Stress, Substance Use, and the Need to “Take the Edge Off”

By Micaela Malo, LADC I, LCSW

For many people, substance use does not begin with a desire to lose control. It begins with a desire to feel relief — to “take the edge off.”

After stress, emotional pain, loneliness, anxiety, grief, anger, or exhaustion, alcohol and drugs can offer something the nervous system desperately wants: temporary relief. In just a few minutes, the body may feel calmer, quieter, and more manageable.

In the short term, these behaviors can feel effective because they quickly change how someone feels internally.

This process is powerful.

Over time, however, the brain begins associating substances with safety, regulation, and relief. Reaching for alcohol or drugs can become increasingly automatic. The person is no longer fully thinking through long-term consequences or whether the behavior aligns with their values. The nervous system simply learns: this helps me escape discomfort quickly.

Eventually, substance use can become tied to emotional survival and nervous system regulation. Once dependence develops, the body may begin relying on the substance to function normally, making abrupt cessation emotionally and physically destabilizing, and in some cases medically dangerous due to withdrawal symptoms.

Why Emotional Discomfort Feels So Intolerable

Many people struggling with addiction are not weak or lacking discipline. Often, they have a limited ability to tolerate difficult internal experiences without becoming overwhelmed.

Many mental health conditions that commonly co-occur with substance use disorders — including anxiety, PTSD, depression, ADHD, and trauma-related disorders — can significantly impact emotional and nervous system regulation. People may:

• Become overwhelmed quickly
• Experience emotions intensely
• Struggle with impulsivity
• Get stuck in rumination, shame, or avoidance
• React automatically to stress or discomfort

When distress becomes too intense, the nervous system naturally searches for the fastest possible escape route. Substances work quickly because they directly impact the nervous system. The problem is that while substances temporarily reduce discomfort, they do not help the body build resilience or increase the ability to process distress safely over time. Instead, the brain becomes increasingly reliant on external regulation.

Building Resilience to Discomfort

Recovery is not simply about removing substances. It is about helping the nervous system learn that difficult emotions and physical sensations can be experienced, tolerated, and moved through without immediately escaping them.

Healing involves learning a different relationship with discomfort.

Approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness practices, somatic therapies, and Buddhist psychology can be especially helpful because they directly address the relationship people have with discomfort. Rather than asking, “How do I get rid of this feeling immediately?” these approaches shift the question toward:

Instead of immediately reacting to distress, individuals begin learning how to slow down and notice what is happening internally. Attention shifts away from rumination and cognitive looping, and toward the direct physical experience of emotion in the body. Research shows that naming emotions can help reduce nervous system activation by engaging areas of the brain associated with awareness and regulation.

One of the first steps is identifying and labeling the emotional experience clearly:

From there, the focus shifts to noticing how the emotion exists physically in the body:

This process helps create psychological flexibility by separating the person from the emotion, rather than becoming consumed by it. The goal is not to eliminate feelings, but to notice them, tolerate them, and respond intentionally rather than automatically escaping through substances or other behaviors. Over time, the nervous system learns that emotions can rise, peak, and settle without immediate avoidance.

Expanding the Window of Tolerance

These practices help expand what clinicians often call the “window of tolerance” — the range in which someone can experience stress or emotion without becoming emotionally flooded, dissociated, impulsive, or shut down.

When people live in chronic stress, trauma, or addiction cycles, this window often becomes very narrow. Small stressors can trigger overwhelming emotional activation or collapse. Recovery involves helping the nervous system become more flexible and resilient.

Helpful tools may include:

• Mindfulness and grounding practices
• Breathwork
• Somatic awareness exercises
• Therapy and trauma-informed treatment
• Meditation
• Support groups and connection
• Emotional regulation skills
• Daily routines that support nervous system stability

Recovery is not about never feeling stress, sadness, anger, or overwhelm again. It is about developing the ability to stay present with discomfort without immediately needing to escape it.

Healing the Nervous System

Substance use disorders are deeply connected to the nervous system and the body’s attempt to regulate stress, pain, and emotional overwhelm. Many people have spent years automatically reaching outside themselves for relief because they were never taught how to safely work with difficult emotions internally.

Healing involves learning a different relationship with discomfort:

• Not suppressing it
• Not fearing it
• Not immediately escaping it

As this capacity develops, space is created for greater self-awareness, insight, and connection. Practices such as mindfulness, ACT, somatic awareness, and meditation help quiet automatic survival responses so people can become more emotionally present and open to meaning, connection, and inspiration rather than remaining trapped in cycles of avoidance and reactivity.

This connects closely to the 11th Step in Alcoholics Anonymous, which encourages individuals to deepen conscious connection with themselves, others, and something greater. When the nervous system remains highly reactive and disconnected from present-moment awareness, accessing that connection can become extremely difficult.

This process of pausing, reflecting, and seeking guidance beyond immediate impulse takes time, support, self-awareness, and practice. But it is possible:

“We come to rely upon it.”