The Problem With Positive Thinking (And How It Could Kill Your Recovery)

Before You Think Positive, Learn Your Emotional ABCs

(by Karen Rubinstein)

I love Andy Williams. I really do. Moon River? One of my favorites. But there’s one song I wish he’d skipped —

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Is it REALLY Andy?

Because let’s be honest: it’s not always wonderful.

But that is the perception of this time of year - caroling, family dinners, mistletoe and hohoho, candlelit mennorahs and on top of it all - good cheer. I feel I’m not radiating holiday joy from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, the world makes me feel defective — like I flunked Christmas 101. If I don’t savor every cookie, card, and carol, I start wondering what’s wrong with me.

Well, nothing’s wrong with me. I’m just human.

And that’s the problem with a “positive thinking” culture — it demands we fake joy, paste on gratitude, and call it spiritual growth.

My Women in the Rooms Saturday meetings are all about spiritual and emotional growth — the foundations of recovery. Yesterday’s topic stirred a little debate because of one word: dread. The question was, “What are you dreading about the holidays?”

There were thoughts that it sounded too negative — and I get that. If we live in negativity, we invite more of it. It reminded me of that Frasier episode where he’s learning to ride a bike: whatever he fixates on — the tree, the mailbox, the fire hydrant — he crashes right into it.

So, I do believe in focusing on the positive, but I also believe in being honest. Talking about the bumps that appear like clockwork in our lives isn’t negative — it’s human. Real recovery isn’t about pretending the road is smooth; it’s about learning how to stay balanced when it’s not.

In order to get to the place where we actually do feel positive most of the time throughout the year, we need to address things that need some work and resolution. So I am all for honest discussions on topics like what happens when you don’t feel merry and bright? When you’re aching, grieving, or lonely?

If we can't discuss these things they fester and we end up feeling shame or broken. You start to believe you’re the only one not doing life right and that you should try to “cheer up” and “think positive” even when you don’t.

And for a lot of us in recovery — that lie is lethal.

The Glitter-Coated Lie

For years, I tried to outthink my pain. I collected self-help books like trophies and wallpapered my mirror with sticky notes: You’re enough! Be grateful! Smile more!

Spoiler alert: the mirror didn’t buy it and neither did I.

And when the smile slipped, I poured a drink to fill the gap between what I felt and what I was supposed to feel.

Barbara Ehrenreich called this out brilliantly in Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America. She argued that toxic positivity doesn’t empower us—it silences us. It tells us that discomfort equals weakness and sadness equals failure.

In her research, Ehrenreich traced how the pressure to “stay positive” seeped into nearly every corner of American life—from hospitals and workplaces to churches and self-help culture.

Patients were told to “think their way” out of illness; employees were warned not to be “negative”; believers were promised prosperity if they simply maintained faith and optimism.

She showed how this obsession with positivity can backfire—creating guilt and self-blame when life inevitably gets hard. On a larger scale, she even linked it to national blind spots like the 2008 financial collapse, where leaders refused to face inconvenient truths because it didn’t “feel positive.”

Ehrenreich didn’t argue for pessimism. She called for something far braver: realism, critical thinking, and the courage to face what’s true—good or bad—so we can actually change it.

And research agrees: emotional suppression and premature positivity actually increase anxiety and relapse risk for people with addictive histories.

Pretending we’re fine doesn’t make us strong — it makes us brittle.

Fake Positivity is Just Another Mask

You can’t plaster over pain with positivity any more than you can build a house on air. When I was drinking, I wore the same mask — smiling at parties while dying inside. I told myself, at least I look normal. But underneath, I was exhausted from performing happiness.

It’s the same mask, just without the vodka. And it’s just as deadly.

Here’s the truth no one wants to post on Instagram:

You can’t think your way to healing.

You have to feel your way there.

You Don’t Start With Shakespeare

Recovery is a lot like learning to read. Nobody opens War and Peace on day one. We start with the alphabet. Then Dick and Jane. Later on maybe Catcher in the Rye. Eventually, we can handle Joyce and Tolstoy — but we don’t begin there.

