Why Everything Feels So Intense When You Quit Drinking

Hey everybody, welcome to the Addiction Unlimited podcast where you get to learn everything you want to know about addiction and recovery. I'm your host, Angela Pugh, co-founder of Kansas City Recovery, Life Coach and Recovery and Alcoholic. To learn more about me, you can listen to episode zero on your podcast app or find us on the web at AddictionUnlimited.com. Hello my friend, welcome back to Addiction Unlimited. This podcast is about what it really takes to stay sober, healing the patterns underneath the behavior so you're not just abstinent but you're actually building a stable, honest, alcohol-free life. You know, if you're in your first 30 days, I want you to hear me clearly. Your only job right now is to not drink. That's it. So, sobriety is quitting, recovery is healing and in the very beginning, your soul focus is on not drinking. You're not fixing your whole life in the first 30 days, you're not repairing your marriage, solving your financial mess, starting a new workout routine and overhauling your entire diet. You're not becoming a brand new human in four weeks, right? You're building the muscle of not drinking. Period. In early sobriety, everything you do, everywhere you go, every person you hang out with has to be filtered through one question. Is this a step closer to sobriety or a step closer to a drink? That is a powerful decision filter. And this is where tools come in because willpower is not enough. You need tools in the sober stage and you continue to need them as you cross the bridge into the recovery stage. And I want to tell you why I'm doing this episode because I don't think most people actually understand what tools are. We say it all the time, build your toolbox, use your tools, what tools are you going to use? But then like I'll ask one of my clients in a session, I'll be like what tools are you going to use right now? And it's like I get a blank stare. So I feel like people don't really get what tools are. So let's fix that. A tool is anything that helps you cope with, manage and regulate your emotions without reaching for a drink. Let's say it again, anything that helps you cope, manage or regulate what you're feeling without alcohol is a tool. Tools aren't just meetings, journaling, therapy. Tools can be breathing differently, delaying a decision, going for a walk, texting someone before you spiral, getting eight hours of sleep. Tools can be planning your week so you're not white knuckling Friday night. The truth is, recovery, real recovery is going to trigger things. It's going to bring up feelings and discomfort. It's going to bring up anxiety and grief and anger and fear. And if you don't know how to regulate those feelings, you'll reach for the one thing that used to regulate them for you. Everybody asks, "How do I stop drinking?" But that's the wrong question. The better question is, "What tools do I need to actually stay sober?" Because stopping is an event. Staying sober is a skill. Addiction survives because most of us never learned how to feel uncomfortable feelings without escaping them. When you remove the alcohol, you don't remove your nervous system, right? You don't remove anxiety and wounds and shame. What you're dealing with in early sobriety and in recovery is dysregulation. Disregulation is when your nervous system gets activated and you feel overwhelmed, anxious, urgent, agitated, ashamed or completely shut down. And your brain screams, "Make this stop." It's that spike in your chest or the racing thoughts, the pit in your stomach. It's the heaviness that makes you want to disappear. And when you were drinking, alcohol was the tool that used to regulate that. Now we need better tools. Remember, addiction needs you alone, isolated and feeling bad about yourself. All three of those conditions create dysregulation. Isolation leads to anxiety and overthinking. Loneliness leads to attachment panic. Shame leads to withdrawal and self-attack. And not all dysregulation is the same. And that's what I really want to talk about today is understanding what tools are appropriate in which situations. This is where most people get it wrong. We label everything as anxiety and we try to treat it all the same way. I'm guilty of this too. But I can't deep belly breathe my way through every type of dysregulation. Different attacks require different tools. So today let's break down the types of dysregulation you're going to experience in life and sobriety and the tools that actually work for each one. And we're going to start with the one I think is probably the most common for us. And that's rumination and overthinking. You guys, I got to tell you this is my fucking specialty. Right? This sums up 90% of my day, ruminating and overthinking about God knows what. So