Breaking Away
It is often said that “one step at a time” is the way forward if you want to get better.
This is true, to an extent. Change is slow. The difficult part is usually not the change itself, but realizing that change is unavoidable. In other words, resistance is the real battle.
John drinks.
He knows it’s bad. He does it to feel something, to fill a constant void in his life. Of course, drinking alone does not work. He needs scapegoats. Luckily, he has friends who feel almost the same way. Quietly for sure, never daring to expose that uncomfortable truth. It comes bundled with the places they go and the routines they repeat. Everything supports their lifestyle.
John is tired of lying to himself. He decides to change. He does not feel particularly resentful toward his friends. After all, they share jokes, memories, a history.
So he declares it: no more drinks next weekend.
—
The weekend comes.
Surrounded by those friends, someone hands him a beer.
“Oh, I’m not drinking, sorry.”
Silence.
Then, mockery.
“Are you going insane? What are you, a pussy? Come on, man. Are you leaving us behind?”
He feels humiliated. Of course he does not want to leave them behind. After all, he is not trying to leave them, only the drinking. But there is still that voice inside him whispering: This life sucks. Drink. I want to feel something. It gets louder with these people around.
So he drinks.
Laughter returns. The tension dissolves. No more discomfort.
Until the next day. Or a few hours later. Or even in that same moment, when he already needs more than usual just to feel normal.
The battle is lost.
The next day he feels broken, like usual. He blames himself. Life erodes slowly, almost imperceptibly, until one day it is obvious that something has collapsed.
John’s story is one of millions. Drinking aside, it could be anything: hours lost scrolling, distractions that keep you numb, a career built to fill others’ expectations, or even a life partner who quietly keeps you stuck.
If John wants to break away, he has to quit cold turkey. There is no room for partial change here. Drinking exists because there are friends who support it. Because there is an environment that normalizes it. Because there is no safety net for the weekends alone, when the noise stops and the avoidance ends.
Skipping his friends means confronting what he has been avoiding all along: learning how to be alone, and facing his own shadows.
Breaking away is rarely about removing a single habit. It is about leaving some things behind and introducing new ones at the same time. Not rebuilding life from scratch, but accepting that deciding to get better often requires a coordinated shift, not isolated tweaks.
There is no version of John’s better life that includes those friends.
Notice what I did there. Friends are not friends.
Friends care about your well-being. They do not drag you down when you try to improve.
When John tried to escape, the friends felt threatened. Exposed. They needed him to stay. His improvement would reflect their stagnation.
Friends ridicule you when you try to grow.
Life compounds, for worse.
Friends celebrate your progress and support it. You feel inclined to do the same for them.
Life compounds, for better.