello, my friend.

Angela (00:31.992)
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Addiction Unlimited. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. I want to talk about something today that I believe is one of the most important skills we can develop in sobriety and honestly in life in general. And it’s really something we should be talking about more. It’s what I call discomfort tolerance. Our ability.

Ability to experience uncomfortable feelings, situations, and circumstances without immediately needing to numb them, escape them, or make them go away. Because somewhere along the way, we’ve developed this misconception that feelings are bad. And if I feel anything and it feels uncomfortable, I need to do something immediately to make it go away. We don’t want to be uncomfortable.

We don’t want to sit with feelings we don’t like. We want to feel better and we want to feel better right now. And if you’ve spent years drinking alcohol, this is especially important for you to understand because you’ve spent years practicing the exact opposite of discomfort tolerance.

You’ve practiced avoiding discomfort. You’ve practiced escaping it. You’ve practiced numbing yourself so you didn’t have to experience whatever was happening inside of you. And then you quit drinking, and suddenly you need to navigate all these feelings and experiences that you’ve spent years avoiding. But you’re bringing that same conditioned expectation with you. Numb it, get rid of it, kill the feeling entirely.

And that’s just not an accurate understanding of feelings or coping. And it’s not realistic, right? The truth is you’re supposed to feel, not numb. And this misconception can become problematic because people will start learning about coping skills and tools and they’ll try them, but they’re expecting them to make the feelings go away entirely, like alcohol did. But the reality is, healthy management of feelings means.

Angela (02:50.464)
Learning how to soothe yourself, take the edge off so you don’t do something wild, and then be able to handle what’s left. So if you’ve tried all the healthy things, meditation, exercise, journaling, breathing exercises, and you’re still uncomfortable, you might start thinking something’s wrong. You think like, maybe I haven’t found the right strategy, maybe none of this stuff works for me, maybe I’m just different than everybody else. You’re not.

Angela (03:21.9)
The real problem is that we have an unrealistic expectation of what it means to cope. The goal isn’t to stop feeling or stop being uncomfortable, but to develop the ability to be uncomfortable and still be okay.

Angela (03:43.704)
Here’s something I see happen all the time. Someone quits drinking, they’re making all these changes, they’re putting effort into their recovery, and they’re trying to learn how to do things differently. And then they have a bad day, stressed out, anxious, somebody’s getting on your last fucking nerve, or you’re feeling lonely and disconnected. And it feels frustrating.

Angela (04:10.304)
And it’s frustrating to still feel that way. And part of the problem is we have this expectation that if we’re doing the right things, the feelings should go away. If I’m working on myself, I should be happier. If I’m practicing healthy habits, I shouldn’t be so anxious. If I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do in recovery, why am I still having such a hard time? But think about what we’re actually expecting here. We are expecting

That if we do enough things right, eventually we’ll reach this place where we don’t feel anything or feel any discomfort. And that’s not a realistic expectation of sobriety or of life. You don’t stop being human because you quit drinking. You still have the same full range of emotions everybody else has. The difference is now you have to learn to experiencing them.

Angela (05:07.778)
The difference is now you have to learn how to experience them without automatically reaching for something to change how you feel. And this is where that conditioning from alcohol becomes so important because for years you had a very specific relationship with uncomfortable feelings. You felt something you didn’t like and you had a way to shut it down. Maybe you’re stressed out after work and wanted to relax. Maybe you were nervous about going somewhere or being around people.

Maybe you’re having relationship problems or you’re lonely or you’re just bored with your life. But you had a solution that could temporarily change how you felt without requiring you to deal with whatever was actually going on.

Angela (05:54.316)
And when you do that over and over, it becomes your normal response, not necessarily because you sat down one day and decided you were never gonna experience another uncomfortable emotion, but because you had a shortcut and you used it. And now that shortcut is gone. But the expectation that uncomfortable feelings should be numbed hasn’t necessarily changed.