I think most people recognize this, right? It's obsessive looping. If you're someone with anxiety and let's be honest, all of us are. This is common. We replay conversations. We rehearse future conversations. We analyze tone. We predict outcomes. We try to solve things that haven't even happened yet. Right? And in some way for your brain, like it feels productive, right? It feels like you're working on the problem. But your body is getting more activated, right? Not less. And I'm talking about the everyday looping most of us live with, right? The kind that keeps you up at night and makes you reach for relief. Now I don't drink, reaching for relief for me might look like food or scrolling on that damn phone. But that's still relief. We're reaching for relief. What rumination really is is a disregulated attempt at certainty. Right? It's your brain trying to control an unpredictable situation by thinking harder. Your brain believes if I just figure this out, I'll feel better. But you don't feel better. You feel more urgent, more anxious, more spun out. You can't solve uncertainty by thinking harder. So the question isn't how do I fix this? The question is, what is my nervous system doing right now? And if you feel urgency, you regulate first. Not think harder. Regulate first. If your heart is slightly elevated, if your thoughts are looping, if you feel urgency to text someone or make a decision, that's nervous system activation. And here's where your tools come in. Not thinking tools, regulation tools. A splash cold water on your face or on your wrist. Do 10 push ups. Go for a fast walk around the block. Wall sit for 60 seconds. You don't process adrenaline with journaling, right? You discharge it. Adrenaline has to move out of your body. Second, contain the thinking. Like set a literal 10 minute timer and tell your brain you get 10 minutes at 4 p.m. to think about this. Your brain relaxes when it knows it's not being ignored, right? And third, write the real question. This is so freaking powerful. Not the surface issue, but the real fear. What am I actually afraid of right now? Abandonment, embarrassment, failure, loss of control. Name it because unnamed fear turns into rumination. And lastly, do not make any decisions when you're dysregulated. If you feel urgency, delay. Don't text. Don't quit. Don't escalate. You regulate first, then you decide. Rumination is not a character flaw, right? It's a dysregulated attempt at safety. And the tool isn't think more or think better. The tool is to regulate. All right, type two is attachment activation. Sometimes what we think is anxiety isn't, it's attachment. It's that drop in your stomach when someone pulls back. It's that tightness in your chest when a text doesn't come. A wave of sadness that feels disproportionate to the moment. Right, this isn't logic. It isn't just overthinking. This is your nervous system reacting to perceived disconnection. Attachment activation feels like sudden sadness, fear of abandonment, wanting reassurance immediately, feeling small, feeling exposed or wanting to fix it. right now. And here's what's important in this. Don't misconstrue this as a craving, right? This is not a craving. You're gonna feel all these things. And as soon as you feel your brain is gonna wanna kill that feeling. And we think that means craving because your brain thinks of alcohol. Your brain thinks of alcohol because it's the only tool it has been using, right? Your brain wants relief. It doesn't give a fuck if it's alcohol or not. So don't misconstrue these things as a craving. Just because alcohol pops into your head doesn't mean you're craving a drink. It means your brain is going to its default mode. Attachment, that's a wound that needs to be soothed. When you were drinking alcohol soothed it, right? Now we need different tools. So first, regulate your body before you interpret the story, right? Shil the F out before you start placing a whole bunch of different meanings on whatever's happening or not happening. Hand on your chest, slow exhale, longer than your inhale. When you take a really deep breath and you exhale longer, it calms your system, right? On pressure is another one. Helgopillo, wrapping a blanket, a weighted blanket is really good for this. Second, no decisions in attachment activation. You're going to hear this a lot. No decisions when you're dysregulated. You don't text, you don't confront, you don't define the relationship, you don't burn that fucker down. Regulate first. Third, name the fear out loud, not the situation, but the fear underneath. I'm afraid I'm about to be abandoned. I'm afraid this isn't going to work. I'm afraid I care more, naming it reduces the charge, right? And finally, connect, not to fix the situation to regulate your nervous system. Call someone safe and