Last October, I went solo camping in the middle of nowhere, drank some whiskey by the fire before bedtime, woke up super early the next morning with a headache and a made a tough decision to stop drinking for awhile.

The next three months were easier than I thought they’d be. I was taking on something big, new. It felt righteous, like I was better than all those suckers who drink too much. It was hard to be around other drinkers, watching them loosen up and party, but saying no to booze seemed do-able.

Month #4 (January 2021sym;) was brutal. By that time the cravings were easy to deal with, but I began to struggle with boredom, and feelings of meaninglessness. It felt like I was living the same day over and over again.

The kids were getting on my nerves like never before.

It was hard to blame this on booze because nobody (on the internet at least) was talking about withdrawal symptoms beyond 3 weeks. I couldn’t find anything on what happens 4 months or more down the road.

If this wasn’t some kind of NA symptom, what was it? The beginnings of insanity? How long would it last? Would I ever be happy again? I can live with a lot of negative feelings, but meaninglessness is a killer.

Towards the end of month, all of that gave way to feelings of sadness. Weird as this will sound, that’s way better. I can do sad; it feels real, like I’m part of something bigger than myself. It’s not my favorite emotion, but sad blows the doors off of meaningless.

Along with the sadness came an occasional feeling of calm and general contentment. It doesn’t happen all the time, but after last month I’ll take what I can get. As I motor through February (month #5) I’m wondering what’s coming next.

I still feel like hopping off the wagon from time to time, like that would make me happy. I miss drinking whiskey in the garage while listening to 80’s butt-rock and working on THE Jeep or kicking back a few with my wife at a local brewery.

But my experience to this point has me thinking about how happiness works.

Relatively speaking, I’m pretty fresh into this journey, so it’s cocky to make assertions about the NA life. Compared to people who are long-time free, I’m unqualified to preach.

But I do have a possibly true thought about happiness and booze that might explain what’s been going on. This is all theory and reflection of course, but hang with me, you might appreciate this if you struggle like I do.

Happiness Rule

We all agree; there are many ways to find happiness and not all of them are healthy. Unhealthy happiness yields an immediate, tangible reward with long-term consequences while healthy happiness costs a bit of short-term hell but yields a more long-term benefit.

Overeating, too much TV, big drugs, alcohol, judging others, etc. all deliver on their promise, but the happiness they bring doesn’t last long, and leaves us craving for more, making the hard work of healthy happiness even harder.

But there’s a deeper problem.

If you’ve ever struggled with addiction, you’ll agree that it’s difficult to be happy outside of your addictive behavior. That’s certainly true for moderate to heavy drinkers. What we look forward to more than anything else is our next drink. A friend of mine once said that it’s the only thing she truly loves. I’ve felt the same way.

This implies a difficult truth about being happy.

The more we find happiness in unhealthy ways, the more difficult it is to find happiness anywhere else.

It’s as if our innate, human capacity to find happiness shrinks. We haven’t cared for it, exercised it, given it what it needs, so it goes away.

That’s true for all of our capacities – cognitive, physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever – they shrink when we don’t use them. The ability to interface with happiness is no exception.

It will weaken if it’s not exercised on a regular basis.

If we try to quit our addiction, we’re extra screwed. We took a break from the hard work of healthy happiness and atrophied whatever muscles that are required to interface with it. In the absence of our addiction, the one thing that made us happy is gone, as is our ability to find happiness anywhere else.

In the hell between the day we quit and the time it takes to recover, we feel like we’ll never be happy again.

Recovery Time?

The longer we go down the addiction road, the longer it takes to grow those muscles back.

I started drinking regularly about 20 years ago. I’ve taken a break here and there, but it’s been a long journey. A full recovery, if that’s possible, is going to take some time. Expecting everything to go back to normal in 4 months is a little silly.

But this “grow back your happiness muscles” idea gives me a little hope. I’m convinced that my ability to be healthy happy hasn’t completely disappeared. It will eventually grow back, and has to some degree. But because I’m 55 (nothing happens fast here), it might take a while, maybe a few years.

If you’re thinking about quitting (the only reason you’ve read this far), I’ll say that there’s a bit of hell to walk through, but I’m confident that whatever has dried up/shrunk/atrophied/whatever can be restored, that we can be happy without alcohol, maybe happier.