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Rehabs are great for helping you focus on pleasurable activities other than getting loaded. And if you can't afford a decent rehab, then your friends and family are there to provide warmth and connection when you've finally decided to swear off. And if you've completely alienated your friends and family, then there's that support group waiting to enrich your life. And if there's no support group that fits your beliefs (or lack of beliefs), then surely you can join a yoga class or a meditation course or...hey, there's a Starbucks two blocks away...
But it seems your list of alternatives is getting whittled down to not very much at all. So are you just supposed to quit? Are you ready to give up your one source of satisfaction -- albeit temporary satisfaction, at too high a price -- and sit there staring into space?
That's almost impossible for anyone to do. So don't be too hard on yourself if you can't do it. Most humans aren't capable of giving up something for nothing. That something may be eviscerating you and all those around you, it may be a geyser of self-loathing, financial ruin, and anxiety, but at least it's something. Like a spouse you've come to see as flawed, ugly, and inadequate, you're going to hold on until something else comes along.
I've written a lot about the battle between craving and self-control, as have others. I've pointed out the neuropyschological events that stack the deck: the role of dopamine in narrowing attention and boosting desire, the "delay discounting" that makes it hard not to dive for immediate gratification, the wound of "ego depletion" that bleeds you to a state of mental anemia, and the growth of synaptic networks that colonize your psychological world with the wrong associations, the wrong action tendencies, and a flood of emotions you just can't control.
But I've never quite figured out how to capture the loss of meaning that stares you down when you think about quitting—FOR GOOD—and there's nothing else around to pick up the slack.
For sure it's about the synaptic restructuring that has strangled half your forebrain like some crabgrass invasion. It's about the weakening and dissolution of the other
synapses -- the ones you might have used if activation didn't keep flowing back to more familiar circuits. It's about all the goals your striatum forgot how to strive for, or even notice, over those years of seeking one thing above all else. I can explain it in brain terms fairly well. But what's hard to put into words is the feeling—the deadly vertigo, the whoosh of the void suddenly opening right in front of you, as you contemplate getting sober FOR GOOD.
How can life possibly be meaningful without IT? —when it's been the foundation of meaning, the hallmark of value—for such a long time? And not just "meaning" in the abstract, but the sense of being taken care of, however perverse that is, the sense of where you belong in the world; the sense of who you are; the sense of what it is you do...
How do you overcome that ultimate challenge? How do you cross that gulf?
I guess the answer is to start building up other (synaptic? social?) networks of meaning and value, start restructuring your brain, and your life, before you seriously invest yourself in quitting. Learn how to love something else -- anything else! Maybe go out and buy a dog.
When there's nothing left to replace your habit, when there are no other choices, you're in trouble. When you pack up your home, sell your furniture, and drop off the key, there'd better be at least one other place to go to get warm.
Or you're probably not going to make it very far.
