When You Feel Like Giving Up

 In this episode of Doc Jacques: Your Addiction Lifeguard, we tackle the moment nobody likes to admit out loud—the quiet “I’m tired… I can’t do this anymore” phase of recovery. Doc Jacques breaks down why people drift, experiment, or fully surrender back to addiction, how stress, shame, trauma, isolation, and spiritual discouragement wear you down, and why the urge to quit is usually a longing for relief—not proof that you’ve failed. If you’re hanging by a thread, this is your reminder to be honest, reach for your lifelines, shrink the battle down to the next minute if you have to, and remember: thinking about quitting means you’re still in the fight. 

Transcript

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You're in search of help how to get your life back together. Join me here at Dr. Addiction Life Guard, the Addiction Recovery Podcast. I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes, but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them. But don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light, alright? Have a good time, learn something, and then get the real help that you need from a professional. How does that occur? Um giving up on recovery. So you're working on recovery and you've been at it for a while, and you just you quit. So the the quiet sentences, um, I'm tired. That internal dialogue, I'm tired. Or nothing's changing, or I can't do this anymore. So these these are thoughts that that signal that you're perhaps in that post-acute withdrawal syndrome pause, or there's emotional fatigue, maybe you got trauma response going on, you know, or you're there's avoidance happening. And and it's a problematic thing because a lot of times people that experience the uh giving up portion of of recovery, if they're if they get to that place, is that they don't they feel it, but they're afraid to say anything, right? Because you're going to the rooms, you got established group with your maybe you're working with your sponsor, and or maybe people are are are working with you and they're relying on you, or you go into the rooms. You don't want to be embarrassed, you don't want to say anything about it. So you don't. And the next thing you know, you've taken off and you're back out on the uh uh and getting uh getting high, getting drunk. So there's a there's a discouragement portion to this, you know, you're getting discouraged because you you maybe you don't seem like you're getting anywhere with this recovery thing, you're not where you think you want to be. And so when when the brain is under stress, there's there's an activation of that reward system that you really want to feel better, right? And so um those reward pathways start getting activated again. Like I want to feel better, I want to, you know, I don't like feeling like this, or maybe you're on the other end of it because you've been um uh a lot of that stress, you end up with depleted dopamine levels, and and you can't you can't get that dopamine hit anymore because there's just not a lot of dopamine there. So the illusion that happens is that that relapse will relieve the pressure. So if I use again, I'll get I'll get something back. I'll get I need something. So the the addict brain starts lying to you. Um stopping would make life easier, wrong, it makes life smaller, right? And and that's where the addict brain lies. Um it lies to you. So the three forms of giving up. Um there's the accidental giving up, that that passive drift into old habits, like it's just this accidental. I uh just I didn't c I didn't I don't feel like I was consciously thinking about it. It just kind of drifted into that, and and you just didn't really put up much of a fight. There was not that resistance there. Uh the second one is the experimental giving up. Um you're just trying to see if you can handle a little usage, you know, see see if it haps a little bit, happen, um, helps a little bit, see if it makes a difference. I'll just see if I can handle it. Maybe I can use just a little bit, and that's the accidental giving up. That's when you're going out and experimenting. That's not the accidental, that's the experimenting. I'm experim experimenting with my sobriety. Then there's the full surrender to the addiction that happens when you're hopeless. There's all that secrecy, the shutting out support. You just kind of drift, like you don't show up to the rooms anymore, you're not talking to people. You just, you know, there's just all of a sudden you're just drifting into oblivion. And you just I fully surrender to it. So there's those three forms of giving up the accidental giving up, the experimental giving up, and then the full surrender to the addiction. And that's when you know it's it's gotten bad. And so I'm just fatigued. I I I'm just at the end. I can't do this anymore, I can't take it anymore. Maybe that's what's going on with you. So why people want to quit recovery? Why do you want to quit? Well, there's emotional reasons. Um, you've got trauma triggering going on. Maybe maybe there's some um some aspect of what you were dealing with in the first place that you're coping with the the addiction that's starting to kick in. And so you have these trauma triggers that happen. Um whatever they are, it doesn't matter if it's physical or sexual or emotional or or or or or you know, just your life is just getting traumatized again. Then there's the shame cycles. Um you you start feeling shame, or people start throwing shame at you. You know, they start bringing up the past, and you know, you can't get away from it. So the shame, you feel shame or you're getting shamed. And that again then re triggers the trauma. Um, especially if it's not something you're you're really strong in that recovery in that way, uh, recovering from the shame. Isolation. You feel isolated. I get a lot of that now. These days it's