So you’re trying to approach sobriety with the same goal you had when you were drinking. You wanna stop feeling whatever it is you don’t wanna feel. And when the healthy things you’re doing don’t produce that result, you think something isn’t working. And I want you to really think about this. Like, when did we decide that having a difficult feeling means something has gone wrong, right? When did sadness become something we shouldn’t have to experience? Or frustration or anxiety or disappointment?

These are normal human emotions. They’re part of having relationships, responsibilities, goals, expectations in a life that’s important to you. If you love people, you’re gonna experience sadness and disappointment sometimes. If you have goals and ambitions, you’re going to experience frustration and uncertainty. If you’re trying new things or stepping outside your comfort zone, you’re probably gonna experience some anxiety.

If you’re building a different life for yourself, there are going to be situations that feel awkward and unfamiliar. That’s not a sign that something is wrong. In fact, sometimes it’s a sign you’re doing it exactly right.

Angela (07:34.36)
Think about someone who has spent years avoiding social situations unless they could drink. Now they’re sober and they’re trying to start going places and participating in life without alcohol. Of course they’re uncomfortable. They’re doing something unfamiliar. They’re learning how to interact with people without relying on alcohol to make them feel more relaxed or confident.

Angela (08:03.584)
And they might go to an event and feel awkward for the first half hour. They might have a little anxiety before they walk through the door. They might have moments when they don’t know what to say or feel out of place. None of that means the experience is bad. It means they’re having an experience they’re not accustomed to having sober. And that’s an important distinction because if they evaluate that experience based entirely on how comfortable they felt.

They might decide it was a failure. They might tell themselves, I went, but I was anxious the whole time. I still felt awkward. I still didn’t know what to do with myself. But I would look at that situation and see something completely different. You went somewhere you were nervous about, you experienced discomfort. You didn’t drink. You handled yourself and you came home. That’s a successful experience.

Not because it felt amazing every minute, because you were able to do something that mattered to you without having a drink to create a false sense of comfort.

Angela (09:16.556)
Drinking doesn’t magically make you comfortable or confident. It just numbs the discomfort and insecurity. And the same thing is true in so many areas of life. You can be sad and still have a good day. You can be nervous and still do something well. You can be frustrated and still be productive. You can have uncomfortable conversations and still be proud of the way you handled yourself. Your feelings don’t have to determine the

Quality of your entire experience. And they certainly don’t have to determine the choices you make. Now, I’m not suggesting that we ignore our feelings, right? Our emotions give us information. And sometimes that information is important. Sometimes anxiety is telling you that something needs your attention. Sometimes sadness is telling you you’ve experienced a loss. Sometimes frustration is telling you that something in your life needs to change.

But having a feeling doesn’t automatically mean you need to eliminate it. Sometimes you need to understand it, you need to respond to it, and sometimes you just need to allow yourself to experience it. That ability is what we’re developing, and it’s a skill that impacts every area of our lives, not just sobriety.

Angela (10:40.726)
I think one of the things that makes this conversation especially relevant right now is how accustomed we’ve become to convenience. We have access to almost anything we want almost immediately, right? We can order food without leaving the house, we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, we can get answers to questions in seconds, we can communicate with people instantly. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. I love convenience as much as anybody else. But I also think we’ve become increasingly.

Intolerant of even the smallest inconveniences, right? We don’t like waiting. We don’t like being bored. We don’t like things taking longer than we think they should. We get irritated when something interrupts what we’re doing or when other people aren’t moving at the speed we’d prefer. And sometimes our reactions are completely disproportionate to what’s actually happening. I had a

Perfect example of this recently. Sitting at home watching something on one of my streaming platforms and an ad came on. And I caught myself immediately feeling irritated. And this, I’m not telling you to love ads. Nobody loves ads. They are super annoying and there’s way too many of them. But you know how it is. You’re watching your show, you’re enjoying yourself, and suddenly you’ve got to sit through a commercial.

