The pain and pleasure principle is a simple one, but one that is important in understanding your habits. Simple put, we are motivated bu both avoiding pain in all its forms, and gaining pleasure.
Pretty simple right? But if we did into that a bit more – we can very easily start to see how the pain and pleasure principle within your drinking habits is moving your further down the rabbit hole, and how reversing that way of thinking could be the ticket to long term sobriety.
First – a few more concepts to understand about the pain/pleasure principle.
- The pain/pleasure principle has some role to play in every decision that you make. That extra cup of coffee? The pleasure of the warm beverage and the pain of the sleepiness without the caffeine. Missing that workout? The pain of no progress, but the pleasure of no pain. Asking that girl out? The pleasure of meeting Mrs. Right, and the pain of being alone. Quite literally in some capacity it is in every decision that you make.
- Avoiding Pain is a bigger driver than getting pleasure. There has been numerous studies done that people are more afraid to lose money, than they are to get money. The pain of losing money is a bigger driver than the pleasure of getting more money.
- Your perception is your reality. Your pain is different than my pain. Your pleasure is different than my pleasure. This concept is not a one size fits all – it is unique to each and every individual – which will be important as we start to talk about how this concept can help you kick the drinking habit.
Understanding that this pain and pleasure principle is working in your life – whether you consciously know it or not – is important. Think about the decisions that you have made over the past week. What was driving those decisions? At the core – if you peel back enough layers – you will find that the decision and habits throughout your life are based on the avoiding pain, or gaining pleasure.
Every single one.
So now that we are aware – let’s dig into how this applies to drinking:
The Pain and Pleasure Principle for Quitting Alcohol
This concept quite literally was one of the main drivers for me in getting sober. It wasn’t overnight, but as time when on, and I drove this concept into my brain, I slowly just stopped drinking – avoiding pain – and moved to sobriety – gaining pleasure.
But I didn’t start off this way.
I, like you probably, initially found drinking incredibly pleasurable. I mean – cmon – the magic elixir that made me funnier, made stress disappear, and made the whole world seem to tick just a touch slower. It was euphoric. Total pleasure. For that moment in time where I caught that spot – that buzz where you can sit and relax and let the world just spin around you – getting to that spot was amazing.
Until it went away. Then the hangover set in. The headache. The upset stomach. The shitty ass sleep. The high heart rate. The high blood pressure. The anxiety – OH the anxiety hits during the come down. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t work out effectively. I couldn’t work effectively. I could do anything really. This was pain. Completely painful. And I wanted to avoid this at all cost. SO what did I do? Read the concept above. I did what we all do all the time: I did what needed to be done to avoid the pain, and increase pleasure.
So I drank again.
Instantly, here comes the rush of pleasure. That beautiful dopamine hit. Hitting that spot. The fun times. The laughing. The relaxation. The numbing of the mind when things just don’t go right and you just don’t want to think about anything for a couple of hours. That few turns into a few to many – and here comes that pain.
Again with the headache. Stomach issues. Not sleeping. Blood shot eyes. Extra shot of caffeine to make it through the day. Shortness of breathe. Sweats. Shakes. Anxiety – FUCK more anxiety. This time worst. Panic attacks for not reason. Pain – how does it end?
With more drinks. That is how it ends. So out comes the bottle yet again to get away from the pain, and get to that pleasure spot one more time.
Needless to say, that above cycle is something that you probably are used to. I know I was. For YEARS – I was going through that cycle. Sometimes it was a few days cycle. Sometimes it was a few weeks. Most of the time it was daily. And it starts taking it’s toll.
The painful bouts get more dark. More heavy. More painful. The pleasure bouts don’t really get more pleasurable – they stay about the same. But you come up from a lower low every time, the perception (remember – pain / pleasure is about YOUR perception) of the pleasure seems to increase – even through it really doesn’t. You just came from a more painful place.