really hard because people learn to shut down during the shutdown and the COVID, right? So uh they started to isolate and people kind of got used to isolating. I've noticed that. Um, people are not as social as they used to be, they're afraid to approach. We learned how to isolate by you know getting onto our phones and getting into social media and and engaging in that stuff. And that isolation just kind of grows as the more you engage in isolation, the more you start disconnecting from people, the less you can relate to them, the less they can relate to you. Um, maybe there's you know less opportunities for connectivity. Um, that's that's why I really am a strong advocate of people getting into the rooms and getting into those meetings because that that breaks the cycle of isolation. Then there's a possibility that there's family conflict, uh, or let's call it relationship conflict, but within the family, the the the family um create there's a there's a conflict that arises. Maybe there wasn't there before. Um, it had nothing to do with the previous addiction experience that you had, or maybe it is the previous experien uh uh addiction experience that you had. So when you are feeling that conflict, um you maybe you don't know what to do with it. And hopefully, what if you've followed my advice and you've gotten into groups, you've gotten into AA or NA or something or smart recovery, something, and you've also gotten into um counseling. And hopefully you've taken my advice and gone into family counseling or couples counseling because um the enemy wants to take your relationships from you. Remember that? Like it wants to take your relationships to break your spirit. So if you're um if you're feeling that and you and you that conflict and you don't know what to do with it, that can be a uh a reason to quit recovery. It's like, ah, forget it. That my life, I'm gonna give this up. Spiritual discouragement. There's one for you. If you feel like you're you're abandoned by God, you you have nowhere to go. It's like you're back at that same place you were when you were listening to the enemies, kind of chirping away in your ear that you know, you follow me, don't follow God. Believing you're beyond grace. This is a huge one for my clients, believing that you're not worthy of accepting God's love in your life. You can't accept this higher power loving you because you're so bad, you've done so many things. And people will go back to that. If they get re triggered because of events, they'll go back to that idea that um they're beyond grace. And it's again, it's the enemy working on you. Um, God hasn't left you, you've walked into the rip current. The the lifeline is still there. You don't have to get, you know, that that riptide, man, it'll pull you right out. And so when you walk into it, purposefully walk into it, you know. It's just like I saw these things, I know this stuff, I know that I need to do these things, I know that I need to get into meeting. I know that I need to see a therapist, I know I need to be open and honest. I need I need that connectivity. Those are the lifelines. And and if you walk into the destruction, you're gonna kind of ignore those. So there are also some practical reasons why you might end up giving up on your recovery. Stress, work stress, uh that's a big one, job stress, um, physical stress. I I'm not feeling well, I'm tired all the time. I'm getting older. Some of my older clients um they struggle with that. You know, they're starting, body's starting to break down. They feel the stress, stress of um finances, uh financial hardships. That's a big one, relationship strain, exhaustion from constant vigilance about whatever's going on. You've got hypervigilance about your recovery or your sobriety or the threat response you might be having with what's going on around you. Those are the practical reasons that you could be uh giving up. So that moment of clarity, sometimes giving up is really a longing for relief. It's I I want relief. It's not about failure, it's not failure. That's not failure. I I want relief, and so you you're looking for it and you can't seem to find it. And maybe you're looking in the wrong places, or maybe you're not looking at all, but you want that relief and you really have that longing for relief. That's not a failure, and so we move towards recovery by engaging. So, what do you do when you want to quit? What how how does that work? What do you do? Well, be honest. I keep saying this in these podcasts over and over. Like, be truthful, be honest, be open with yourself to start with, if not with somebody else, but start with yourself. Like, I am flawed, I need help, I feel like I'm in a bad place. That's fine. You just just but be honest with yourself, be truthful. Honesty is the oxygen in recovery. It without it, you're gonna suffocate. So don't give up, even though you say, I want to give up. Admit that. I want to give up. Say that. That's the truth in that moment. So that admission is actually a turning point for you. It's that realization, it's you being honest with yourself. So be honest with yourself. Um step back from the emotion. How about that? Observe, don't absorb. You've heard that before, right? Step back from the emotion, whatever you're experiencing. You don't have to have a boundaryless life. You can step back from the emotion that you're experiencing. Watch the urge and be super aware, like super aware of that urge. This is one that that many times my clients kind of ignore at first. They sometimes they'll learn to do this later on, but watch the urge, like a scientist, observe it. Like observe what's happening with you. Like, ooh, I'm man, what's this about? Um, I feel like I am in this place. Wow. I this is huh. This is something. This is when I'm when I'm listening to a client sitting across the room from me in their chair, and they're telling