Take our Alcohol Use Test

Find a therapist to overcome addiction

Limiting beliefs about stress or alcohol can trap people in unwanted drinking loops.

Avoiding stress altogether isn’t practical because it’s part of being human.

Adopting a positive stress mindset can reduce its negative effects and help break the stress-drinking loop.

For years, I told my clients that it’s important to reduce the amount of stress in recovery. It was the same piece of advice that I was told in my own journey, and it made sense. After all, studies show clear links between stress and an increased risk of relapse. It makes sense that to prevent falling back into an unwanted stress-drinking cycle, one should do their best to reduce stress.

But somehow I always felt uneasy about the advice. Because, deep down, I knew that, as much as the advice sounded good in theory, it wasn’t always practical in practice.

Stress is part of being human

The truth is that stress is part of life. Most of the stress that we face in life is not an extracurricular activity that we take on by choice. Typical stressors are often things not within a person’s control, such as health problems, a sudden loss, or unexpected unemployment. Nor are they things a person can simply opt out of, like a stressful job, pressure at school, or the responsibility of being a parent.

So in a way, I’ve felt like I was giving people advice that wasn’t really rooted in the reality of being human. And on some level, I knew there had to be another way to truly........

© Psychology Today