When a person is motivated in two opposing directions at the same time, that’s ambivalence. Ambivalence is a defining feature not just of struggles with substance use, but of change in general.
— Jeffrey Foote and Carrie Wilkens, Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change (2014)
We are taught to shame ambivalence. We call it weakness, fence-sitting, lack of commitment. We expect ourselves to want one thing cleanly, to move toward it without hesitation. When we waver, we assume something is wrong with us. But ambivalence is information. It tells us we’re weighing competing values, that both sides of the equation carry real weight.
Foote and Wilkens frame this tension as a ledger: costs on one side, benefits on the other. The challenge is that short-term benefits usually outweigh long-term costs. The relief is immediate; the consequences accumulate slowly. Using quiets anxiety right now. The damaged trust shows up months later. Gambling delivers a rush tonight. The financial wreckage builds over years. Our brains are wired to prioritize what’s in front of us, which is why substances and behaviours that work fast hook us hard. We discount future costs because they feel abstract, while present relief feels desperately real.
Change happens when something shifts the balance. Costs that were distant become immediate—the hangover stops us from showing up at work, debt collectors start calling, we can’t look ourselves in the mirror anymore. Or benefits that seemed essential start feeling less so—we find another way to relax, the escape stops working as well, we notice we’re trading hours of relief for days of misery. The research shows most people who recover do so when they realize, in their own time and their own way, that the costs finally outweigh the benefits. Not because someone told them so, but because they felt it themselves.
In the rooms, we’re taught early on to inventory the wreckage. We list what substances or behaviours cost us: relationships, jobs, health, self-respect. But we rarely acknowledge what they gave us. It matters, though—not because we’re supposed to miss them, but because understanding what we got shows us what we need to replace. If cocaine gave us confidence in social situations, we need to learn another way to feel confident. If drinking numbed chronic pain, we need to address that pain directly. The benefits don’t justify the costs, but they explain the pull. And that pull won’t stop just because we ignore it.
Ambivalence doesn’t go away just because we’ve decided to change. It shows up in early recovery when we miss the ease of using. It reappears months later when we’re tired and the old solution seems simpler than the new one. If we treat this wavering as failure, we’ll hide it. If we understand it as normal—as the brain honestly assessing two familiar options—we can work with it. The ledger doesn’t shame us for being pulled in two directions. It shows us exactly where the work lives.
What am I still ambivalent about in my recovery, and what does that ambivalence tell me I’m weighing?
Where have I shamed myself for wavering instead of getting curious about what’s pulling me in two directions?
What did my substance or behaviour actually give me, and how am I replacing that now?
When the ledger shifts toward change, what tips the balance—consequences becoming real, or alternatives becoming more appealing?