And I caught myself and I started laughing because I was like, damn, Angela, are you seriously irritated right now because you have to wait 60 seconds? Like 60 seconds. You’re sitting in your beautiful home on your ass, relaxing, watching television, and you’re aggravated because you have to wait a minute. Really? Because if I can’t tolerate 60 or 90 seconds of waiting for a commercial.

I’ve got bigger fucking problems, you know? And I know that sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly why I think it’s such a great example because nothing was wrong.

Angela (12:40.81)
I wasn’t being harmed. I wasn’t being mistreated. There wasn’t some terrible injustice happening in my life. I just didn’t want to fucking wait. And I recognized how ridiculous it was to give that situation any of my emotional energy. That’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to be someone who gets irritated by every little inconvenience. I don’t want to waste my time and energy being frustrated over things that are completely.

Completely inconsequential. And here’s where my personal philosophy comes into this. I’ve been practicing self-awareness and personal responsibility for almost 21 years. And one of the biggest changes in my life is that my instinct is to look at myself first. What’s going on with me? Why am I reacting this way? What do I need to do about it? Now, obviously, that doesn’t mean I never get irritated.

I just told you I was aggravated by a damn commercial, right? But I recognize what’s happening and I take responsibility for my response. The streaming service isn’t the problem. The commercial isn’t the problem. My impatience is the problem. And that’s something I can work on. And I want you to think about how often this happens in everyday life. You’re sitting in traffic and you’re getting increasingly frustrated because cars aren’t moving.

Or you’re standing in line at the grocery store and the person in front of you is taking forever. You’re waiting for someone to respond to a message. You’re at an appointment that’s running behind schedule. And you can feel yourself getting irritated. You start thinking about how ridiculous it is, how inconsiderate people are. You don’t have time for this. And before you know it, you’ve turned a relatively minor inconvenience into a much bigger emotional experience.

Now you’re angry, you’re in a bad mood, you’re complaining to somebody. And for what? Because you had to wait 10 minutes? The situation might be inconvenient, but your response is creating a whole lot of additional drama that doesn’t need to be there. And this is where.

Angela (14:56.982)
And this is where self-awareness becomes so valuable because you can recognize your own response. You can decide whether or not you want to cur.

Angela (15:08.768)
And this is where self-awareness becomes so valuable. Because when you can recognize your own response, you can decide whether or not you want to continue participating in it. You can notice that you’re getting irritated and think, okay, this isn’t really that big of a deal. I don’t like waiting, but I can handle waiting. It’s not the end of the fucking world. I don’t enjoy sitting in traffic, but I don’t have to make myself fucking miserable while I’m doing it. And really,

You end up making the people around you miserable too. I know I definitely don’t like to listen to people bitch and complain about useless stuff. When people get irritated or frustrated by inconsequential things, I want to escape them, right? And that was a major light bulb moment for me early in my sobriety when I really heard myself, when I really heard all the negativity and ridiculousness that was coming out of my mouth, I realized.

I was not a very pleasant person to be around. I was always bitching about everything, every inconvenience, every little thing I didn’t like, how much people pissed me off. And in all of that, I was the pain in the ass, making everyone around me uncomfortable.

I was the negative energy consuming the room and putting everyone on edge. And that’s not who I want to be in the world. And it certainly isn’t the effect I want to have on other people. So I knew I had to get my shit together and grow the fuck up. And these little moments matter because they’re opportunities to practice something much bigger. You’re learning that you don’t have to be comfortable every second of the day.

You don’t have to get everything exactly when you want it. And you don’t have to react emotionally to every inconvenience that crosses your path. And if you can start developing that ability in these small ordinary moments, imagine what it can do for you when you’re facing something that’s genuinely challenging.

Angela (17:18.806)
Now let’s take this a little further because I think this is where discomfort tolerance starts having a really significant impact on the decisions we make. One of the things I know to be true is often people treat uncomfortable feelings like they need immediate distinguishing. We feel something and immediately we think we need to do something about it. I’m lonely, I need to find somebody to talk to. I’m anxious, I need to get out of the situation.

