442 Transcript

Angela (00:10.51)
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. I’m your coach, Angela Pugh. If you’re thinking about doing dry July, I want to challenge you with one idea before you even get started. I don’t actually care whether you make it 30 days, seriously. I mean, of course, I hope you do. I hope you feel amazing. I hope you learn things about yourself you’ve been too scared to look at. I hope this becomes the beginning of a completely different life.

But that’s not the point. The point isn’t surviving 30 days, right? The point is what those 30 days have the potential to teach you. Because if you’ve been trying to control your drinking for months or even years, then I can almost guarantee you’re fighting the wrong battle. You’re not fighting alcohol, you’re fighting acceptance.

And acceptance might be the single hardest part of recovery. Not quitting, not cravings, not saying no at a party, acceptance. Today I want to explain what I mean by that. Because once you understand it, everything else starts to make sense. The white knuckling, the moderation attempts, the 47 different rules you’ve made for yourself and broken, all of it starts to make sense.

once you see what’s actually underneath it. So let’s get into this. One of the biggest lies addiction tells us isn’t that we don’t have a problem. It’s that our problem is somehow different. We think I’m too successful, I’m too smart, well, I’ve never lost my job. I’ve never gotten a DUI. I’m a good parent. I own a business. I get everything done.

I don’t drink in the morning. I’m not sleeping on a park bench. Whatever your version is, your brain clings to it. Because if you’re different, maybe you don’t need what those other people need. Maybe you can figure this out by yourself. Maybe you can outsmart it. And I want you to notice something about that list. Every single item on that list.

Angela (02:27.85)
Is a comparison. It’s not, I don’t have a problem. It’s I don’t have a problem like that other person. We build our entire identity around that gap between us and whoever we’ve decided the real alcoholic is, right? And as long as that gap exists on paper in your head, we get to keep going. That gap is the permission slip.

It’s the thing that lets you pour the next glass and tell yourself you’re just having a normal night, not spiraling toward anything.

But here’s what nobody tells you about that gap. It moves. The goalposts always move. First, it’s at least I don’t drink alone. Then you’re drinking alone and it’s at least I don’t drink before noon. Then you’re drinking before noon and it’s at least I still show up for my kids. Right? The gap doesn’t protect you, it just relocates every time you cross it.

So you always have somewhere to stand that still feels safe.

Angela (03:41.462)
And smart people are especially vulnerable. One thing I’ve noticed after thousands of clients, the people who struggle the longest are often incredibly intelligent. Not because intelligence causes addiction, but because intelligent people trust their brains, right? And that works in almost every other area of life. When life gets hard, you think, you analyze, you solve, you optimize. That’s

Probably how you’ve built your career, and it’s probably why people rely on you. It’s probably why you’re the one that everyone calls when things fall apart. So naturally, you assume you’ll solve drinking the same way. You’ll find the perfect strategy, the perfect rule, the perfect schedule, only on weekends, only two drinks, only wine, never liquor, only after 6 p.m. You’ll think your way out. Except

Addiction doesn’t give a fuck how smart you are. Your brain becomes the very thing convincing you to keep drinking. That’s the part that trips people up the most because they’ve spent their whole life using their intelligence as a tool. It’s never once been the enemy. And now, for the first time, the sharpest thing about you is being used against you. It’s not that you’re not smart enough to figure this out.

It’s that the very organ you’d use to figure it out is the one that’s compromised. You can’t outthink a problem that lives in the thinking itself. And I’ve watched brilliant people build spreadsheets tracking their drinking, color-coded systems.

Rules with exceptions and sub rules for the exceptions, right? And every single one of them eventually says some version of the same thing to me. I know how to solve every other problem in my life. Why can’t I solve this one?

Angela (05:47.02)
And the answer is always the same, because this isn’t a problem you solve with more thinking. It’s a problem you solve with less arguing.

The stop-start cycle isn’t failure. I think this is one of the biggest misunderstandings in recovery. People beat themselves up because they quit and start again and quit and start again and quit and start again. And they think I’m weak, I have no willpower, I’ll never get this. But I don’t see it that way. I see someone gathering information. Every attempt teaches you something.

Maybe this time you tried moderation, maybe this time you only drank weekends, maybe you switched from liquor to wine, you made it two weeks, maybe you made it 60 days. Every attempt answers a question until eventually the evidence starts pointing in the same direction. Think about it like this. If you ran an experiment 10 times and you got the same result nine of those times, you wouldn’t call yourself a failure.

