Being A Functional Alcoholic Made Me Think About The Dichotomy Of Discipline
I posted an info-graphic a little while back as a companion piece to my guest post on Get Rich Slowly. I love it when readers comment, especially when they write something that makes me stop and think. Steveark left me a comment that did just that.
When I think of huge earners in sports who blow through their money, they don’t fall anywhere on the line. You can’t get to pro level without discipline far greater than most of us possess. Thousands of hours of grueling practice, usually lots of pain and injuries to endure. Discipline galore, just not with money. It is odd that you can have great discipline in one area of life but none in another.
Call it the dichotomy of discipline. It’s very true, and made me think about my own life.
Even at an early age I had great discipline with money. I would save part of my allowances, and after I got my first job I saved pretty solidly. My first credit card came at the ripe age of 18, and to this very day have never carried a balance once, ever.
I also had monk-like discipline when it came to work. I worked my way through college with a full time job, never called in sick, always showed up on time or early, and always came in when called on unexpectedly.
So it seems I was the picture of discipline. Not quite. From my late teens until my early 30’s, I was basically an alcoholic. A functional alcoholic, sure, even a high performing one. But an alcoholic nonetheless.
I was also borderline obese and a physical wreck. So like those pro athletes that Steveark mentioned, I was kicking ass and taking names in one aspect of my life, but totally screwing up in another. In one area I was able to cultivate amazing discipline, and in others I had practically none.
To be honest, I’m not quite sure I can explain why this was. Looking back on it, it’s not like I was actually trying to stop getting drunk all the time in those days. I was excelling at my day job, making money, and saving money. So I got drunk a lot with my friends, whatever. It was Baltimore, everyone did.
And of course that behavior directly contributed to my shitty health. There were countless 3am visits to Denny’s, and most Saturdays and Sundays didn’t really start until my hangover wore off. Sometimes that was the afternoon. Other times it never did, we just started drinking again the next night. “Hair of the dog” as we used to say.
Did I Owe It To Myself?
So as Steveark asked, why is it that you can have great discipline in one area of life but none in another?
One answer might be that the undisciplined and bad behaviors are ways of letting off steam from the rigid and disciplined behaviors. Maybe the professional athlete is using money and wild spending sprees to just wind down and take the edge off the rigorous discipline required to stay in shape and play at a pro level.
It’s the old “go ahead man, you owe it to yourself” reason.
I think this could have been partially true for my circumstance. It was definitely a factor in some sense. I was front-loading my career and working my butt off. When you do that, alcohol and friends make a convenient and easy wind down plan each night.
But I also know that some of my drinking was to drown things in my past. Like the death of my father, and other parts of my childhood.
The Wack-A-Mole Theory
Another possible reason is what I’ll call the wack-a-mole theory. In this theory hedonism and undisciplined behaviors in any number of manifestations would be the moles. When you wack a mole down, you’re exhibiting strict discipline.
But another mole pops up somewhere else. And each person only has so much discipline they can exhibit at once. So something has to give. The hedonistic moles pop up somewhere.
Little bastards.
So the young NFL player wacks the mole of fitness and health, but the mole of luxury cars and 10,000sq ft. mansions pop up elsewhere.
Perhaps we as humans have a finite amount of discipline at any given time to apply to this crazy thing we call life. And there’s always a hedonistic mole poking it’s head up somewhere, taunting us.
What Does it Matter?
The reason I think this is worth discussing is because discipline is essential for financial independence. Even if you make 20 million a year, you’ll still go bankrupt without any discipline. Countless movie stars and athletes have shown this.
Notice I didn’t say you’ll go bankrupt without financial discipline. Sure, you need financial discipline, but if you don’t have discipline when it comes to drinking, gambling, sex or any other number of things, those vices are capable of stealing your money all the same.
Your turn readers – Do you have really strong discipline in one area of life and no discipline in another? If so, why do you think it is?
this is a really good article, and made me re-consider my idea of discipline. I’ve always felt fairly disciplined, especially for saving and spending, but I have struggled with fitness and nutrition when it comes to discipline. Can a person be disciplined overall? Or is it a fixed quantity that can only be applied in certain areas before it runs out? Can we gain more of it?