say, "I'm fucked up right now." Not, they did this and they said that, "Ni feel blah, blah, blah." We don't need to emotionally vomit all over our friends, right? There's a time and place for that, but it's not when you're activated. Just say, "I'm having a situation." My anxiety spiked, "I need a calm person to help me calm, say something funny, do something." What's going on in your day, right? Attachment, dysregulation, doesn't need problem solving. It needs soothing. Type three is shame spiral. Now let's talk about shame, not guilt, shame. Guilt says, "I did something wrong." Shame says, "I am something wrong." And shame dysregulation feels like, "I'm a piece of shit." We replay past mistakes, we withdraw. We want to disappear. We have this overwhelming urge to isolate. Like I always say, I just want to be in my bubble, you know, thinking what's the point? And here's the danger. Addiction loves shame. Because shame pushes you toward isolation. And isolation pushes you toward the drink. So what's actually happening in shame? Your nervous system is collapsing. This is not fight or flight. This is shut down. Do not beat yourself up. Do not try to logic your way out of it. Do not force positivity and pretend you're fine. Those are the wrong tools. The right tools are first, move your body. Shame is heavy. You need movement to shift that state. Second, exposure. Again, text someone before you isolate. Just say, "I'm in my head," dude, say something funny. Shame shrinks in exposure. Third, make a micro commitment. Do one small responsible thing. One email, one load of laundry, one workout, one meeting. Action, rebuild self-trust. And fourth, do a little inventory without any self-attack. Do an inventory like what happened? What can I do differently? No character assassination. Just take an inventory, what happened? And how you handled it, how you felt about how you handled it, how you could have improved, how you could have stayed calm. What just a simple inventory. Not, I'm a piece of shit. I can't believe I did that or said that. I should be better at this by now. None of that. Shame is not proof that you are broken. It's a dysregulated state. And the tool isn't punishment. The tool is reconnection and action. Type four, my personal favorite. Under stimulation or restlessness, right? Something you might refer to as boredom. (laughs) Now, this does not get enough airtime in recovery. Under stimulation. Not every craving is pain. Some cravings are boredom. Some cravings are a nervous system that is under-engaged. Under stimulation feels like restlessness, irritability, flatness, craving drama and chaos, picking fights, endless scrolling, feeling like what's the point? And I'm gonna share something personal with you. I have a brain that requires a lot of stimulation. I am always learning something new, challenging myself, researching the life out of things, building something, creating something, optimizing something. I need a lot. That's not pathology. That's just how my nervous system is wired. Now, here's the connection. Addiction, anxiety, depression and ADHD all involve the same core brain systems. The systems that regulate reward, motivation, stress response and emotional regulation, they all overlap. That doesn't mean one causes the other, but it does mean they share circuitry. This is the wiring that makes reward feel so powerful, which is how we get taken hostage by alcohol because that reward feels so powerful. And it's the wiring that makes regulation feel hard. So if your nervous system runs hot, meaning you feel deeply, think intensely, crave novelty, react strongly to stress. It's not surprising if anxiety, ADHD traits, mood struggles and addiction will all show up in the same life, right? And alcohol is a very efficient stimulation tool. It spikes dopamine, it shifts your state instantly, and it turns flat into interesting. So when you remove it, you don't just lose a habit, you lose stimulation and flat can feel intolerable. So what do people do? They create chaos, they pick fights, scroll for hours, romanticize old behavior, sabotage something stable just to feel something. That's not self-destruction, it's under stimulation. And the tool is not to shame yourself, the tool is intentional stimulation. If you have a brain like mine, you cannot build a small, quiet, under-engaged life and expect sobriety to feel sustainable. You need challenge and growth and learning. You need movement, projects, you need to lift something heavy, start something ambitious, stretch yourself. Some of us just didn't get the chill middle of the road nervous system. We got the high performance high stimulation model and high performance systems require intentional regulation because sobriety without stimulation will feel suffocating and suffocation is dangerous in