You’d call that a finding. You’d call that data. The only reason we don’t treat our own stop-start cycle the same way is because we’ve been taught to see it as a character flaw instead of what it actually is. It’s information, real, hard-won information about what does and doesn’t work for you. So if you’re sitting there right now with the list of quit dates in your notes app,

Angela (07:20.084)
So if you’re sitting there right now with a list of quit dates in your notes app, a graveyard of January 1st and Monday mornings, and this is the last time text to yourself, I don’t want you to see that as proof you’re broken. I want you to see that as a body of evidence. You’ve been running the experiment, you just haven’t looked at the results yet.

Angela (07:45.342)
None of those experiments are really about alcohol. They’re about identity. Every experiment is trying to answer one question. What if I’m different? What if I can moderate? What if I don’t need meetings? What if I don’t need support? What if I can do this alone? What if everyone else needs recovery, but I don’t? And that’s such a normal place to be. I lived there too. Thousands of my clients have lived there.

Because nobody wants to believe they’re an alcoholic. Nobody. There’s a version of this I hear constantly in my coaching calls. People will say to me, almost apologetically, right? I don’t think I’m as bad as some of these people in these recovery groups. And I always ask the same question back: like, bad compared to what?

Because usually what they mean is they haven’t hit the version of rock bottom they’ve seen in a movie, right? They still have their house, their job, their marriage mostly intact. And somewhere along the way they decided that recovery is a club.

And somewhere along the way, they decided that recovery is a club you only get to join once you’ve lost everything. But recovery was never about how far you fell. It’s about whether alcohol has taken something from you that you want back. Your mornings, your patience, your presence with your kids, your relationship with yourself in the mirror. If the answer is yes, you already qualify. You don’t need a worse story to deserve a better one.

I wasn’t living under a bridge. I wasn’t unemployed. I wasn’t what society tells us an alcoholic looks like. I was high functioning. I was successful. I was capable. And I also was a complete disaster when it came to alcohol. All of those things can exist at the same time. High functioning doesn’t protect you from addiction. Sometimes it just allows you to hide it longer.

Angela (09:54.22)
You become incredibly good at carrying the weight. People compliment you for how much you accomplish. Meanwhile, you’re exhausted, ashamed, and terrified that somebody’s going to figure out the truth. I remember exactly what that felt like: waking up in the morning with a hangover from hell, but still showing up for work every day and unraveling in my kitchen every night, right? And even my hardest drinking friends.

had no idea how bad my problem really was. And that was almost the worst part because it meant I could keep going. Nobody was gonna stop me. I was gonna have to stop myself. And for a long time I didn’t believe I could.

Angela (10:42.9)
It took me years to say the actual words to myself, not like I drink too much sometimes, not I probably should cut back, but the real sentence. I’m not able to control this, and I never will be. And that’s just the truth. That’s acceptance. The day I understood that with total clarity, no denial, no false hope, that was the day everything actually started to change.

Not the first day I quit drinking, but the day I stopped negotiating with the truth. High functioning isn’t different. And I think one of the biggest shifts over the last decade is that we’re finally talking about this. Recovery isn’t just for people who lost everything. Recovery is full of CEOs and teachers and doctors and attorneys and moms and business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, nurses, people who smile in pictures.

Who pay their bills, people who show up every day, people who quietly drink every night. Because high functioning doesn’t mean you’re different. It just means your consequences haven’t looked like someone else’s yet. And that word yet matters a lot. I say it gently, but I say it because it’s true. High functioning isn’t a permanent status, it’s a phase.

It’s what addiction looks like before it’s finished rearranging your life. Every single person I’ve coached who eventually lost something bigger, a marriage, their health, their career, started exactly where you might be right now, functioning, managing, convincing themselves.

Convincing themselves the wheels weren’t actually coming off because nobody else could see it yet. And I’m not telling you that to scare you. I’m telling you because I want you to take yourself seriously now while it’s still just exhaustion and shame and 2 AM promises to yourself. You don’t have to wait for the bigger consequences to earn the right to change.

Angela (12:55.192)
Here’s the part people miss too. Acceptance isn’t saying I’m hopeless. Acceptance is saying I’m not the exception. That’s actually incredibly freeing. Because if you’re not the exception, you don’t have to invent your own recovery. You don’t have to prove anything anymore. You don’t have to keep running experiments. You don’t have to keep negotiating. You simply become willing to try what has already helped millions of people before you.