I think we can indeed gain more discipline, I’d like to believe that I have myself as I’ve matured. But I also feel that any number of life circumstances can make it easy to fall off the wagon. Thanks for the kind words!
Great post. I can totally relate. I’m very disciplined in a several areas of life, but – like that whack-a-mole analogy – seem to loose it in other areas (which as you write, can nevertheless totally ruin the financial discipline). I also find I’m very hard on myself – I remember in undergrad really breaking down when I got my first ‘C’ (as a straight A student, this was tough!). So glad I can laugh about this a bit now. For me, now, I am trying to dig and uncover childhood through adulthood unresolved emotional wounds. I’m striving to heal/release and integrate the various ‘aspects’/parts of my life. I’ve been digging in again with Eckhart Tolle text (love A New Earth) and trusting that ~similar to the impending spring~ wholeness and healing can naturally happen with discipline, effort, awareness to my weakest areas (and maybe an appreciation of the strengths). Many thanks for all you share!
Oops, ‘*lose’ 😀 Discipline problem? HA! ha!
Thanks for the book recco, I just added that to my long list. I’m tougher on myself now than I used to be, maybe it’s because I feel I should be far more mature and have more wisdom in my 40’s, so no excuses. It’s tough.
Thanks for the compliment!
I totally feel like the Whack-a-mole theory applies. I have a really hard time keeping all the balls in the air. Similar to Zachary’s comment, I enjoy budgeting and tracking my progress to FI. But my fitness and nutrition suffers because I’m spending more mental energy on other tasks. Then if I take time to meal plan, prep, stick to a more strict exercise regimen, then the rest suffers. It’s so frustrating! p.s. I love your annual activity tracker on the right. I need to post this, if only for myself. My fitbit just crapped out in January. Can you recommend a good tracker (possibly with GPS which I assume yours has?) Thanks for the thoughtful post.
I track most of my activities with my phone using the Strava app, all smartphones have GPS capability. When I run I usually don’t like holding a phone so I have a small GPS watch, a Garmin Forerunner 15. It’s one of the more affordable ones, but it only does GPS and doesn’t track steps like a fitbit etc.
Great article! It would be great if we could carry over discipline to all areas of our lives. I wonder if most athletes realized how undisciplined they are with their finances? Or maybe they just don’t care? Part of me thinks it is a lack of knowledge problem, and them thinking this is how most athletes live, so it is okay.
Personally I have never been very disciplined with my finances, but I killed it with my job. I’m making the shift with my finances and paid off $50k in CC debt last year and am focusing my energy on my site.
I think the young athletes don’t care. Heck, if someone gave me 5 million when I was 22 years old I probably wouldn’t be here today. My story would be more like Johnny Manziel. Trouble.
I think it’s really common to not have decline in one area but have it in another, even similar categories. For instance, I don’t drink that much…never have. I have naturally stopped at one or two…almost always. But chocolate? Chips? I can’t have so many food items in the house because I won’t stop. It’s weird.
I love chips too Tonya, I’m with ya. After summer workouts when I’m salt depleted I’m drawn to them like a moth to a lightbulb. I try not to buy them. I try hard.
this is an interesting topic and here’s my take: these are all disciplines around specific actions. i like to think i have thought discipline to not care what other people think of my activities nor to hide them. of course close friends and family get an explanation if they ever ask about one thing or another as they’re earned it. i’m happy to tell them the “why” of my actions if they ask in the right tone. i like embracing what some consider undisciplined faults like spending too much on wine and then drinking it. i can’t say i’m doing it blindly but maybe not valuing the consequences the same way someone else does. we all gotta own our lives, right?
Very interesting perspective. Each action is unto its own, and is independent when it comes to why we do it. We do indeed have to live our on lives.