I’m bored, I need something to entertain me. I’m frustrated. I need to tell somebody exactly how I feel. I’m disappointed. Maybe I should just give up. And sometimes taking action is absolutely the right response. Sometimes there’s a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed, but other times we’re not responding to a problem. We’re reacting to the fact that we don’t like how we feel. And there’s a big difference. Let’s talk about loneliness because I think this is a really good example.

Loneliness is uncomfortable. And when people are lonely, they sometimes make decisions that don’t actually support what they want for their lives. They reach out to somebody they know isn’t good for them. They get back into a relationship that they’ve already left for very good reasons. They start looking for attention or validation from someone who isn’t capable of giving them the kind of relationship they really want.

And it’s not necessarily because they’ve changed their mind about what they want, it’s because they’re lonely and they want to stop feeling lonely. So now they’re willing to make a decision that might feel good in the moment, even though they already know it’s probably going to create

Angela (19:06.744)
So now they’re willing to make a decision that might feel good in the moment, even though they already know it’s probably gonna create bigger problems down the road. And this is exactly what we’re talking about. When your number one priority is getting rid of an uncomfortable feeling, you can end up making choices that are completely inconsistent with the life you’re trying to build. Think about that. You might want a healthy relationship.

But because you’re uncomfortable being alone, you keep choosing unhealthy relationships. You might want to build confidence in social situations, but because you’re uncomfortable feeling nervous, you keep canceling plans. You might want to improve your health, but because you’re uncomfortable with the effort required, you keep quitting your workout routine. You might want to accomplish something significant in your life.

But because you’re uncomfortable with uncertainty or frustration, you abandon the project every time it gets difficult. And every time you do that, you’re reinforcing the same pattern. I don’t like the.

Angela (20:20.458)
And every time you do that, you’re reinforcing the same pattern. I don’t like how this feels, so I’m gonna stop. I don’t like how this feels, so I’m gonna get out of it. I don’t like how this feels, so I’m gonna do whatever gives me immediate relief. And the problem is that immediate relief isn’t always in your best interest. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite. Think about avoiding something because you’re anxious. Maybe you’ve committed to attending an event, and as the day gets closer, you’re starting to feel nervous.

Angela (20:52.93)
You don’t know everybody who’s gonna be there, you’re not sure what to expect, you’re worried you might feel awkward, and the more you think about it, the more uncomfortable you become. So you cancel. And the second you cancel, you feel better. You’re relieved, you don’t have to deal with that uncomfortable situation anymore. But what have you actually accomplished? You’ve avoided the experience, but you haven’t learned that you can handle it. You haven’t developed

Any additional confidence. And the next time you have an opportunity to do something similar, you’re probably going to have to face those same feelings again because you’ve been practicing avoidance instead of tolerance. And that’s one of the reasons I think this is such an important skill. If you always allow discomfort to determine what you do, you’re going to spend a lot of your life avoiding things.

And some of those things are gonna be the exact experiences that would help you grow.

Angela (21:56.246)
Now, this doesn’t mean you need to force yourself into every situation that makes you uncomfortable. There are legitimate reasons to say no, set boundaries, or remove yourself from something. Sometimes an uncomfortable feeling is giving you important information that requires you to take action. But sometimes you’re just uncomfortable. And the healthiest thing you can do is recognize.

Angela (22:23.446)
And the healthiest thing you can do is recognize that discomfort without allowing it to make the decision for you. You can feel lonely without contacting somebody who’s bad for you. You can feel nervous and still go to the event. You can feel frustrated without taking it out on everyone around you. You can be disappointed without deciding that everything is hopeless. And you can have a craving without drinking.

That last one is especially important. Because wanting to drink and choosing to drink are two different things. You can experience the feeling without acting on it. You can acknowledge the urge, recognize what’s happening, and make a decision based on what you actually want for your life, not just what would make you feel better for the next 20 minutes. And the more you do that, the more you start to recognize something really powerful.

