"I'll Quit When It Gets Serious": The Moving Threshold

The promise is always conditional. “I’ll quit when it gets bad enough.” “I’ll stop when there’s a real consequence.” “If it starts to affect my work, that’s my line.”

The conditions sound reasonable. They would be reasonable if they stayed where they were put. They never do.

How thresholds drift

The concept of shifting baselines was originally described in fisheries science, where each generation of scientists measured fish stocks against what they had seen in their own careers, not against historical abundance. The result was that gradually depleted stocks came to seem normal, because the baseline kept resetting [1].

The same process applies to habits. Your idea of “normal” drinking was set at some earlier point. As consumption increased gradually, each new level became the baseline. What was once “a lot” is now “my usual.” What was once a consequence is now a cost you have absorbed. The threshold for “serious” has not been crossed because it has been moving ahead of you.

Kahneman describes how adaptation affects evaluation: people assess their situation relative to a reference point, and the reference point adjusts with experience [2]. If you have been drinking a bottle of wine a night for a year, that is your reference. The threshold for “serious” now sits somewhere above a bottle.

A fictional example

The following is an illustrative example, not a real person’s story.

Ravi told himself he would quit online gambling if he ever lost more than a thousand pounds in a month. That was his line.

• Year one: He lost £300 in a bad month and felt sick about it.
• Year two: He lost £800 in a bad month and thought, “Close, but not over the line.”
• Year three: He lost £1,200 in a bad month. The thought: “Well, that was unusual. My actual average is lower. The line should be about my average, not one bad month.”
• Year four: His average monthly loss is £900. He has moved the line to £2,000 because £1,000 “doesn’t account for inflation and higher stakes.”

Ravi has not crossed his threshold. He has carried it with him.

Why people delay seeking help

A survey of 204 people with alcohol problems found multiple reasons for delaying help, including the belief that the problem was not serious enough, that they should be able to handle it themselves, and that treatment was for people worse off than them [4]. “Not serious enough” was among the most commonly cited reasons.

The stages-of-change model describes a “contemplation” stage in which the person recognizes the problem but has not yet committed to action [3]. One feature of this stage is a continuous weighing of costs and benefits, which can persist indefinitely when the threshold for “serious enough” keeps adjusting [6].

The cruel timing of habit escalation is that the problem often becomes clinically serious before the person experiences it as serious, because their baseline has shifted.

Setting a fixed line

If you genuinely intend to stop when it gets serious, make the threshold concrete and external:

1. Write it down now. A specific amount, a specific frequency, a specific consequence. “If I spend more than X per month.” “If I drink more than Y days per week.” “If my partner raises it again.”
2. Date it. The threshold was set today. It does not adjust for circumstances, inflation, or bad months.
3. Share it. Tell someone you trust. A threshold in your head is negotiable. A threshold someone else knows about is harder to revise silently.
4. Review on a schedule. Check monthly. Not “how do I feel about my use?” but “has the threshold been crossed?”

If the threshold has already been crossed and you are reading this to recalibrate, that is the drift in action. The line you set was the right line. Go back to it.

For the thought that explicitly delays action to a future date, see “I’ll deal with it later”. For the version that uses a specific event as the trigger for change, see “I’ll quit after this event”.

When to get more support. If your threshold has moved more than once, or if someone close to you has told you the situation is already serious, please talk to your GP or a specialist. You do not need to wait for a crisis to seek help. Most services are designed for people in the middle of the spectrum, not only those at the far end. In the US, SAMHSA’s National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) offers free, confidential referral. In the UK, your GP is a good starting point. If you are in distress, call or text 988 in the US, or contact Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland.