The Numbing Epidemic
The Argument For Feeling The Bad And the Good
Jul 01, 2026
You just finished a long day and want nothing more than to decompress. You come home, take off your shoes, throw your stuff in the corner, lie down on the couch, pop a 5mg edible to take the edge off and watch tv until you pass out.
It’s been a long week of work with multiple deadlines that had to be met, meetings that seemed to drone on longer than they needed to and a never ending to-do list that actually seemed to get bigger no matter how many items you were able to check off. And now the weekend! Time to go out with friends, have multiple drinks of your favorite cocktail until late into the night and finish off with some great late night munchies.
Your kid comes home from school, does some of his homework (if you’re lucky), and then goes to sit right in front of the TV or behind his computer all the way until bed. You think “he’s just tired from the day” and let it slide. That weekend he ends up spending multiple hours on Saturday and Sunday just playing video games and having minimal real life social interactions, if even that at best. Every time you try to get him off he fights back – you’ve given up.
It’s Saturday night and you’re so excited for this big party that you’ve been anticipating for weeks. You pregame a little before to take the edge off. When you get there you decide to do a ‘microdose’ of shrooms, you’re talking and drinking more, snacking on whatever you can. Wanting to dance but not finding the confidence because of the fear of judgment. Letting the vulnerability of the situation and self-critical voice win. At the end of the night someone hands you a joint that you take a few hits of to help you sleep better.
Disconnecting From Being Human
There is something going on in today’s world that everyone seems to be noticing and no one seems to be giving it any attention at the same time. There is a massive disconnect happening, in more ways than one, and rather than doing something about it we are diving deeper into it. We are disassociating and disengaging from many of the parts of society that are a reflection of our humanity.
Our collective ability to sit with, process, understand and overcome discomfort and challenge is shrinking. I want to be clear, I completely understand why this is happening, and I’m not going to say it’s an irrational response to the world we live in. Because it’s not. We live in a country divided. A world divided. And that distance is only made greater by technology and social media. Allowing us to numb against all the minor and major hurdles we experience.
Numbing doesn’t necessarily mean not feeling anything. It can mean that. And it can also mean replacing feelings like anxiety, insecurity, worry, discomfort with something that feels better. The dopaminergic substitute to counteract whatever the uncomfortable emotion or state of being is.
Through vices like social media, drugs/alcohol, video games, sex, porn, gambling we are disconnecting ourselves from the human connection that happens on a daily basis. And in that disconnection there is a subtle numbing effect that we don’t realize until years down the line, if you’re lucky. I’m not here to demonize any of these things. They can be fun, and they can turn a mundane situation into an electrifying experience. But they are being overused in ways that are numbing us to this beautiful world.
I see it impacting my work as a therapist, too. A substantial part of our work is understanding what’s being said by the client through their non-verbal communication. It’s something that I would say is vital to the work. And now it seems that so many therapists are switching over to telehealth out of the convenience of what it has to offer and the benefit of saving a ton of money from renting out their own office. Which makes sense. But when I take on new clients I want to be able to feel the energy in the room and connect with the person I’m helping. And there is a palpable difference between being in the room with someone and connecting through a screen. What’s happening in the therapy room mirrors what’s happening in society at large. In my opinion there are 3 major factors contributing to this numbing epidemic.
The Big Three
The State of the World
The first is the state of the world. Wars, corrupt politicians, inflation, division, poor public services and disinformation are plaguing this world. A vast majority of people don’t feel safe. They feel lost and confused. Taken advantage of and mistreated. Hopeless and uncertain of the future. This alone is enough to have anyone want to disconnect, smoke a joint and numb out. Even the kids I work with are talking about how overwhelmed they feel. The uncertainty of WW3 looming. Or the pressure to start making millions of dollars right out of college.
And to make matters more intense, parents are in a similar mentality, which only adds more fuel to the lack of safety that kids already feel. So what happens? Parents remove every obstacle they can from their child’s path, kids learn that hard things don’t have to be tolerated, and everyone finds their own version of numbing. We end up teaching the next generation how to NOT handle adversity. We are hindering ours and their frustration tolerance. We are distancing ourselves from others because of differing points of view and conflating an individual’s beliefs with their character.
It’s gotten to the point where people don’t want to have kids because “they don’t want to bring a child into this world.” So what happens instead? More dopamine hits, less agency and more numbing.
The Erosion of Values
Both personally and professionally I have noticed how prevalent mistrust, disloyalty, lack of accountability, immature behavior and lack of honor have gotten. People are quick to judge and attack others. They lack the capability to see the other side of things. They switch up on people they’ve built close relationships with. And they behave in ways that are juvenile and emotionally regressive. We are losing values around the powerful benefits of empathy, quality time with the people we love, forgiveness — both for our own actions and others’ — understanding nuance and tolerance.