I find that I struggle more with the discipline of subtraction. Addition is much, much easier. For instance, with addition, I work more and more hours and earn more and more money, to save and invest. But with a discipline like subtraction, I can say to myself all day long that I’m not going to touch that ice cream, but one 5 minute lapse in my day and poof, a failure.
So along this line, the athletes are good at addition and poor at subtraction.
Cool way of looking at it Susan. For me in my drinking days I guess I considered it an addition since to me I was “adding fun” with my friends. Or maybe I was subtracting stress. Not sure which but it’s a neat way to look at it.
I haven’t thought of it that way, but I think you’re right on. Subtracting is more difficult than addition. Saving is adding money to our savings. Going on a diet is a lot harder for me. Drinking less wasn’t a big deal for me, though. Strange.
Thank you for such an honest post! I’m glad you prevented yourself from sinking down the hole of non-functioning alcoholic because that’s infinitely worse and takes far more than discipline to recover. And the whack-a-mole analogy is great – it reminds us we all have crap to deal with and struggles we face. It may sound ridiculous, but I feel like I’m constantly trying to defeat my sweets battle. I’m lucky I’m not obese, whether it’s a ridiculously good metabolism, my otherwise healthy diet, or forcing myself to exercise in addition to being an active person (active job, walk everywhere because I live in a city) saving me, my ability to remain thin with my sweets consumption won’t last forever. So I’ve been working like crazy to find the solution to defeating it. This week has been good, but it’s good for a bit and suffers then too. At least you’ve managed your addiction, so that’s great!
Believe me I’m glad too that it didn’t get worse. I think the wasted weekend days being hungover is what convinced me to change. When you only have 2 days off and you feel like crap all day on both those days, that’s hard to maintain. Good luck keeping the sweets at bay, they’re a special deviant kind of mole 🙂
I’m similar to you in that I can be really disciplened in some areas but others, not so much. I do that with snacking especially. I have to not buy those things I would snack on because I may be able to resist for a few days or a week, but eventually they’ll get eaten. So why have them around? I quit buying them and just remove the temptation.
Great post! Something to think about over the holiday weekend. Take care!
You’re right, the best option is to just not buy them at all. But even that can be hard to do. I find the best strategy is to stuff my face before I go to the grocery store. It helps ward off temptation.
Dave, I almost deleted that comment you refer to in your post because it can come across as negative when a commenter says something like “yeah, that’s right but what about this other example that doesn’t fit?” And I loved the post so I didn’t want to come off sounding like a jerk but you got me thinking so much about the concept of discipline because I am basically an undisciplined person in many ways. I think everyone is a mix of great strengths and profound weaknesses. What separates successful people is the self knowledge they have and the way they design their lives to play to their strengths and to avoid their weaknesses. It is very hard to ever be good at something that is a natural weakness, I’ll never be full of sand and grit. But I’m crazy competitive and when I learned to see work as a competition, a game, I never looked back, I consistently won. You are born with a set of tools, some razor sharp and some dull ones. My opinion is leave the dull ones alone and do great work with the sharp ones and life will be lots better!
Well I’m really glad you didn’t delete your comment from the other post 🙂 I don’t mind when people challenge my assumptions or ramblings in comments at all, as long as they do it respectfully. I actually welcome it. I don’t have everything figured out, and I learn from comments all the time.
“some razor sharp and some dull ones”…. that’s a pretty accurate way of summing it up. I’ve got a butt-load of dull ones, but I’m glad I have a few sharp ones to balance it a bit.
Sooo, I just ate half a bag of chocolates. My husband and I muse on how I have horrible discipline when it comes to time management, getting enough sleep and eating sugar. No matter how much I suffer negative consequences from all of those, I still continue to do it. It boggles my mind.
But at the same time I couldn’t spend all my money even if I tried. Even when I didn’t fully understand how credit cards worked I still never had a problem with them.
It is confusing, just as my behavior was and still is in many ways. At least having extra chocolate is better than having too much beer. The latter is probably much worse for health.
