Is Swapping Addictions Really So Bad?
I'd rather run every day than drink nonstop.
When I quit drinking alcohol, I used to read every piece of sobriety advice I could find. Although most of it was helpful, there are also plenty of takes that I think miss the mark.
One common piece of advice was to be careful not to replace your drinking with another addiction. If you flip through sobriety forums or blogs, you’ll see a million variations of this warning, ranging from replacing alcohol with cigarettes to swapping out drinking for exercise.
Obviously, some of these swaps are more harmful than others, but my (perhaps controversial) opinion is that any of these changes would be better than continuing to drink.
