Wes Woodland

February, Broken Resolutions, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

February has a very particular feel. Where January often arrives with rules and resolutions
(dry January, no sugar, no scrolling, no spending, no insert-your-thing-here), February comes along quietly, without the same noise or momentum. It’s often the month where we look back and realise one of a few things has happened:

• The resolutions slowly fell away
• The challenge was completed, but everything went straight back to “normal”
• Or it was white-knuckled through, leaving behind a mix of relief, confusion, or quiet disappointment that it didn’t feel as easy as hoped

For many of us, this is where the internal commentary starts to get louder.

• “I failed.”
• “I don’t have enough willpower.”
• “If I really had control, I’d be able to stick to it.”
• “What’s wrong with me?”

These stories can feel convincing, especially in a culture that frames change as a matter of discipline and success. But struggling to stop something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re weak, undisciplined, or doing it wrong. Very often, it means something important was being soothed.

For a while, The Thing (whether that’s drinking, weed, porn, gaming, shopping, exercise, work, swiping, or scrolling) was doing a job. It was helping you relax. Switch off. Escape. Take the edge off. Feel something. Feel less.

And when you take that away, even temporarily, what’s left is often… discomfort.

Not because you’re failing, but because whatever that habit was regulating is suddenly more exposed. But what lacked in January was an enquiry within yourself, so you might not know exactly what was being soothed.

February, in that sense, can become less about broken promises and more about information.
An opportunity to notice what surfaces when something familiar is no longer there.

When something familiar falls away and discomfort shows up in its place, the instinct is often to evaluate ourselves: to measure, to judge, to work out whether we’ve “failed” or crossed a line.

And that usually leads us to the same kinds of questions.

Moving Away From “How Much?” and Towards “What Role?”

The word addiction gets thrown around a lot nowadays.

• “I’m so addicted to my phone.”
• “Chocolate’s my only addiction.”
• “I’m addicted to my work.”
• “I’m addiction to the gym.”

Sometimes it’s said lightly. Sometimes half-joking. Sometimes as a way of expressing frustration without really wanting to look too closely underneath it. But for many of us, the word itself feels loaded. It can shut down curiosity before it’s even had a chance to form. This blog post is an intentional step away from that word. Not because addiction isn’t real, but because labels aren’t always the most helpful place to begin.

Instead of asking, “Is this an addiction?”, we’re going to invite a different kind of question. A gentler one.

When it comes to alcohol, weed, gaming, porn, shopping, exercise, gambling, work, social media, or other substances and behaviours, we usually find ourselves asking things like:

• How often do I do this?
• How much is too much?
• Is this normal?

Those questions make sense. They often show up in very specific, very human moments, such as:

• You wake up the next morning and replay how much you drank, wondering if it was “too much this time.”
• You close a porn tab and feel a familiar mix of release and shame.
• You tell yourself you’re lazy, and then wonder if it’s actually the weed that leaves you unmotivated.
• You look up from your phone and realise hours have disappeared into scrolling. Again.
• You promise yourself “just one more level,” “just one more episode,” “just this once,” and then lose track of time.

These moments aren’t usually about curiosity, but about judgement. About trying to work out whether you’re crossing some invisible line. And often there’s beating yourself up over it. But those questions often miss something more important.

A more useful (and much gentler) question is:

What role does this play in my emotional life?

Once you start looking through this lens, a different picture tends to emerge. Instead of seeing habits as bad choices or lack of control, you begin to see how many of them entered your life for a reason. This shifts the focus from counting and controlling to understanding. It’s about relationship, not rules. Curiosity, not control.

And just to be very clear: this isn’t about diagnosing addiction.

You don’t need a label to explore something that feels off. You don’t need to hit a crisis point. You don’t even need to want to change anything yet. Whenever clients reach out to me because they want to talk about their relationship with a substance or behaviour, I always ask them what their goal is. It doesn’t have to be total abstinence. For some, it’s simply about self-awareness, whereas others are looking for control.

All that I will do is simply invite you to notice why something feels necessary, and what might be happening inside you when it shows up.

