Willpower Won’t Save You: The Myth That Needs to Be Stopped
- karenmrubinstein
- Jun 29
- 7 min read
How False Beliefs Sabotage Sobriety (and What Actually Works)
"I'm joining an online moderate drinking group today," I excitedly told my husband, sitting at our dining table as he sipped the coffee I’d just poured. The sun was shining through the window behind him, so I couldn't quite see his expression—but I heard a flat tone say, "Okay," then a pause, "Do you think it will help?"
My chipper voice dropped a few octaves to match his flat tone. “I hope so.”
Then I got annoyed at his less-than-enthusiastic attitude. Of course it will work! This online course sounded amazing and was being taught by a woman who had stopped drinking. She did it! She must know what she’s doing.
Now with some of my own excitement sparking again, I sang out in my best Laura Petrie voice, “Of course it will, Barry! This is the woman who stopped drinking and will show me how to do it!”
I fed the cats and dog. Cooked some eggs. And got mentally prepared to start the course and my new sober life.
At 2:55 sharp, I sat at my computer waiting for the host of the Zoom webinar to let me in. It started at 3, which was noon in California, where my new sober guru lived. California! I’d lived in L.A. for a year and still missed the vibrancy of people who worked to play—who put healthy eating and exercise and emotional growth high on life’s priority list.
My guru was from CALIFORNIA. She had to be good!
When she popped up in the top left corner of the Zoom grid—bright smile, perfect tan, shiny hair—I just knew this was going to work.
I downloaded the workbook. I followed every step. Lemon water every morning. Yoga to the sound of Tibetan singing bowls. Daily affirmations read from post-it notes pasted on my bathroom mirror.
And for a few weeks? I really did feel good. Like something was shifting. Like the fog was lifting and I was finally—finally—getting it.
I even met another woman from the webinar who lived just a half hour from me in New Jersey, and we started going to a yoga class—one that featured Kundalini yoga, just like our guru recommended.
She had two young boys and wanted to quit drinking for them. We swapped stories. But when she shared her drunkalogue with me, I nodded and said, “Hmm, hmm. Yeah, me too,” over and over.
But it wasn’t the same. Not even close. Hers felt… softer. Gentler.
Her story looked like a bubbly New Hampshire stream—clear, sparkling, trickling over smooth stones with butterflies fluttering by.
Mine? Mine looked like a cavernous, hostile quarry. Steam shovels clawing through scorched boulders and TNT blasting rocks through the air.
Her “rock bottom” was an extra couple glasses of wine on weekends.
Mine? Bottles. Handles. Blackouts. Vodka hidden under my bed.
It Wasn’t a Willpower Problem
Still, I graduated.
Did the entire workbook and all the suggestions. Stayed sober for two months. Until the day I had one glass of wine. Because that was the point—how to drink in moderation.
“I can have one,” I thought, hopeful, sipping a classic Chardonnay—chilled and poured into a crystal wine glass, like a woman in control.
One became two. Two became twelve. And just like that, I was drinking even more than I ever had before.
My yoga friend stayed sober. I spiraled deeper.
It would take two more years before I crashed through to the lowest boulder in my quarry and finally surrendered for real. White flag flying. Nothing left to fight with.
Some Can Moderate. Some Can’t.
Looking back, I see now that she and I weren’t in the same category. Not even close. She drank more than she wanted to. I drank to survive.
There’s actually a name for that difference—and it’s in the "Big Book" of my 12 Step recovery program, right there in Chapter Two.They describe three kinds of drinkers:
Moderate drinkers, who can take it or leave it.
Hard drinkers, who may suffer physically or emotionally from drinking—but can stop if the consequences get bad enough.
And then there’s the real alcoholic—the one who can’t stop, no matter how bad it gets.
That last one was me.
My friend found structure, support, and a reason to stay sober—and for her it worked.
But for me, no amount of yoga, journaling, or accountability ever stuck.
Not because I didn’t care.
Not because I was "weaker."
Not because I didn’t have enough to lose.
But because I was dealing with something deeper—something those tools alone couldn’t touch.
Real alcoholism isn’t solved with lifestyle upgrades. It’s not a habit you hack or a craving you control. It’s a progressive, deadly condition. And if you’re trying to recover from that by sheer effort or routines—it’s like trying to stop a freight train with a lemon wedge.
What We’ve Been Taught Is a Lie
We live in a culture that glorifies white-knuckling. Push through. Try harder. Be better. Fix yourself. And when it doesn’t work? The blame lands squarely on your shoulders.
You must not want it badly enough.
