Here is a phrase that used to make me cringe: “It is what it is.”
I used to hear it and think, what a lazy way to avoid responsibility. A resignation. A shrug. A surrender to helplessness. And yes, it can absolutely be used that way, as an unthinking acceptance of whatever is happening without any intention to respond to it.
But without alcohol clouding my thinking, I have come to understand something deeper and far more useful about genuine acceptance.
When we truly accept what is, we consciously and deliberately choose how to respond to it. Instead of burning energy on wishing things were different, complaining, or denying reality, we use that energy to respond thoughtfully and honestly. That is where real change begins.
What Acceptance Actually Means
Acceptance is not about being passive. It is not about being walked over or sitting still while life happens around you. It is not resignation.
It is about looking at what is in front of you and saying: okay, this is what is here. Now, how do I want to meet it?
It is the shift from reacting automatically to responding deliberately. From being driven by old patterns to making a conscious choice.
Most of us are reasonably good at this in professional settings. When others are watching and we have a reputation to maintain, we draw on experience and clear thinking to handle difficult situations. We might vent to a colleague, but we ultimately deal with what is in front of us.
In our personal lives it is much harder. We get stuck in denial, resistance, or passivity instead. And that is often where alcohol enters the picture.
Why Facing Reality Is Hard
Facing reality is genuinely difficult. Passive acceptance can feel safer because it avoids the discomfort of truth. But passive acceptance is often just a more comfortable name for dishonesty with ourselves.
We have been taught, in subtle and not so subtle ways, that feeling bad means something is wrong. So we mask it, avoid it, and push the difficult feelings down. We tell ourselves that if we stop resisting, we will get stuck in sadness or fear forever.
But here is what years of practice and many personal struggles have shown me. It is not the emotion that holds us stuck. It is our resistance to it.
When we avoid a feeling rather than letting it move through us, it does not disappear. It gets stored. The first layer of suffering is seeing a difficult truth. The second, deeper layer is the quiet awareness that we are avoiding it. And over years of ignoring hard feelings, that second layer accumulates into something much heavier, often showing up as self-criticism and a persistent sense of not being in control of your own life.
Every Emotion Passes
Every emotion follows a similar pattern. It rises, it peaks, and it fades. If we do not feed it or fight it, it passes on its own. It always does.
But most of us were never taught how to actually feel uncomfortable emotions. We numb them, avoid them, or project them onto other people. We reach for wine, food, or busyness. We do almost anything to avoid sitting with the feeling.
And yet what we are running from, when you strip it back, is often just a physical sensation. A tight chest, a flutter in the belly, a lump in the throat. That is what feels so unbearable. A sensation in the body that, if we allowed it, would move through and pass.
We are conditioned to believe we should feel good all the time. But that is simply not true. Emotions are information. They are not permanent states. They will not kill you. And they will not stay forever if you let them be felt.
What Alcohol Was Covering
For many of us, alcohol was a direct way to avoid feeling. Discomfort? Drink. Stress? Drink. Loneliness, anxiety, boredom? Drink. Instead of being with whatever was arising, we drank it down and told ourselves it was fine.
When we remove alcohol, we are left with life as it is. Raw, real, and unfiltered.
That is when the real work begins. The work of learning to sit with yourself. The work of learning to say: this is hard, and I can handle it.
Every time you choose to feel instead of flee, you build something. Not just tolerance for discomfort, but genuine confidence, because you are proving to yourself that you are not afraid of your own feelings anymore.
The Most Useful Question
When it comes to alcohol, it is easy to slip into passive acceptance and deny what it is really doing. But if you slow down and look at the pattern honestly, you will notice that you drink to change how you feel. To feel more up, calmer, more confident, less anxious. The goal is always to avoid what is and replace it with something more manageable.
What if instead you just felt what you felt? What if you allowed the moment to be as it is?
The shift is simple, though not always easy. Instead of asking how to get rid of the discomfort, ask: given that this is happening, how do I want to respond?
That is acceptance in action. Not collapsing. Not denying. Not avoiding. Consciously choosing.
The Gift of Facing Reality
Reality can be a difficult teacher. But it is also a generous one. When we stop fighting it, we find the lesson, the invitation, and the clearest way forward.
Life is messy and overwhelming at times. It is also full of moments that are genuinely good, and full of second chances. When we stop wasting energy on avoiding or denying what is, we finally get to start living it.
It is what it is. Now, what will you do with it?
If you want to understand more about the emotions that come up when you stop drinking and why they feel so intense at first, why quitting alcohol feels so hard in the first days covers this honestly. And if you are ready to do this work with support, find out more about working with Sarah Connelly.