I am not sure we are supposed to be disciplined in all aspects,) nature does not reward sameness.
When you look at any population that interbreeds to much all kind of genetic problems arise.
Our minds are no different they are all different by design
Also our brains have never had to deal with abundance before to much food money safety free time are new states of being for us humans
The abundance thing is very true. I listened to a podcast a while back with a scientist who did a great rundown of this topic. We’re really still a creature that’s hardwired to wonder where the next meal is coming from, not to have endless choices of junk food.
Very thoughtful post, Dave (as usual!)
I’ve come to have a little more compassion for those who lack discipline in certain things. It’s often not as easy for some to quit cigs, gambling, or overeating. Often it’s just brain chemistry that influences compulsive tendencies. I’d like to flaunt how smart I am when I know it’s simply the makeup of how my particular cells emerged from birth.
I’ve developed way more compassion as well, especially for those struggling with weight. Our society is more and more designed every day to make us fat.
My lack of discipline is with my time, I always tell myself I must not say yes to helping others so much. Yet I end up saying yes, overextending myself and stressing myself out to help others. I lack the ability to find balance yet I can be so disciplined with so much else.
I have pretty poor time discipline too, mainly with procrastination. I’m a master at it. I’ve trained myself to do my best when backed in a corner and when it has to get done, which isn’t a great way to go about tasks in general.
Lol we must be two peas in a pod
Wow, really good post that definitely hits home.
I recently read the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister. It sites a bunch of research showing that our willpower/self discipline is a finite resource. It gets tired just like any other muscle.
I feel that I use so much self discipline during the day at work that I don’t have much left when I get home. Man that after work beer tastes good and is hard to say “no” to!
This is why I have to get up early if I want to get anything done that is important to me (writing, working out, etc). I like to use my best self discipline on the things that are most important. Saving those things for after work is a recipe for not doing them.
One of my motivations for pursuing financial independence so that I can decide how I spend not only my time, but my willpower. I have lot of life goals that I’d love to be able to focus on!
Cheers!
Mr. DS
I’ll have to check out that book. I too have developed the discipline to get up really early, probably because I never go out anymore. But unlike you I get most of my physical energy in the late afternoon so for me that’s the best time to work out in general. I agree though that willpower had to be limited for each of us, and some folks like monks have way more of it!
The whack a mole theory is a great observation and you are right that you can only have so much restraint before some thing has got to give.
You really have turned your life around from being out of shape to someone who climbs summits. Very impressive.
Thanks Doc!
Really interesting post Dave. I used to be a drinker, but haven’t touched a drop in years. My life is a lot better for it too.
I like your whack a mole theory. There are definitely limits to human discipline, but I’ve found that after awhile discipline can give way to habit, leaving room for greater discipline in other areas. For example, frugality is a habit for me at this point, so I can stretch my discipline to areas like exercise and personal projects.
It’s a journey I’m still figuring out, but there are definitely limits to how hard you can push before you need to “let off steam” somewhere.
Discipline giving way to habit is true indeed, but some things are harder to habitualize. Be glad you never became a heavy drinker, it did me no favors.
I feel like discipline is like a fuel gauge. We only have so much to give and when the gauge runs out it can get ugly fast. I know when I’m trying really hard in one area to be more disciplined it can result in being undisciplined in other areas. For example, working on my blog daily can result in a lack of sleep. Trying to workout daily can result in overindulging in sweets. Limit social media can result in watching too much TV. Life is all about balance and moderation.
Sacrificing sleep is so common. I’ve cracked down on that recently after reading how bad it is for your health. I’m waiting to see what vice pops up in its place
My problem is with overeating. I can be pretty disciplined about money, about work, etc. But get me in front of a bag of candy and I. Will. Finish. It. I’ve worked to get to the point where I have a semi-strict diet in that I eat mainly healthy (or healthyish) food plus a very specific amount of chocolate as a matter of course every day. It keeps me from bingeing for the most part. But that doesn’t mean I’ve developed much self-control. For me, it’s about whack-a-mole: I have a finite amount of attention and energy I can pay to things in my life. Eventually, overeating crops up when I’ve got nothing left to give. And then overeating happens. But the good news is that it’s happening less and less these days. So that’s something. I guess it just means some other aspect of my life is getting neglected. But one thing at a time…
Food is probably the #1 “mole” for most. Especially in our culture where it’s more than plentiful and usually bad for you. I empathize, the struggle is real.
