Addicted To Comfortable

As of Sunday, October 18, 2026, I have been sober for 2,191 days.  My physical craving for alcohol abated after the first 30 days.  For the past 2,161 days I have been wrestling with what I have discovered is the more challenging part of addiction.  My addiction to comfortable. 

I had many “reasons” for drinking.  Kids were unruly and didn’t listen.  My husband didn’t pay any attention to me.  My job was just a paycheck.  Menopause.  My time was spent taking care of others and I never had any left for me.  I couldn’t lose weight.  Bad traffic, hard day, rude people.  My friends/co-workers/everyone else on the planet had life all figured out.  What was wrong with me?  There were happy things too…a well-deserved vacation, holidays, weddings, a job promotion, birthdays. 

I drank at all of it.  Logically, it made sense.  This is what I had noticed in my family growing up.  It is what we see in every movie, print ad, tv series, or novel.  When life gets challenging or we have something to celebrate, we drink.  It is so socially acceptable that alcohol is the ONLY drug that when you stop using it, people think there is something wrong with you. 

At its core, it is a pattern I adopted to help me cope.  And then I found myself stuck there 

Outside of the social and physical reasons I could not give up alcohol, there was the word “addiction”.  A word that has been socially co-opted to mean that, if I were to call myself addicted to anything, my life was somehow out of control.  I had no willpower.  I was admitting, despite appearances, that my life was falling apart and I had lost everything - my kids, house, relationships, job, driving privileges, etc.  In the same way we need to stop shaming people for choosing to no longer drink, we also need to update our vision of what “addicted” looks like.

I was SO good at pretending to myself and others that I did not have an issue with alcohol, that people couldn’t really understand why I stopped.  Yes, I had a few questionable instances, but doesn’t everyone?  I’m sure that was their logic.  The truth was that I had become a master chameleon and could rally when I needed to, so I could show the world how un-addicted I really was.  I laugh at the time and energy it took to NOT be seen.  And I compare that to my endless worry that I could not do the hard work of removing alcohol from my life.  Hadn’t I already proved that I could do hard things with all the hiding I had been practicing?  But I digress….

So, here I am today.  Six years in.  So many things have changed for the better.  My life is truly something I never imagined and is wholly unrecognizable from where I was on October 18, 2020.  BUT….am I un-addicted?  I spent years trying to convince myself that I was not addicted to an addictive substance, living in fear of giving voice to that truth.  But I have no problem at all stating that I am, in fact, still addicted to comfortable.  Many people I know would say the same about their life.  Addiction as a metaphor, not a clinical diagnosis.

My definition of addicted to comfortable?  Being so attached to what feels familiar that we keep choosing it, even when it no longer feels good, serves us, or reflects who we want to become.  It’s when the familiar becomes our default, and we stop noticing what staying there is costing us.

We become attached to the predictability of our life because the uncertainty of something different feels more threatening than the discomfort of what it is costing us.  For me….it is anything where I wake up in the morning and say I will not do “that” today, but by the end of the day find myself right back where I was the day before.

It has taken a long time to understand the connection between a very real physical addiction and my addiction to, or fear of, the discomfort that comes with noticing old worn-out patterns and opting for change.  For me, the easy part of living an alcohol-free life was putting down the glass.  It was not easy at the time, but six years in, I absolutely see that it was the easiest part. 

The harder part was stepping out of comfortable.  Stepping out of my default way of dealing with life.  Understanding what my default pattern was costing me.  My growth over the last six years started with not drinking but has mainly come through noticing when I am stuck in comfortable and sitting with what brings the discomfort of wanting that to change. 

The reason we stay stuck in comfortable is also complex.  Sometimes it is just habit.  Simply what we have always done - like drinking.  More involved is our identity.  This is who I understand myself to be.  And lastly…we fear that a loss of any part of our identity will change how we show up in the world or, more importantly, how people will respond to that change. 

Our brain is not designed to keep us happy.  It is designed to keep us safe.  Change represents a threat and when we are threatened, we revert to our “comfort zone.” 

I knew from years of experience that “trying harder” was not working.  The more I dug into it, the more I understood that I had to find a new perspective.  I had to get curious about ME.  I had to start NOTICING my own life.  My story.  My self-talk.  My rituals and routines. 

At first, I thought noticing meant catching myself doing something wrong. There I go again. Eating when I’m not hungry. Saying yes when I mean no. Putting off something I say matters to me.  I could turn noticing into another reason to criticize myself remarkably quickly.

But I already knew how to judge myself. What I needed to learn was how to understand myself.  What was I doing right before I reached for something to eat? What did I imagine would happen if I said no? What was I telling myself about the thing I kept putting off?

Notice your life. There is always a clue to who we are and what motivates us.

My pattern was something I could see. What I had not always seen was what I expected that pattern to do for me. Give me relief. Keep the peace. Help me avoid disappointing someone. Allow me to postpone finding out if I was brave enough to do something I have always dreamed of doing. 

And sometimes, and most insidiously, my patterns kept me recognizable to the people who knew me.

This one has been especially uncomfortable to consider. I can want to change and still want everyone to respond to me exactly as they always have. I can want to speak honestly and still want the reassurance that nobody will be upset by what I say. There is a lot to notice in that space. What am I afraid will happen if I do something different? And what keeps happening because I don’t?

I do not always like the answers I find to any of these questions. Some days I notice the pattern and repeat it anyway. But now there is a moment when I can see what I am doing. A moment when I can ask whether this familiar response is what I want.

The reality is that we cannot change what we do not see.  What we refuse to acknowledge. 

When we get curious about our life, about our choices, especially when we feel uncomfortable, we give ourselves the opportunity to see our lives from a different perspective.  When we can notice and name the patterns that are costing us the most, we can then investigate further to see how, where, and why they are impacting our lives. 

Armed with that information, THEN we can make a different choice. 

The truth is that most of us can already name what an existing pattern is costing us.  And we will never know what a new pattern will mean to our life, our identity or how others respond to us, until we test it out. 

Change will challenge what we know.  We think we must find a bravery that we aren’t sure we have.  But you have already survived 100% of everything that has come your way and you are still here.  You are already brave.  Aren’t you curious to see what is on the other side? 

What can YOU notice about your life today that might change everything? 

Much love,

Lisa

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group.  However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.