Angela (13:27.692)
I want to sit with that word freeing for a second too, because I know it doesn’t feel like freedom when you’re standing at the edge of it. It feels like giving something up. It feels like losing. But every single client I’ve ever coached has told me the same thing on the other side of acceptance. The exhaustion of managing it was so much heavier than the relief of letting it go.

You’ve been carrying two full-time jobs, your actual life and the job of hiding, tracking, rationalizing, and rebuilding your drinking. Acceptance is the day you get to quit the second job.

And this is why willingness matters so much. Willingness isn’t certainty, it isn’t confidence. Willingness is simply saying, I’ve been fighting this my way for a long time. Maybe I’ll try something different. That’s it. That’s enough. You don’t have to believe it’ll work. You just have to become willing. I want to be really clear about something because I think this is where a lot of people get stuck before they even start. You don’t need to feel ready.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t need to believe deep down that this time will be different. Willingness is not a feeling you wait to arrive. It’s a decision you make on purpose, often while you still feel completely unsure. Every person who’s ever gotten sober made that decision while doubting it would work, right? The doubt doesn’t disqualify you, it’s just part of the process.

This is why I love the dry Julys and all the dry months we do, not because everyone should quit forever on dry on July 1st, but because it gives you 30 days to stop arguing, 30 days to observe, 30 days to gather evidence, 30 days to ask. What is actu what is alcohol really doing for me? What happens when I remove it? What keeps pulling me back? What kind of life do I actually want?

Angela (15:39.148)
Those are the questions that change lives. Here’s what I want you to do differently this July, though, compared to every other time you’ve tried this. I don’t want you to white knuckle it. I don’t want you to grit your teeth and count down days like you’re serving a sentence. Sobriety isn’t jail. I want you to actually pay attention. Keep a note on your phone. Every time you want to drink, write down what’s happening. What time is it? What just happened? What you’re feeling underneath the urge.

Because that’s the real prize of these 30 days, not the streak, the data. By day 30, you’re gonna have a map of exactly what alcohol’s been doing for you. And once you can see that map clearly, you get to make an actual choice instead of just reacting on autopilot for the rest of your life.

Angela (16:34.25)
And notice, if you can, what happens in your body and your mind when the 30 days are up. Some of you are gonna feel a genuine, quiet relief that might surprise you. Some of you are gonna feel yourself counting down to day 31 like it’s a finish line. Both of those reactions are information. Neither one is something to judge yourself for. Just notice it. That’s the whole assignment.

Angela (17:03.734)
And if you’re listening today and you’ve spent years starting over, please hear me. Your stop-start cycle doesn’t mean you’re broken. It probably means you’re getting closer, closer to enough evidence, closer to acceptance, closer to willingness. And willingness is where recovery begins. So let’s come back where we started with this whole thing. This whole episode has really only been about one thing: acceptance.

Not proving you’re strong enough to white knuckle 30 days, not finding the perfect rule that finally makes moderation work, just getting honest enough to say I’m not the exception. That single shift is what turns dry July from another experiment into the start of something real. It’s what stops you from running the same test for the 40th time and calling it a new plan. Acceptance is the thing.

that finally lets you stop fighting yourself and start actually building the life you want.

Angela (18:09.878)
And here’s why that matters for you specifically right now. Every ounce of energy you’ve spent proving you’re different, managing the gap, inventing your own version of recovery is energy you could be spending on your actual life. Acceptance doesn’t take anything away from you. It gives that energy back. So if you’re heading into dry July, don’t do it alone in your head.

Actually come do it with us inside Sober Society. It’s the perfect companion for these 30 days. It’s my private member community. We have live meetings almost every day of the week, a community that actually understands what you’re getting, what you’re going through, and support built for every stage of this, not just the first 30 days. And if you already know you’re done gathering information and you already know all the free challenges haven’t worked.

If you’re ready for real action and real lasting change, not another experiment, book a call with me and we can explore options to work together and create some real transformation right now. Go to addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. We’ll look at exactly where you are, figure out the right fit for you in your life. Again, addictionunlimited.com forward slash call. And that link is always in the show notes. Addictionunlimited.com forward slash call.

So if you’re thinking about dry July, don’t make it about proving you’re strong enough. Make it about becoming honest enough. Honest enough to stop trying to prove you’re different. Because the truth is you aren’t different from the rest of us. And that’s actually the best news I could possibly give you. Because it means what helped us can help you too. I love you guys. I hope you’re having a fantastic day. And I will see you next week.