Emotional growth works the same way. You can’t jump from heartbreak to happiness, from chaos to calm, or from relapse to serenity in one leap. You start with the emotional ABCs: telling the truth, sitting in discomfort, asking hard questions.

The RETURN™ Method: How I Stopped Pretending and Started Healing

The intent of my Women in the Rooms meetings over the next few weeks is to have real conversations about maneuvering through the holidays. Honestly, facing discomfort head-on is how lasting change begins. With three weeks until the official start of the season, many women are already feeling the pressure to perform joy—even when loss or loneliness presses in.

That discussion made me pause and notice where that same pressure shows up in my own life—how often I’ve forced a smile instead of speaking my truth.

Truthfully, the holidays are a mix of ingredients—new traditions, deep gratitude for my husband, our pets, the few relatives I have left, and the wonderful friends who fill our home—blended with a dollop of sadness for the faces I once saw around our Thanksgiving table.

I would give anything to hear my father say, “What’s for dessert?” just as my mother finally sat down to eat her now-cold turkey.

Honest conversations like these remind me that healing happens in the space between truth-telling and encouragement, not in forced cheer. Even surrounded by family and tradition, many of us feel that quiet ache or dread that resurfaces this time of year. While our group focuses on emotional and spiritual growth—and on staying in the solution rather than the problem—we also have to admit that life doesn’t always come wrapped in pretty paper and bows.

I don’t see that as “looking at the negative side of life.” I see it as preparing for what lies ahead—like the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared.” Boy Scouts aren’t a glum, gloomy lot; they’re ready for the unexpected. They learn skills in calm weather so they can handle the storm.

I needed a framework that did the same for my inner life—something more than “be positive” or “pray harder.” A tool I could pull from my emotional toolbox to navigate life’s choppy waters.

People often ask how I’ve built such a solid sobriety and healthy life. The answer is simple—but not easy. Through lived experience, research, and a lot of trial and error, I created the RETURN™ Method, a trauma-informed spiritual process for coming home to your true self. It’s not about fixing what’s broken; it’s about remembering what’s real.

Here’s the short version of The RETURN™ Method:

R — Reveal:  Name what’s real. Tell the truth, even when it’s messy.

E — Explore:  What story are you believing about it? Where did it come from?

T — Trace:  Spot the survival patterns — the masks you wore to stay safe.

U — Uncover:  Identify the fear running beneath it all. Bring it into light.

R — Rewrite:  Choose a truer story, rooted in love and reality, not performance.

N — Nurture:  Practice that truth every day until peace becomes your default setting.

That's not “positive thinking.” That’s honest living.

The Courage to Feel

This season, I won’t be bullied by tinsel or forced cheer. I’ll celebrate what’s beautiful — the lights, the laughter, the people I love — but I’ll also honor the quiet ache that lives beside it. The missing faces at the table. The memories that still sting.

That ache doesn’t make me broken. It makes me awake.

Because here’s the paradox of recovery: the deeper I allow myself to feel, the more peace I find. When I stop hiding from sadness, joy doesn’t have to fight its way in — it just arrives, uninvited, like grace.

So Let’s Tell the Truth

The holidays aren’t “the most wonderful time of the year” for everyone.

And that’s okay.

Real joy doesn’t need denial to survive.

It needs truth.

So let’s be brave enough to tell the truth — even when it’s messy, even when it squeaks.

Positive thinking might decorate the surface.

Soul-searching rebuilds the foundation.

One leads to pretending.

The other leads to peace.

And this year, I’ll take peace.

Every.

Single.

Time.

_______________________________________

Ready to go deeper?

I created a free guide that walks you through the 6-step RETURN™ Method — a trauma-informed, spiritually grounded process for emotional healing and recovery.

📘 Download your free sample here.

The science of healing meets the soul of recovery.

The RETURN Method FREE Sample