When Habits Start as Help, Not Harm

Many of these habits don’t begin as problems at all. They begin as solutions: they take the edge off after a long day; they offer relief, comfort, stimulation, or escape; or they help us switch off, perk up, feel soothed, feel excited, or feel less alone.

In other words, they do something for us. Examples:

• Gaming can provide immersion and escape. A place where the rules are clear, progress is visible, and you feel competent or in control.
• Endless scrolling can numb anxiety or fill uncomfortable silences.
• Swiping on dating apps can offer a quick hit of external validation: I’m wanted, I’m chosen, I matter.
• Shopping can deliver a rush of dopamine and the fantasy of change: a better version of you, a fresh start, a mood lift in a bag.
• Porn can bring release, reassurance, disassociation from reality, fantasy, or a temporary sense of connection without the risks of real intimacy.
• Weed might slow things down, soften hard edges, or quiet a busy mind.
• Alcohol might make conversations easier, emotions looser, or loneliness less sharp.

Seen this way, these behaviours aren’t random or self-sabotaging. They’re often creative attempts to regulate how we feel—to manage stress, soothe discomfort, or meet emotional needs with the tools available at the time.

Problems don’t usually start because something feels bad, but because something works. And over time, that “working” can create tension:

• Maybe you feel uneasy about how often you reach for it.
• Maybe you judge yourself afterwards, even though it helped in the moment.
• Maybe you start asking, “Why do I need this so much?” or “What does it say about me?”
• Maybe you notice it crowding out other things—sleep, motivation, intimacy, presence—and you don’t like that, even if you still want it.

That discomfort isn’t proof that you’re broken or out of control, but often a sign that the role this behaviour plays in your life is worth paying attention to. And that’s where curiosity (and not shame) becomes the most useful next step.

If a behaviour is doing meaningful emotional work, it makes sense that letting go of it, or even questioning it, can feel unsettling. So rather than asking whether you should stop, a more compassionate next step is to listen more closely to what it’s actually doing for you.

Listening to What a Habit Is Actually Doing for You

When a coping strategy becomes the main strategy, it often shows up less in how much we do something, and more in how necessary it starts to feel.

This is usually the point where we turn to Google late at night and type things like:

• “Am I an alcoholic if I drink every night?”
• “How much porn is normal?”
• “How many hours of gaming is too much?”
• “Can you be addicted to shopping?”
• “Is scrolling this much bad for my brain?”
• “Am I lazy, or is it the weed?”

Those questions make a lot of sense. They’re understandable attempts to get certainty and reassurance. But most of them are really asking something else:

• “Is this okay?”
• “Am I okay?”
• “Should I be worried about myself?”

From a psychological point of view, research on habit formation and addiction shows that frequency alone doesn’t tell us very much. Two people can do the same behaviour just as often, and have completely different relationships with it; depending on why they’re doing it, what it helps them manage, and what happens emotionally when it’s taken away.

That’s why a more useful place to look is meaning and function.

So, here are a few questions to help you along. You don’t need to answer these out loud and you don’t need to answer all of them. Just notice what lands.

• When do I most want this?
• What feeling does it soften, numb, or give me a break from?
• What does this give me that I struggle to give myself?
• How do I feel emotionally when I can’t have it?
• Do I feel more connected afterwards… or more numb?
• What would I genuinely miss if this disappeared tomorrow?

If you sit with these questions, you may start to hear something underneath the behaviour:
fatigue, loneliness, low self-esteem, anxiety, boredom, pressure, grief, resentment, hunger for connection, or a need for rest or pleasure that hasn’t had many other places to go.

Notice what isn’t being asked here. None of these questions are about:

• how much
• how often
• whether you “qualify” as having a problem

They’re about meaning, function, and need. Listening at that level tends to create far more clarity, and far less shame, than trying to police yourself with rules ever does.

And even with that clarity, many of us are left with an uncomfortable truth: understanding why something helps doesn’t automatically make the pull disappear. In fact, it can highlight just how conflicted our relationship with it really is.