We don’t always have to be surrounded by people that mirror our every thought, action, belief or opinion. It’s ok to forgive someone who has wronged you when they’ve given a genuine apology. You can be best friends with someone who has different values and beliefs than you. You don’t have to lose your shit any time someone makes you angry. And taking accountability for a mistake doesn’t make you a weak, incapable, bad person.
Having the tolerance to handle the parts of life that we don’t agree with or that are difficult is a skill that is being lost. Distress tolerance is one of the fundamental aspects of having a positive life and stable mental health. It’s built not in the avoidance of negativity but in finding the strength and ability to tolerate and sit with the adversity and discomfort.
The Rise of Technology and Social Media
I want to start by saying I do not think technology or social media are inherently bad. They have so many unbelievably positive aspects to humanity. They help us connect and share easier, they allow for advancements that save lives, they contribute to life being more fun. That being said, like anything in life, too much of it can cause more harm than good.
Because of the lack of human-to-human interaction that social media and technology provides, it amplifies the worst parts of humanity. It hijacks the parts of our brains that look for stimulation and presents information in a dehumanized manner. It’s easier to be negative on social media — or even on text — because you’re not looking the person in the face and getting instantaneous feedback from their response. There is a constant bombardment of information coming our way and it becomes impossible to navigate what is truth and what is misinformation (the rise of AI is only magnifying this exponentially). The algorithms know how to play on our emotional systems to keep us captivated for hours at a time. We are so overstimulated that we’ve lost our ability to be ok with boredom.
All of this impacts our ability to stay connected to the world, to others and to ourselves. If we feel anxious, bored or depressed, we just go on Instagram or TikTok and mindlessly scroll to counter our negative state. What gets sent back to us is not only an overwhelming amount of information but all the things going wrong in the world — things that make us feel helpless and powerless. Things that make people think “why even bother trying to stay connected if it’s all shit anyways and there’s nothing I can do about it.” And when we feel hopeless and powerless we are more likely to turn to outlets that alleviate those feelings and push us further into a disconnected dystopia.
What Changed for Me
There are more than just these 3 reasons contributing to what is happening but I wanted to highlight the ones I thought have the biggest impact. In my practice I am seeing more kids struggle to make friendships, to go out and date, to feel competent, to socialize and to handle distress and boredom. And I see my peers almost always looking towards other outlets as the major path to enjoying life — drinking in excess, taking drugs “to make the night more fun” or gambling for the rush of it. People are numbing and disconnecting because life is becoming too overwhelming and losing its human connection. People are no longer able to tolerate distress so they turn to what is convenient and easy as a replacement.
And this is something that I am all too familiar with because most of this used to be me. It wasn’t until a major change in my life that I understood all of what I’m sharing with you.
In 2024 I decided to challenge myself to go fully sober for the whole year. Up until that point I was a daily pot smoker for the past 12 years, drank in excess, did all things dopaminergic. So I understand the appeal of these numbing outlets. I went into the challenge with the mentality of “after a year I’ll be right back to smoking every day and drinking.” I just wanted to see if I could do it. Back then I didn’t even realize the extent to which I was numbing myself to the world around me.
What was unexpected was that when the year was up, I found genuine enjoyment in the sobriety of life. I had other life circumstances that contributed to this — some health issues I coincidentally went through at the same time and a therapy retreat with The Hoffman Process. Both of these definitely contributed to my continuation of a mostly sober lifestyle but I can confidently and genuinely say that I enjoy my life infinitely more now than I did when I was numbing. I feel more. The positives and the negatives. And I am more connected to myself and others than I have ever been.
Not only am I feeling everything more but I feel more capable, confident, grounded and stable in myself. I don’t have that same drive to reach for something to disconnect. I feel more attuned to the world and the people around me. It wasn’t until I changed my mentality and lifestyle that I was able to gain this clarity.
Where to Start
At this point I would understand if your reaction is worried and wanting to know what to do. Good news is there are steps you can take to help get you feeling more connected and in control. Warning: this is not something that will come fast or easy. It will take a lot of trial and error and awareness of self. These steps do not have to be done in a particular order and they can happen in tandem with other steps or individually. And these are things that cannot be done alone. A therapist, life coach, mentor, close friend or family member all work — as long as they are actually able to help and connect with you and your goals.