me something, and I listen to it, I don't repeat it back to them. I go, Wow, that's something. And and they look at me like, huh? And I go, Did you you heard what you said, right? Are you what are you feeling right now? Like, do you are you aware that you seem like really angry right now? I can hear it in your voice, I can feel it from you. So they become less aware of it, even though they're experiencing it. So they're not being vigilant in that way. But you don't want to, you don't want to become the feeling. Like, don't become the anger, don't become the depression, don't become the anxiety. You're experiencing these things, and it's making you think this way. But if you allow yourself to surrender over to it and you become and you kind of merge with that feeling, oh buddy, man, you're trapped, right? So um, when you're feeling this, when you're feeling these urges, you're feeling this angst, this upset, this whatever's going on, you gotta use your lifelines, you gotta get your lifeguards, you gotta get, you know, reach out to your sponsor, call a therapist, call a trusted friend, call that family member who who won't rescue you, won't try to fix your problems, but will support you. The one that's the the steady rock that you're you're used to engaging with. Because this is the moment when you need that person, not solitude. Processing your feelings is great, but you don't want to be in solitude. Isolation is addiction's best friend. Don't isolate because that's where the that's where it starts kind of eating away at you. So reach out and call those people, the sponsor, the therapist, the friend, the the um and the trusted friend, I mean by that, the person who um maybe somebody that's in the program, right? Or somebody that gets it. So you why why is this happening? Um the empty cup. If you have a full cup, your cup's getting full, it's full of like I I can't take this anymore. My my wife, my my husband, my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my son, my daughter, my nephew, my um sister, my brother. There's just piling stuff onto you, it's just heaping onto you. You gotta empty that cup. So if you if you if you can empty that cup with all these things I've talked about, now you can fill it with some new things. But also you got to ask yourself some questions. Who suffers if I quit in my recovery? That's a good question. And if you think about that, the impact, this is part of the awakening that you have, the emotional awakening and the spiritual awakening you have as you're working on recovery, you realize that it's not just you in isolation who's suffering from the addiction, there are other people. So ask yourself that question who suffers if I quit? Like if I stop if I started drinking again, my kids are gonna suffer, my wife's gonna suffer really badly. And I know that, so I don't drink because they will suffer. And or or or here's a good question for you what future am I forfeiting? I've done all these things, I've gained all this stuff. This feels really good. I'm in a very good place. This feels good. What am I gonna lose? And the so you're being conscious of awareness. What did it cost me to get this far? What it what did it cost me to get this far? Um I don't want to lose what I have. This feels good to me. I don't want to lose that. So you can you if you can start rationally talking to yourself, let that rational brain talk to you. And when you're trying to quit again, right? Or you're trying to push off and you've had this accident, maybe you've had a relapse. Um you can make a commitment. Um I'm gonna I'm going to not quit. I'm gonna hang on for 24 hours. I'm gonna it's it's whatever time right now. It's three o'clock in the afternoon. I'm gonna wait until three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I'm gonna see what happens if I just don't quit. I'm gonna stay abstinent for the next 10 minutes. Maybe you can't go 24 hours, maybe 10 minutes. I'm just gonna sit here. I'm gonna sit with this for 10 minutes and see if I can process through. And maybe if the next, you know, if that 10 minutes goes by, maybe you can add another 10. So you've got this overwhelming feeling that you're trying to overcome. So these small things can make a difference. If I can get through today, it's like in in AA, we talk about um, you know, I I'm just gonna get through today. I'm gonna worry about today. And I've heard people talk about the hour. I'm gonna get through the hour. I had one guy who said, I just need to get through the minute. He would look at his watch and he's like, Okay, I'm just gonna get through this one minute. And he would start adding the minutes up, and pretty soon he had an hour, but I mean it was like he had to really be focused. So um, there's some there's some um possibility there for you, right? Not by yourself, not uh ignoring what's going on, paying attention to what you're feeling, making little commitments to continue that abstinence to get through, and hopefully you've gotten enough support at that point. So working in a way that you realize that you are are flawed and you have you know the possibility for these accidents, um, but you don't want the accident to be there. And maybe you did have an accident, maybe you did have an experiment, maybe you did have a relapse, and it's okay, you're still loved. Um let us not become weary in doing good. Or, you know, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. If you think about it, you know, the stories of Jesus, he was he was yeah, he was walking around with the people that are broken all the time. That's why they were so suspicious. He's got all these people that are broken, and he seems to be healing them and making them feel better and ha and improving their lives. And he would be with those people, he wouldn't be with the people that were fine. He'd go with the the murderers and the the poor and the