You Can Enjoy Something and Still Feel Uneasy About It

One of the most confusing—and least talked about—parts of habits and substances is ambivalence.

• You can genuinely enjoy drinking, gaming, exercise, scrolling, working, or using something.
• You can feel relaxed, focused, connected, productive, or alive while you’re doing it.
• You can look successful and “fine” on the outside.
• You can be functional, responsible, and dependable.

…and still carry a quiet sense of unease underneath.

This often gets missed because we’re taught to think in extremes: either something is a problem, or it isn’t. If you’re holding down a job, paying your bills, showing up for your family, and not hitting obvious “rock bottoms,” then surely everything’s okay, right?

Psychologically and neurologically, it’s more nuanced than that.

Many behaviours and substances act as shortcuts in the brain. They tap directly into reward and relief systems, especially dopamine, which is involved in motivation, pleasure, anticipation, and learning. Dopamine isn’t just about enjoyment; it’s about wanting. It teaches the brain: this helped, so remember this.

Alcohol, weed, porn, gambling, shopping, exercise, gaming, scrolling, swiping, even overworking can all reliably produce changes in how we feel:

• tension drops
• boredom lifts
• anxiety softens
• focus sharpens
• connection (or the illusion of it) appears

The brain likes efficiency. So it learns to reach for what works quickly. The unease tends to arise not because something feels bad, but because part of you notices reliance starting to creep in. Or a narrowing of options. Or the sense that this thing is doing emotional work you don’t have many other ways to do. That’s where the internal negotiations often begin.

Many of us live with quiet, unspoken rules:

• “Only at weekends.”
• “Only after a hard day.”
• “Only once I’ve earned it.”
• “Only to take the edge off.”
• “It’s not as bad as other people.”

These rules aren’t a sign of failure. They’re usually attempts to preserve both sides of the ambivalence: the part that enjoys the relief, and the part that wants to feel in control, aligned, or at ease with itself.

So ambivalence isn’t hypocrisy or a weakness, but information. It tells you there’s one part of you that finds genuine comfort, relief, or pleasure here; and another part that’s starting to ask questions about cost, dependence, or meaning. Listening to that tension (rather than trying to silence it or argue yourself out of it) is often the beginning of real understanding.

When this tension is present, we often try to resolve it alone by tightening rules, bargaining with ourselves, or oscillating between indulgence and self-criticism.

This is often the point where support can make a real difference.

Whether or not therapy is part of your journey, the bigger takeaway here isn’t about doing anything differently straight away. It’s about paying attention to what your habits might be trying to tell you.

Where Therapy Fits (Without Pressure or Promises)

Therapy with me isn’t about taking things away from you. It’s not about confiscating coping strategies, enforcing rules, or pushing you towards an outcome you’re not ready for. And it isn’t about telling you what you should be doing with your life.

At its core, therapy is about understanding why something is needed in the first place.

Many habits develop because, at some point, they helped. They regulated emotions, created breathing space, soothed overwhelm, or offered relief when there weren’t many other options available. Therapy starts by respecting that, not with dismantling it.

You don’t need to quit, commit to abstinence, choose a diagnosis or label, decide what needs to change, or arrive with a plan. You’re allowed to come in unsure, conflicted, or simply curious.

Often, therapy begins with slowing things down enough to really listen:
What is this behaviour doing for me? What need is it meeting? What does it protect me from having to feel, face, or ask for?

When those underlying needs start to be named and met (things like safety, rest, connection, regulation, autonomy, meaning) the relationship with the habit often shifts on its own. Not because it’s forced, but because it’s no longer carrying quite so much weight.

So therapy with me doesn’t have to be a race to change your behaviour. It’s a space to understand yourself more honestly, and to let any changes happen in a way that actually lasts.

Always at your pace.

I’m based in Blandford Forum, so whether you live here or in Pimperne, Wimborne, Blandford Camp, Charlton Marshall, Milborne St Andrew, Shaftesbury, Sturminster Newton, or any of the other surrounding villages, please feel free to reach out. I offer a free, 20-minute consultation, no strings attached.