Just saw this, Dave, but didn’t read the comments.
I, too, have struggled with alcohol. And like you (and Abby, apparently), I’ve struggled with overeating. I don’t know what it is. I’m currently coming out of a deep bit with both food and drink, and it feels good to be getting some semblance of control over both.
I agree 100% with the whack-a-mole example. I used to tell my wife this when I was married. I felt like I could control maybe two facets of my life at one time, but not all of them. Money, fitness, relationships — pick two but not all. And really, if I was in 100% on one aspect, the others suffered.
After the divorce, there was a time when I had everything in control. It took a great deal of effort, but I’ll admit — it was the happiest time of my life. I’m not UNhappy now, but I don’t have the total control I once did. I’m not whacking all of the moles. I want to figure out how to do that again.
Well if you figure the magic formula to keep all the moles down please share on your blog… heck, make an online course and monetize, you’ll make zillions!
Thanks for that comment though. Our experiences are similar in many ways. I’ve been kicking butt on fitness and health since my late 30’s, almost a decade of feeling really great physically and excelling at the sports I love. And I’ve been drinking way less. But some of my personal relationships have suffered during that time, as well as a few other vices. I’d love to master them all too.
Thanks for sharing your story. I’ve really backed off drinking a lot too. It seems like fun at the time, but the hangovers are horrible and I feel like it throws me off for at least a few days afterwards. Just not worth it to me anymore to feel like crap and you dont recover as fast once you get older. I can relate to working hard and doing everything right, but I’ve found that at some point you do need to blow off steam as they say. The trick is to have some discipline and not go overboard on how you do that. Everything in moderation has been a good guideline to follow.
The hangovers are the thing I don’t know how I lived with. Looking back it’s like “why did I do that?”
I think the trouble of discipline is the one of limited emotional will. Our focus is very finite.
In my mind, this is why the self-help culture has tilted more towards habits as a sort of self-automation.
Discipline is an awesome tool, but it can only be directed at one thing at a time.
Agree, we’re all human. And getting as many good things on autopilot as you can is a great strategy.
I am working hard to improve my financial discipline. But at my age (24), and with parents who frequently provide me with financial assistance, I was raised with an unhealthy mentality surrounding money. On one hand, it seemed like my mom wanted me to go through the same struggles she did, and insisted we were “poor” – (she paid for four years at a private university, trips for me around the world, etc) and then on the other hand, made me out to be the spoiled / entitled brat of the family.
Since those lessons I learned in early childhood, it’s taken a lot of deliberate action and effort to take pride in earning and saving my OWN money. I’d be lying if I said that some of that didn’t suck, because there are days where I can’t help engage in peer comparison and feel angry or resentful. But I’ve come to learn that my relationship with money is what I make it. Honesty with myself and my finances has resulted in some amazing outcomes.
But here are reading financial blogs and trying to better your relationship with money. Most people who grew up in your situation aren’t doing that. So kudos!
I definitely think it’s true that we only have “a finite amount of discipline at any given time”. I think that’s why it’s important to not have too many goals at once. We probably can’t be disciplined to eat healthy, exercise, meditate, learn Spanish, practice piano, do your job well, be a good partner and take care of all household stuff daily all at the same time. We probably need to be realistic and pick one or two focus areas at any one time and then do the best we can for the others, while also giving ourselves some leeway. It’s all about balance 🙂
I’ve had to constantly hold down my temptation to “do all the things” after I semi-retired. As you say too many goals becomes untenable, and creates unrealistic expectations. Sometimes it’s nice to chill. Thanks for stopping by!