You’re capable of handling a lot more than you thought you were.

One of my favorite things about watching people grow in sobriety is seeing them develop confidence in themselves. And often they don’t even realize it’s happening. They’re so focused on getting through whatever situation they’re dealing with that they don’t recognize how much they’re changing in the process. I have a client right now who’s in early sobriety, around six or seven weeks, and they’ve been navigating different social situations without drinking. And when we talk about those experiences,

I’m paying attention to more than whether or not they drank, right? Of course, not drinking is important, but I’m also looking at what they’re learning about themselves. They went somewhere they were nervous about, they experienced some discomfort, they didn’t have alcohol to make them feel more relaxed or confident. And they handled it. Maybe they felt awkward at certain moments. Maybe they were a little anxious. Maybe they were relieved when the evening was over. That’s all fine, but they didn’t.

Angela (24:24.952)
Did it. And now they have something they didn’t have before. They have evidence. Evidence that they can go somewhere without drinking. Evidence that they can experience discomfort and still participate in life. Evidence that they can handle situations they once believed required alcohol. And those experiences build on each other. The next time they go somewhere, they have a little more confidence because they’ve done it before. They know what to expect.

They know that even if they feel uncomfortable, they can get through it. And that changes the way they see themselves. This is how self-trust develops. And I think a lot of people misunderstand that process because they expect confidence to come first. They think they need to feel confident before they take action. I’ll go when I’m more comfortable. I’ll have that difficult conversation when I’m not so nervous. I’ll try something new when I feel more prepared.

But so much of confidence comes from having the experience. You do something you’re nervous about and you get through it. And afterward you realize like, wow, I can do that. Maybe it wasn’t perfect. Maybe I didn’t enjoy every minute.

Maybe I’d do a couple of things differently next time, but I did it.

Angela (25:47.68)
And now you know something about yourself that you didn’t know before. You know you’re capable of handling that experience. And the more you build that evidence, the more you trust yourself. That’s one of the things I love most about this work. Watching people go from being afraid of everything, questioning every decision, and believing they can’t handle life without alcohol to becoming people who are.

Confident in their ability to navigate their lives. Not because life becomes easy, not because they’ve stopped experiencing difficult emotions, but because they’ve learned that they can handle those experiences without abandoning themselves or the things that matter to them. And I think this is something worth recognizing in your own life. Every time you experience discomfort and make a decision you’re proud of, you’re building trust with yourself.

Every time you follow through on something, even though you’re nervous, you’re building confidence. Every time you resist an unhealthy impulse because you know it doesn’t support the life you want, you’re developing self-trust. And that doesn’t mean you’re going to handle everything perfectly. I certainly don’t. We all have moments we get frustrated or overwhelmed or respond in ways we’re not particularly proud of. But those moments are also opportunities.

You can recognize what happened, take responsibility for your response, and you can decide what to do differently next time. And you keep practicing.

Angela (27:25.346)
That’s the difference between it. That’s the difference between expecting yourself to be perfect and expecting yourself to grow. And I’ve said this many times over the years, but I want you to understand how much power there is in recognizing that your responses and your choices are things you can change. You can’t control every circumstance in life. You can’t control what other people do. And you can’t guarantee that you’re always going to feel the way you want to feel.

But you can develop the ability to respond to those experiences in ways that support your values, your goals, and the person you want to become.

That’s where so much of our personal power comes from. So I want to bring this back to the original point because I think this changes the way we should be looking at both sobriety and emotional health, right? For years, many of us used alcohol to escape uncomfortable feelings. We didn’t want to be anxious, we drank. We didn’t want to be lonely, we drank. We didn’t want to deal with frustration or disappointment or whatever was happening in our lives. So we drank. And then we quit drinking. And we have to be mindful that.