This was a cycle I had a very hard time breaking. I listened to a Tony Robbins youtube video on the pain and pleasure principle and started really looking at my own drinking. I know that I had drinking on the pleasure side, and bring sober on the pain side. Naturally, this led me to not stay sober very long, as I tried to avoid the pain, and increase my drinking as I tried to increase my pleasure.
This is the backward systems.
While on a walk, I was listening to The Naked Mind (again) and thought: could I switch these concepts? I know that sobriety was painful, and drinking was my pleasure. Could I make drinking my pain, and sobriety my pleasure? Maybe – just maybe – if I was able to truly tell myself this story – get switch my PERCEPTION of my own pain and pleasure principle, could that help drive me to sobriety?
I mean – it couldn’t hurt. I was heading down a path toward an early grave so it can only help – or at least slow my progress.
So I tried it out. Here is what I did:
The Pain and Pleasure Principle Exercise
You may have heard this exercise before – it is quite popular especially in the quit drinking realm – but let’s do it again and apply a new twist to it.
Get out a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one side write ALCOHOL. And the other write SOBRIETY.
Next, write down all the NEGATIVE things that each one of these does for you. Then, turn that bitch over and do the same thing – but this time – what is POSITIVE.
This list needs to come from you – from the heart – from your god honest mind. No one else. Here are a few things I added to mine – this list was actually quite large – but here is a sampling:
- Negative ALCOHOL:
- Shitty sleep.
- Upset stomach.
- Not remember conversations.
- Not remembering how I went to bed.
- Dry heaving in the morning.
- Throwing up.
- Sweating.
- Anxiety – FUCK TONS of anxiety.
- Negative SOBRIETY
- Not as fun at parties.
- May be awkward in social situations.
- What am I supposed to do in business meetings>
- Positive ALCOHOL:
- Forget about all the bullshit in the world.
- Temporarily relieves stress from the week.
- Helps me relax a bit.
- Helps me fall asleep – well, I mean I pass out drunk most nights.
- Positive SOBRIETY:
- Full nights rest
- Actually start working out again and getting gainz.
- Remember all I did, said, and what was said to me.
- NO FUCKING ANXIETY.
You get the picture. Try this out. What you should have is a list of positive and negatives (pain and pleasure) of drinking and sobriety. Clearly, when I was done, I had quite a bit more of positive sobriety and negative alcohol. I then read this list every day until my brain start to truly comprehend it.
Then nearly like magic – I started associated ALCOHOL with pain, and sobriety with pleasure. I remember waking up one morning after a night of not drinking. I didn’t even think about drinking – which was random. But I woke up, clear headed, and my covers just felt so software. I just stretch out and rolled around and I remember thinking ‘Ah, is this the pleasures of sobriety?’. And that is when I started fully noticing my mindset shift. I was still drinking at the time – but drinking was legit painful. Every sip I was thinking about all the negatives.
My drinking days became less and less. My sobriety days became more and more. ON the rare drinking days, I really hit home how painful this was, and I cannot wait till I am fully sober. On my sober days, I enjoyed every fucking second of being sober. It is the best in the world.
Now – this concept has fully hit home from me. I don’t drink – because it is just too painful. In fact, I find myself almost fearful of taking another drink – for the fear of me returning to the dark pain that is alcoholism. Instead – I look forward to sobriety. The sleep – actually being rested. I am running again – not galloping around a mile and a half just to convince myself I am not a drunk. I ran 6 miles in 58 minutes the other day. Back to my old self! My heart rate is lower. My blood pressure is normal. And my anxiety? GONE. Absolutely disappeared. Things that used to trigger anxiety attacks seem to not happen. It is glorious.
I do not want to go back to the drinking – and this is honestly one of the first times in my life I can say that. And I want you to be able to say that too.
Try this exercise listed in this post. At the very least – start thinking about you pain/pleasure association with drinking. When you stop to think about – somewhere within you – there is pleasure associated with drinking and pain associated with stopping. If you can find ways to flip that paradigm, there is a beautiful life on the other side. It doesn’t happen overnight. It took quite a bit of re-reading the list, and ‘fake it till you make it’ type talk to get there. But it is SO worth it in the end.