recovery. So if you're someone who says, I get bored easily, I need intensity, I'm always chasing the next thing. That doesn't mean anything's wrong with you. It means you need to build a regulated life that's still dynamic, that's the work. If you're someone who thinks fast gets bored easily in Craves complexity, you have to be intentional about building a life that challenges you. Otherwise, your brain will go looking for stimulation in places that aren't good for you. Okay, let's simplify this. When you're activated, don't ask what's wrong with me. Ask what is my body doing? If your heart is racing, your chest feels tied, you feel urgency to act, text, fix, decide, that's adrenaline. You don't journal adrenaline, you move it. Push ups, cold water on your face or wrist, walk fast, wall sit, lift something heavy, discharge it, you have to move adrenaline out of your body. You can't think your way out of adrenaline. Discharge first, decide later. Okay, if your thoughts are looping, you're replaying the same conversation over and over trying to solve something uncertain, but your body isn't in full panic, that's rumination, overthinking. and you don't outthink. Rumination you contain it set a timer. name the real fear, delay the decision, interrupt the loop. And if you feel small, sad in a disproportionate way, scared someone is pulling away, needing reassurance right now, that's attachment activation. This is where you soothe. Hand on chest, slow exhale, call someone calm, name the fear. If you feel heavy, like withdrawing, like you are the problem, like you want to disappear, that's shame. You don't punish shame, you move your body, expose it to safe connection, do one responsible thing. And if you feel flat, restless, bored, like you want to create chaos just to feel something, that's under stimulation. You don't shame that either. You stimulate intentionally. Learn something, start something, challenge yourself, change environments. The question is never why am I like this? The question is, what state am I in and match the tool to the state? That's recovery. So let's zoom out for a second. This is what using your tools actually means. It doesn't mean blindly journaling when your body is adrenaline activated. It doesn't mean white knuckling cravings. It doesn't mean trying to positive think your way through anxiety. It means identifying what state your nervous system is in and choosing the tool that matches the state, because not all dysregulation is the same. You don't treat adrenaline the same way you treat shame. You don't treat attachment activation the same way you treat boredom. You don't treat rumination with more thinking. And when you are drinking, alcohol was the universal tool. It treated everything, bad day, drink, lonely drink, anxious drink, ashamed drink, bored drink. It was one tool for every state. Now we build a real toolbox. And that toolbox is what keeps you sober long term. Not motivation, not willpower, not hoping it sticks this time. Tools. Staying sober is not about being strong enough. It's about being regulated enough. That's why tools matter. Remember this, we don't do feelings well. Whenever a feeling is involved, our brains immediately seek numbing and or escape. Disregulation triggers all kinds of feelings. So if you don't regulate, if you want to ignore your body and your brain, think you're fine, think this stuff doesn't apply to you, think you'll figure it out another way, then all you're doing is taking one step closer to a drink. And that's not your goal. Your goal is to always be taking a step closer to sobriety. So understand the tools you need and use them. Okay? And listen up. This is the last day to sign up for my Recovery Accelerator Group. Four weeks of coaching with me, instant access to my online course, which you keep forever, and 30 days in my member community with meetings, support, and fun. You told me you want help, but aren't ready to commit to the price tag of private coaching because you're scared you'll drink again. So I created a bridge between doing it on your own and doing full on private coaching with me. The best of both worlds. And by far the least expensive way to work with me. And we start Saturday, March 7th, 2026. Addictionalimit2.com/accelerator. I will link it in the show notes. Do not hesitate. Today is the last day to sign up Wednesday. The day the podcast comes out, last day to sign up for this group. And if you want to work with me and aren't sure what the options are or what level of support is right for you, where you are in your journey, then book a call with me and let's figure it out together. We'll talk through what's going on for you, what your goals are, what feels right for you, and we'll get you going in the right direction. And you can do that at addictionalimit2.com/call.