But what if the real problem isn’t effort?
What if the real problem is the story we’ve been told about what change requires?
Because healing doesn’t happen through punishment.
You don’t earn sobriety by shaming yourself into it.
Recovery isn’t the result of “doing more.”
It’s the result of finally feeling safe enough to stop pretending.
The myth that people drink because they’re weak is still everywhere.
But I’ve coached women who have excelled in business, survived deep traumas, buried loved ones, and escaped financial ruin—and still found themselves crumbling at the sight of a wine bottle at the end of the day.
Not because they’re soft.
Because they were taught to fight the wrong enemy.
As the addiction and trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté says:
“Addiction is not the primary problem. It’s an attempt to solve a problem.”
And that problem? It’s often pain. Disconnection. Fear. A nervous system that’s been in overdrive for so long, alcohol starts to feel like the only way to shut it down.
Women Are Not Weak—We’re Worn Thin
The women I work with in my transformational sessions aren’t fragile. They’re exhausted. They’ve been performing strength for so long they forgot what softness feels like. They drink not because they’re reckless—but because they’ve never been allowed to fall apart.
They don’t need more self-control. They need permission to stop fighting themselves.
And they need to know this truth: you’re not stuck because you’re lazy or broken. You’re stuck because you’ve been taught to muscle through instead of slow down.
And that’s not your fault.
Dr. Kristin Neff, who pioneered the field of self-compassion research, says:
“We give ourselves compassion not to feel better, but because we feel bad.”
And when you feel bad—truly bad, at your lowest—what you need isn’t another habit tracker or another round of shaming.
You need space. Honesty. Safety.
You need someone to say:
You’re allowed to stop performing now.
You’re allowed to begin again—without proving anything first.
The Inner Critic Doesn’t Heal You—Your Inner Coach Does
That voice in your head that tells you:
“You’ll never change.”
“You always mess it up.”
“You’re too far gone.”
That voice isn’t truth. That voice is programming. It’s fear. It’s every old belief you absorbed when you were doing your best to survive.
And it doesn’t belong in your future.
You don’t need to yell over it.
You need to replace it—with something kinder.
Your inner coach. The part of you that says:
"You’re allowed to start here.”
“You’re not broken.”
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
Willpower Fizzles. Belief Heals.
The women I coach today don’t need a new morning routine. They don’t need more discipline. They’ve already proved they can survive impossible things.
What they need is a new belief system. One that finally allows them to rest.
Because change doesn’t happen when you push harder.
Change happens when you feel safe enough to surrender.
So Let Me Ask You—What’s the Belief You’re Still Carrying?
Is your belief:
“I’ll always mess things up”?
“I’m too old to change”?
“I’ve already ruined everything”?
Because as long as that belief lives in the back of your mind, no workbook, wellness tip, or willpower hack is going to stick.
The truth is—our actions come from beliefs.
And those beliefs come from thoughts we picked up long ago.
Most of the time, we don’t even realize they’re there—until we find ourselves reacting, shutting down, or reaching for something to numb the pain.
As a Transformational Recovery Guide, that’s the work I do.
I help women uncover the buried thoughts and stories running the show—the ones they don’t even realize are sabotaging their growth.
Once those old beliefs come into the light—we release them.
And in their place, we build something solid:
A grounded recovery. A healthy, honest, sustainable way of living.
That’s the emotional sobriety I wrote about last week-Emotional Sobriety: What It Is and Why It Matters:
Not white-knuckling. Not controlling.
But aligning with your truest, kindest, most grounded self—and letting your choices flow from there.
As Bill Wilson said:
“The next frontier of recovery is emotional sobriety.”
And he was right.
Emotional sobriety is the foundation.
Not lemon water. Not habit stacks.
Not post-it notes on the mirror.
When you change your beliefs, you change your behavior.
When you tell the truth, you finally start to heal.
Real Recovery Isn’t About Force—It’s About Truth
You are not broken.
You’re not weak.
You’re not lazy.
You’re a woman who’s been trying to hold it all together with duct tape and willpower—when what you really needed was permission to fall apart and be rebuilt with grace.
Recovery doesn’t start when you stop drinking.
It starts when you stop believing the lie that drinking was your only option.
It starts when you finally come home to yourself.
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Ready to See What’s Really Driving Your Patterns?
Before you blame willpower one more time, take a breath—and take the quiz.
It’s short, eye-opening, and might reveal the hidden beliefs that keep sabotaging your progress.
Because awareness is the first step toward emotional sobriety.
And change doesn’t begin with shame.
It begins with truth.
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