HALT: A New Approach to the Flawed Classic
Your real problems don't have solutions. They require maintenance, not repair.
I was obese, ignored my mental health, and covered up a drinking problem for years until I landed in rehab. Then, in the dawn of my sobriety, doctors found a “big, scary, dangerous, rare, cancer” eating away my right shoulder blade. Trauma like that typically leads to relapse, but I designed a routine based on HALT, a classic yet flawed recovery mnemonic, that kept me sober and saved my life. Moments when we feel hungry, angry, lonely, or tired breed impulsivity and lead to bad decision making. That’s not just true for addicts, by the way. It’s true for everyone, which is why we should all pay attention to HALT.
Ninety percent of the public believes the US faces a mental health crisis1, and statistics support that belief. Nearly half of adults struggle with obesity2, a third battle anxiety3, nearly twenty percent suffer with depression4, and forty-six million grapple with addiction5. There’s no structural fix in sight, but I faced those challenges personally and found that managing them is more effective than trying to fix them.
The Flaws of HALT
The classic use of HALT is flawed because requires us to recognize those feelings in the moment and then take appropriate action, a tall ask with a small margin of error in my opinion when a relapse would likely cost me my family, my job, or both. I needed something that required less willpower. Something more structural. It seemed that finding a way to avoid intense feelings of hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness, could keep me from getting into trouble in the first place. Obviously, we can't cut these feelings out of our lives, so I set up a system to address each one little by little throughout each day, and it has helped me to avoid the panic and impulsivity that these feelings can bring.
Into The Matrix
At its core, HALT consists of two physical components (hungry and tired) and two emotional components (angry and lonely). It also involves two inward-facing elements (hungry and angry) and two outward facing elements (lonely and tired). They sit nicely on a 2x2 matrix:
It became clear to me that nurturing each one of these consistently would allow me to care for myself more completely than I ever had before.
Get Things In Order
I also discovered that the traditional order of HALT matters. We start with the most personal condition, hunger, because we have the most control there. Addressing it first allows the rest of the system to work. Once we have our bodies working properly, we then can approach our emotions, particularly anger, more effectively. In turn, having healthy emotional fitness allows us to build more fulfilling relationships with our loved ones and the rest of society. Finally, caring for our body benefits us physically, emotionally, and mentally. It carries momentum all the way back to the beginning, making it easier to manage our hunger.
Hungry (Internal and Physical)
The story of my cancer epitomizes an internal and physical obstacle that started small but ended up growing into something that has affected everything in my life. I will never be able to fix it completely, so now I have to manage the chronic symptoms continuously. The lessons that emerged from that experience exemplify the power in managing our physical bodies in order to put ourselves in a position to improve the other aspects of our lives. Hunger is one of the deepest feelings we have. Our bodies need sustenance to function, and attending to that need as the first step in our self-care has a few benefits. First, our bodies must have nutrients to support proper emotional health. Everything starts here. Second, we have more control over what we eat than we do in any of the other elements of HALT. The only decision that we have to make when we wake up is to put something nutritious into our mouths. With a little planning, we can do that without much thinking or emotion. Finally, we can also gauge our emotional health by what we decide to eat. It acts a bit like the canary in the coal mine for our mental health. Binging on ice cream and nachos can reflect an emotional disruption that we have not yet consciously recognized. Failing to manage our hunger directly leads to emotional instability, making it more difficult to deal with our problems appropriately. The term “hangry” has become commonplace for a reason.
Angry (Internal and Emotional)
Anger is ultimately a personal emotion, and it has to do with how we process things that happen to us in the world. Failing to confront anger leads to rumination, the most destructive emotion that we can have. Like a weed in our emotional garden, it’s stubborn, hardy, and tough to eliminate once it starts to grow. By rooting it out immediately, we enjoy a multiplying effect on our mental health. Ignoring anger makes developing healthy relationships impossible and leaves us lonely. I tried to kill my unpleasant emotions by dumping alcohol on them, but it burned up the leaves of those weeds. They always returned because I didn’t get to the roots of the tough emotions. All I did was poison everything else. In the process of learning to continually nurture and prune the garden, I have been able to allow my healthy emotions to flourish and deal with unpleasant emotions before they spread too far. It’s a nicer garden for others to visit as well.
Lonely (External and Emotional)
People need people. We always have, and we always will. Healthy, supportive, and fulfilling relationships improve our quality of life, but we also know that relationships are tricky. Sometimes ruptures in our relationships occur for straightforward reasons. More often, though, it gets complicated. Miscommunications, misunderstood motivations, and our own blind spots strain our relationships. That last one, our own blind spots, does not get enough attention. Oftentimes we do not fully understand how our own actions or feelings affect the conflicts that occur in our relationships. Clarifying our own perceptions can give us the perspective that we need to resolve conflict in a way that strengthens our relationships.
Tired (Internal and Physical)
Ultimately, this all cashes out in what we actually do and how our bodies feel. Movement creates energy and positive emotion. Sleep allows our brains and our bodies to rest and recharge. I spent more than a decade traveling for work and took those lessons for granted. In fact, I prided myself on my ability to function while ignoring them all together. I habitually stayed up late and overlooked exercise, but it distorted my perception of myself and others. It held me back from being my best. Developing routines that honor the power that comes from taking care of my body has allowed me to benefit from the ideas that I laid out above. When our bodies feel good, we make better decisions about what to eat, so we feel better and the cycle continues. The more we can do the things that help us stay nourished, happy, connected, and energized, the easier it gets.
Why It Matters
Simply put, we must focus on our own physical and emotional health if we want to stand a chance of building lasting relationships and enjoying a fulfilling life. This new approach to HALT enhances the flawed classic by making it easy for me to self-diagnose times in my life when I needed to use extra diligence to maintain my mental health. I want to share it with you because we all get hungry, we all deal with anger, many of us are lonely, and most of us don’t get enough exercise and sleep. The statistics that opened this post show us that it’s taking a toll on our society, and I believe that this approach can help the struggling people who make up those statistics. Furthermore, I hope that this methodology can make a difference for people who have not shown up in those statistics yet but will soon.
Thank you for reading. I like that you’re here.
Remember, nobody makes good decisions when they’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Every Wednesday I offer some tips on managing those symptoms. That’s free!
If you liked this, consider sending it to someone. They’ll probably smile, I’ll definitely smile, and that will make you smile. Trifecta.
Finally, this is an example of the types of pieces I release on Sundays. It’s a longer, deeper dive into everything I learned while simultaneously fighting addiction and cancer. Consider stepping up your subscription and getting that every week.