crippled and the blind and you know the hopeless. So strengthening what you surrender, not what you hide. That's the goal. You want to strengthen what you surrender. I'm going to turn it over. I'm going to lay it at his feet. What do you but don't hide? This that's crazy. So when someone, uh, maybe, maybe the this is maybe this is not necessarily for the addict, but the the loved one of an addict. When someone you love is giving up, what do you do? And and those of us who were in recovery, we'll see people suffer. And we don't know, you know, we try to help them, and and some people are very good at it, but some of us are not so good. So here, how about you uh uh not panic? How about that? Don't if you get worked up, people match energy, right? So if I'm all anxious, the person I'm talking to is probably gonna get ramped up and anxious. We have to we have to kind of demonstrate so they can we're gonna mirror what they need to do, right? Don't panic. You don't have to swim out the first time you see somebody, something like, oh, I gotta go get them. You don't have to do that. Don't become a victim when you when you're performing a rescue. And if you're in recovery and you're seeing somebody who's suffering, it can be hard. And that's one of the problems that uh people have when they're in the rooms and their friends um disappear and they go back out. We we feel it, we feel that when they are suffering and they've fallen into that. Help uh what so how so how do you demonstrate support? Um, healthy support versus harmful enabling, supporting versus enabling. Bearing witness, that's a huge thing. I'm here. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna let you say what you need to say. I'm not gonna throw out opinions, I'm not gonna shame you, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, I'm not gonna say that, you know. Well, use me as an example. That's a big one. Like that's very narcissistic. I'm not gonna do any of those things. I'm just gonna bear witness here. I'm just gonna, you know what? You want to get drunk? Okay. Well, I'm just gonna sit here with you. And it's really funny when when that happens, um, you you're you're breaking through the barrier of isolation with the person who's who's potentially relapsing. It's a very strong thing. Um when somebody's there with you. Set your own boundaries, set your boundaries. Um, what am I willing to do? What can't I do? And I know I can't, so I'm gonna put a boundary there. Setting healthy boundaries and then releasing responsibility. It's my responsibility to get you to stop. It's not, it's the person's responsibility to stop. I'm gonna be here, I'll bear witness, and I'll be supporting you. But it's not my responsibility because now that's gonna be triggering me. So you can't nag, don't shame, don't threaten, don't rescue financially. That's a huge one. Everybody, everybody wants to go in and to oh, oh, oh, okay, I know you're in the problem here. I'm gonna financially support you during this uh problem. No, you can throw a rope to the person, but you can't jump in on top of that, right? So finding some real way of helping a person is about being there, and we know that because we're in the rooms, like you know, it's like you reach out to the sponsor. What what should they say? Hey, what's going on with you? Not like you know, start telling them what to do. It's like what's going on with you? Figure out what's going on, assess it, understand what the problem is. What are the what are they dealing with? Second thing, where are you? And okay, and then you go to where they are and you just show up. A lot of times that's all you gotta do. It's such it's so strange when I've done that with people and I've shown up wherever they are, and they're in that place where they're they're drinking or they're about to or they're gonna get high or whatever, it breaks it breaks it all down. All the barriers all of a sudden are gone. It's like, what are you doing here? And I'm looking at them going, Well, what are you doing here? And and it's like you can't look, I'm here, I'm here for you. And sometimes that's enough for a person. So when somebody uh wants to quit, the moment that they choose not to quit, then you've had that change. And what has changed? Well, you're bearing witness to it, you're you know, you're supporting them, you're not enabling them, you're giving them hope. And and hopelessness is is a big problem when it comes to um addiction and dealing with it, feeling hopeless. I hear that every week with my clients. Somebody will bring that up, feeling homeless. So if you're thinking listen, if you're listening to this and you're thinking about giving up, it means you're still fighting. You know, you haven't fully given up, you're thinking about it. But don't quit a journey you're not walking. Move. You know, the the the thing that I am uh constantly telling people is if if you're not failing, then you're not trying. Because trying is all about learning and failing, and that's what these little accidents and the experiments and the relapses teach us. So don't quit that journey. You're on the recovery path, and it's a zigzaggy, not a straight line to recovery. This is how we learn. So, what I want you to do is think about these things that I've talked about and incorporate them into your life, into your recovery. And please don't give up because there's always hope. You just have to keep trying. Well, that's this edition of Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard. I hope you've uh learned something today and you've gotten a little bit of hope and guidance along the way. Like this button, please subscribe and like a comment, and the thumbs up, whichever button, whatever button, and put it on the team, and channel on the website called money money.com and so on, but it's an out. It's not worth anyone to say, I'm gonna do this video.