Begin paying attention to when you are reaching for something that takes you out of being connected – Are you using a substance because you’re tired? Overwhelmed? Anxious? Bored? Are you gambling because you’re feeling low? Nervous? Unsettled? Are you overworking because you are avoiding something important? For everything that we do there’s a reason. There are no bad reasons. The point is to build awareness so you are honest with yourself about what you are feeling, and you can start paying attention to that feeling. It also helps start turning the gears of being more connected to your mind and body.
Find ways to build an in-person community that feels genuine and authentic to who you are – It has been proven that social connections are one of the biggest predictors of longevity in life. But it’s not about the number of friends you have, it’s about the quality. You don’t need to find one group and just join because a couple of the people seem fine. Curate your friend group the way you would anything else. One at a time. Make the effort to spend time with people. Let people in. Be vulnerable. Connect. Take a leap of faith and put yourself out there. It is a scary thing to do but the fear in your mind is always worse than the reality.
Operate in ways that are a reflection of your authentic self – Discovering your authentic self is a pivotal part of the reconnection process. Part of that self-discovery is finding ways to connect with your inner child. What are the things in life that make you belly laugh? That make you lose track of time because you are so caught up in the moment? That spark your curiosity? What are the qualities that your inner child experiences in those moments — the personality traits and characteristics that when you think about them you know in the deepest parts of your soul are true? Those are the parts of the authentic self that you need to reconnect to.
Practice self-love – The gist of it is we all have shame. We all have that inner critic, that mean voice that keeps us down. Shame is the obstacle that blocks us from feeling connected to ourselves, to others and to the universe around us. The only cure for shame is self-love. And once we have that love the world and the people in it become easier to manage. Here is my post on self-love for a deeper explanation [Link]
Build empathy for others and develop more distress tolerance – I put these together because they go hand in hand. To build empathy for others we first have to build it for ourselves, which happens when we practice self-love. Empathy for others doesn’t mean feeling bad for them or having sympathy. It means understanding what they are going through. It can be seen as having curiosity of emotions. Distress tolerance is a similar practice but about the mind — having curiosity of different perspectives. It’s about being able to handle difficult things and not project thoughts and feelings outward onto others. Understanding another individual’s thoughts, feelings, philosophies and beliefs, even when they are contrary to yours, is a powerful tool.
We are not our thoughts. We are not our feelings. We have thoughts and feelings but they are not us. Just because we have a feeling doesn’t mean it needs to be expressed in a crude manner. Just because we have a thought doesn’t mean it’s true or that it needs to be expressed or validated. If we can learn to handle the inner chaos of the Self then managing the outer chaos of others becomes a walk in the park. Most of the time people turn to controlling others because they feel a lack of control in themselves. So we flip the script to get the opposite result. Find the stability, peace, love and calm within and watch the people and world around you become easier to handle.
Operate from a moral and ethical standard that is in line with your authentic self – There is no singular path of morality or ethics, so one person’s stance might contradict another’s and both can be valid. What this comes down to is: are you living in a way that feels truly authentic to who you are and how you want to be in this world, without it intentionally harming another individual? And can you own up to your shortcomings and make the effort to do better next time without shaming yourself into a hole? How you choose to live your life is how you choose to live it. How someone else chooses to live theirs is their choice. You are not in charge of the decisions of others. You can provide feedback, help, guidance or advice if they ask — but at the end of the day their life is not your life.
Feeling Everything
If you were looking for a quick fix, I apologize. For a problem this big there is no such thing — and truthfully that is the case for most things in life. For an issue this systemic and deep, the cure starts on an individual level. In addition to what I mentioned, there are other things that can be worked on as well — finding the right balance of technology and social media use, finding ways to stay active instead of sedentary, paying attention to the basics of food, sleep and managing stress. All of these are important but I believe they naturally fall into place when the things mentioned above are worked on.
The biggest help I can offer is a reframe. When we numb, we don’t get to pick and choose what we are numb to. It becomes an indiscriminate numbing that slowly creeps into all the areas of our life. We get numb to the difficult parts AND we get numb to the lively parts of life as well. We don’t get to tell our bodies what we want to feel and what we don’t. When we feel, we get the full spectrum of intensity in every part of life. Learning to build tolerance to the difficult feelings while celebrating the sparkling moments grounds us, connects us and builds our confidence.
I do have hope for the future. I already see certain signs of people catching on and trying to do things differently to keep the connection to humanity alive. All bias aside I do believe the best way to accomplish these goals is in therapy. There is a structure and support that provides what is needed in as much of an objective way as possible — when you’re with the right therapist. For me the decision seems easy. I would rather feel everything and live a life full of color than be numb to everything and feel hollow.
