Introduction
Life after alcohol has been a journey characterised by ups and downs. For me, one recurring theme has been learning to become comfortable with the void.
What do I mean by the void?
For me it’s what Buddists refer to as Dukkha – or unsatisfactoriness with life. The main cause of inherent human ‘suffering’.
Alcohol was once a solution to a dissatisfaction I felt with life. No matter how good life was, I seemed to default to a negative view of myself and the world. I was a glass half empty kind of guy.
In an effort to make myself feel better, I filled my glass with booze, but that didn’t help in the end (if it did I’d still be drinking!).
No matter how much booze I poured into my glass, it was still half empty.
The infinite void remained.
Early sobriety and the pink fluffy cloud
I was a serial relapser before I managed to quit drinking.
For 8 years I was in and out of AA meetings. I just couldn’t ‘get’ it.
During those 8 years I would look in awe at people who managed to get a year sober, or 6 months. Heck, I looked up to people who could get 30 days!
My sobriety record during those times was around 3 weeks.
I finally managed to get sober in July 2007. When I got my 90 day chip it felt like my life had finally turned towards the light. It felt great to simply be alive. To wake up in a dry bed and not be subject to the insidious impending doom that arrives with the dawn after a night of the DTs.
I even loved paying my bills on time – it felt like I was finally part of the human race – normal.
I was riding the fabled pink fluffy cloud, that period in early sobriety when recovering alcoholics are so grateful and overjoyed to have escaped a living hell that seemingly felt impossible to escape from.
But clouds have a tendency to produce rain, and pink fluffy clouds are no exception.
I eventually came tumbling back to earth in a torrent of depression, self doubt and shame about the life I had previously been leading.
Although I didn’t want to drink, I felt there was a massive void in my life where alcohol had once been.
At least I’m not drinking
There were plenty of destructive ways I found to fill the void in early recovery.
Energy drinks, coffee, chain smoking, porn, food, going to bed in the afternoon, binge watching TV…
Anything to try and fill the gaping void and change the way I felt except drinking or drugs.
Maybe if I’d worked my 12 step programme better I could’ve avoided these destructive tendencies. But my reasoning seemed sound at the time – well at least I’m not drinking! I can ‘reward’ myself in a non-drinking, non-drugging way.
As I clocked more dry days under my belt, I realised that my coping strategies only provided a temporary escape from the void left by alcohol and always made me feel worse afterwards.
Although I was physically sober, I wasn’t emotionally sober.
In fact I was a dry drunk. I stopped attending regular meetings and didn’t have any service positions. There was even a point that I contemplated drinking again because I basically felt like shit.
Filling the void with these destructive habits, left me feeling even more empty. Such is the illusion of our temporary fixes.
Obsessive personal development
About 8 or 9 years after my last drink I hit a wall. I felt deeply unhappy. Although I didn’t want to drink, I kept thinking that there must be more to life than the grey mosaic of existence I was living.
An unfulfilling job coupled with a relationship ending left me wondering where I was heading in life.
I had a rock bottom in sobriety.
This led me back to AA meetings but also incentivised me to look into personal development. I read all the classic personal growth books; Think and Grow Rich, The 4-Hour Workweek, The Slight Edge…I couldn’t get enough ‘self improvement’.
They brought a new hope to my life and provided me with a much needed belief that I can become the master of my destiny – I didn’t have to accept being unhappy.
I created a vision for my life. I imagined where I wanted to be in 5 years and worked out a plan on what I needed to do in order to get there. I started going to the gym and creating various online businesses and finally managed to quit smoking after countless failed attempts.
However, just as you can harm yourself by filling the void with negative habits, it’s also possible to harm yourself by filling the void with positive habits. Running a business can lead to an obsession with wealth, going to the gym can lead to body dysmorphia, a vision for your life can lead to having inflexible plans that won’t bend to life’s uncertainties.
A life better than I would’ve imagined
If I could speak to the person I was on 2nd July, 2007—my first day in rehab—he wouldn’t recognise the life I’m living today. Back then, I was living in a dingy bedsit basically drinking myself to death.
Now, I share a beautiful flat with the love of my life, run my own business, and travel several times a year. Most importantly, I’m sober, and I wake up on most days feeling content and at peace.
When I first got sober, all I cared about was never drinking again. I wasn’t concerned about work, relationships, travel, or money—staying sober was the only goal that mattered.
Today, I’m living a life beyond my wildest dreams, and all it took was the decision to never again take that first drink of alcohol. Swapping one drink for the life of your dreams seems like a good deal!
Is the void still with me today – of course it is! Not all the time but it is still there.
However, I recognise it and I understand that whatever I try to fill it with, whether positive or negative, won’t get rid of it.
The void is a spiritual one and can’t be filled with anything external to oneself. It’s a result of the egoic self causing a feeling of separation from who we truly are.
And as I’m not an enlightened master, the void will continue to be my companion. So I’d better continue to learn to be at peace with it!
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