Why Sitting With Discomfort Is One of the Hardest Parts of Recovery. Change, Transition and Learning to Stay.

Recovery isn’t hard because life suddenly gets worse.

Recovery is hard because we stop numbing, and because we enter a period of transition.

Change is the decision to stop using.

Transition is everything that happens after.

For many people in addiction, substances weren’t about chasing pleasure, they were about escaping discomfort. Emotional pain, anxiety, shame, loneliness, boredom, fear. When the substance goes, the feelings don’t disappear. They arrive louder, sharper, and unfamiliar.

Learning to sit with discomfort isn’t just part of recovery,

it’s part of navigating the in-between space of change.

Change vs Transition in Recovery

Change is often visible:

• stopping drinking or using

• attending meetings

• engaging in therapy

• changing routines

Transition is internal:

• learning who you are without substances

• tolerating emotions you used to escape

• adjusting to a quieter nervous system

• grieving old coping strategies

• sitting in uncertainty

Many people relapse not because they don’t want change,

but because the transition feels unbearable.

Why Discomfort Feels So Intense During Transition

When we use substances over time, the nervous system adapts. It learns that relief comes quickly and externally. Alcohol, drugs, compulsive behaviours, they all interrupt emotional discomfort fast.

In recovery, that shortcut disappears.

What replaces it is often:

• restlessness

• agitation

• emotional overwhelm

• anxiety without a clear reason

• a sense of “I don’t know who I am anymore”

This isn’t weakness.

It’s a nervous system in transition, learning a new way to regulate.

Discomfort Is Not the Same as Danger

One of the most important lessons in recovery is this:

Discomfort does not mean danger.

In transition, the body often interprets uncertainty as threat. Especially for people with trauma histories, emotional discomfort can trigger survival responses, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

This is why early recovery can feel so unsafe, even when life is objectively improving.

The urge to escape isn’t about wanting to use,

it’s about wanting the transition to stop.

Trauma, Addiction, and Avoiding Transition

Many people in addiction grew up in environments where emotions weren’t safe or welcome. Change happened without explanation. Stability couldn’t be relied on.

Substances then became a way to control internal states.

Addiction didn’t create the problem,

it offered certainty in an uncertain world.

Recovery removes that certainty. Transition brings up grief, fear, and identity confusion:

• “Who am I without this?”

• “What if I can’t cope?”

• “What if this never gets easier?”

These questions are part of healing, not signs of failure.

The Urge to Escape the In-Between

Transition is uncomfortable because it has no clear ending.

Discomfort often triggers the urge to:

• fix

• distract

• control

• people-please

• relapse

This isn’t recovery going wrong.

It’s the nervous system struggling to tolerate not knowing.

Learning to pause instead of react is one of the most powerful skills recovery offers.

What Sitting With Discomfort Really Means

Sitting with discomfort doesn’t mean forcing yourself to suffer.

It means:

• acknowledging that you are in transition

• allowing emotions without rushing to resolve them

• noticing sensations without judgement

• staying present even when it’s messy

Transition isn’t something to get through quickly.

It’s something the nervous system needs time to adjust to.

How Therapy Supports Change and Transition

Therapy provides a holding space during transition, somewhere emotions can exist without being acted out or shut down.

In therapy, people learn to:

• understand triggers linked to change

• regulate the nervous system during uncertainty

• grieve old identities and coping strategies

• develop self-trust

• increase emotional tolerance

• build a sense of safety without substances

Therapy doesn’t rush transition.

It supports it.

Recovery Is Not Just Change, It’s Becoming

Addiction removes choice.

Recovery slowly returns it.

Each time you sit with discomfort, even briefly, you’re not just staying sober.

You’re learning that you can survive change.

Transition is uncomfortable because something new is forming.

You don’t need to have it all worked out.

You don’t need to feel confident yet.

Discomfort is not the enemy.

Transition is not failure.

Final Thought

Change asks us to stop.

Transition asks us to stay.

Many people in recovery believe they are failing because they feel uncomfortable, uncertain, or unsettled. In reality, these feelings are often signs that something old is loosening and something new hasn’t fully formed yet. Change and transition can only happen when we step out of our comfort zone.

If you’re in that in-between space, you’re not doing recovery wrong.

You’re doing the hardest part.

Discomfort doesn’t mean you’re going backwards.

It often means you’re moving forward without the old protections in place.

Recovery isn’t about rushing through change.

It’s about learning to trust yourself during transition — one moment at a time.

And that, in itself, is healing.