That we don’t continue approaching life with the same exact expectation. I don’t want to feel this. I shouldn’t have to feel this. How do I make this feeling go away? And we start measuring our progress by how comfortable we are. If we’re having a good day, everything must be working. If we’re having a difficult day, something must be wrong. But that isn’t how life works. And it isn’t how emotional health works. You will still feel anxious. You will make tremendous progress and still experience disappointment.

You can be doing everything right for your sobriety and still have a day when you feel lonely, frustrated, or overwhelmed.

Angela (29:16.972)
Because the goal isn’t to eliminate the full range of human emotions. The goal is to the goal is to develop the ability to tolerate discomfort and experience emotions without allowing them to control your life. And when you start understanding discomfort that way, a lot of things change. You stop treating every uncomfortable feeling like an emergency.

You stop assuming something has gone wrong just because you don’t feel good. You understand that discomfort isn’t the end of the world. It’s just life. You learn to use the coping skills that work for you and do those things so you can take the edge off the feeling.

And that makes it more tolerable. It doesn’t erase the feeling, it just brings it to a manageable place. And over time, something really powerful happens. You begin to trust yourself. You stop being so afraid of difficult feelings because you’ve experienced them and survived. You’ve handled disappointment. You navigated anxiety. You’ve had lonely evenings and stressful days and uncomfortable conversations. And you’ve gotten through them. Not because you figured out how to eliminate every feeling you didn’t like.

Because you learned how to deal with having those feelings. And that’s a completely different kind of freedom. Because if the only way you can be okay is when you feel comfortable, your well-being is always going to depend on your circumstances. You’re going to need everything to go your way. You’re going to need people to behave the way you want. You’re going to need life to be predictable and convenient and easy. And that makes you very fragile.

That’s a pretty fragile way to live.

Angela (31:11.928)
But when you know you can handle discomfort, you don’t have to be so dependent on everything around you going perfectly. You can have a difficult day and still be okay. You can experience an uncomfortable emotion without immediately trying to escape it. You can face situations that challenge you without convincing yourself that you can’t handle them. Because life is uncomfortable sometimes. Sobriety is uncomfortable sometimes.

Growth is uncomfortable sometimes. Growth is uncomfortable almost always. It just is. And that’s okay. You don’t need to be a robot with no feelings. You just need to know that you can handle the feelings and situations and irritations. So the next time you’re uncomfortable, I want you to pay attention to what happens. Notice your immediate response. Notice whether your first instinct is to get rid of the feeling, avoid the situation, or do something that provides immediate relief.

And instead do something healthy for your brain and emotional wellness. Do a few minutes of breathing. Remind yourself you’re okay. Do a five-minute meditation to take the edge off. And remember that numbing isn’t practical or necessary. Tolerating a little discomfort is both practical and necessary.

Angela (32:36.746)
Once you do something healthy to take the edge off the feelings, then you can just experience it. You can support yourself through it. You can be uncomfortable for a little while without making it a bigger problem. And maybe by doing that, you’re developing exactly the skill you’ve been missing. Because the point isn’t to stop feeling, the point is to know how to handle what you feel.

And the more you develop that ability, the less control discomfort has over your choices, your behavior, and your life.

Angela (33:10.764)
Listen, we want to break free from alcohol and feel free in our lives. And these are the kind of life skills that allow us to do that. Unfortunately, we aren’t born with all the skills. And often there isn’t anyone teaching us this stuff. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and pissed off and think that nothing works or you’ll never get it. I don’t want you stuck in that place, feeling discouraged and defeated and lost.

We all have a limit. We can only take so much. If you’re at that place where you’ve absolutely had enough of the drama and nonsense and feeling like shit and spinning in circles, then let’s talk about working together. These are exactly the kinds of things we work on with personal coaching.

Angela (34:01.336)
These are exactly the kinds of things we work on with personal coaching, and we can work on whatever you need in this moment. You can book a call with me at addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. We’ll chat and laugh and share some information. And if we both feel like it’s a fit, we can start right now. Addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. 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’ll see you next week.