TW: Substance use

If you’ve ever drank alcohol or drugs, it’s possible you have a fun story of a time you were drunk/high and spent an awesome time with friends or loved ones. It’s already fun to spend time with them, so of course enhancing it with something would only add to the experience. 

Typically, that kind of use feels celebratory. We might be hanging out with friends, going to a party or night out, and drinking or using in a way that feels like the occasion calls for it. And because the occasion calls for it–of course it’ll be fun! And it IS fun. 

And after some time, something may shift. Maybe stress at work or conflict with a loved one is taking up some serious mental space. We feel sad or angry or tired. And because alcohol or drug use in the past has helped us relax, let go, and have fun, we use it expectantly in those hard moments. We’re hoping it does what it usually does—help us relax, let go, and have fun. And sometimes it works! And sometimes it doesn’t. 

And then after some time, it really doesn’t. And the fun times we had before begin to be few and far in between. And the uncomfortable feelings we were experiencing associated with our stressors are now multiplying because on top of all that–now the fun thing is no longer fun–and sometimes even creating their own problems: conflict with friends, family conflict, weight changes, struggle to focus, financial issues, legal issues, etc. 

Somewhere along the way the thing we used to celebrate, relax, and have fun started to be our go-to coping strategy for uncomfortable feelings or situations. And perhaps it stops working as intended. Maybe it puts off the feeling for a bit, but when we come down from the high, the feelings and problems are still there. 

I call this celebrating vs. coping. 

This is the point where our use starts to feel less celebratory and more something we use to cope. Something that may have started out as fun and light starts feeling heavy and consequential. And it creeps up on us, it’s hard to notice it until we’re deep into coping. It’s on a spectrum, so we might switch back and forth at times, but there’s a clear distinction when we’re hanging on one side more than the other. 

I encourage people to pause and self-evaluate their use. Are you using in the way you want? Or are you experiencing unintended consequences and now you are unsure whether the issues came first or the drugs/alcohol and which one is making the other worse? This process requires raw honesty and vulnerability with oneself about our use and the impact it has on our lives. And many of us are highly uncomfortable with that self-reflective process, so we avoid it and deny and turn a blind eye.

I have my own experiences with drugs and alcohol and a journey to manage my use like many of my clients. I know what it’s like to need to self-evaluate and question whether your use is working out the way you want. I speak from both professional and lived experience. And I get it, it’s hard. 

The point of this post is to introduce the idea of celebrating vs. coping and using that idea to self-evaluate your alcohol/drug use. Is your use more on the celebration side? Or is it more on the coping side? Only you know yourself more than anyone else, and only you can honestly answer these questions. 

I hope you find these reflections helpful and inspires you to explore your past and current relationship with substances. If you’d like to explore these relationships with the help of a licensed professional counselor / therapist trained in substance use issues and addiction, contact us here.

At Belonging Counseling, we do not promote sobriety and abstinence unless it’s part of our client’s desired goals. Instead of an abstinence approach, we take a harm reduction approach. This means we strive to “meet our clients where they’re at” and find ways to increase safety and reduce risks associated with their use. While the abstinence approach is helpful for many, we believe treatment should be individualized to each person and should never be considered a one-size-fits-all solution. To learn more, keep an eye out for future blog posts about harm reduction approaches.