Nicola hare - The reset therapist
There is a moment people don’t talk about enough in recovery. Not the rock bottom. Not the dramatic decision to quit. Not even the first few brutal weeks.
The moment after. The moment where the fog starts to clear and you wonder, now what? This is where you may be faced with the reality that your addiction wasn’t the problem. It was how you attempted to cope with the problem. Getting sober is one thing – it’s a great thing. Learning how to live without your escape hatch is another entirely.
For a long time, alcohol, drugs, food, work, sex, scrolling, chaos, whatever it was for you, served a purpose. It helped numb, distract, soften, avoid, energize, disappear. It gave you somewhere to go when being with yourself felt unbearable.
And when that thing is gone, the feelings don’t disappear with it. They are still there, waiting for you to stop running or judging or avoiding. They are waiting for you to meet them in a new way, a loving way, so that you can begin to integrate them and move forward more wholly.
Most addiction is not about the substance itself.
It’s about movement away from discomfort, hidden unresolved grief, shame, loneliness, fear, anger, worthlessness and any feeling that was once too big to cope with so it became something to bury and run from at all costs.
Sobriety removes the anaesthetic, but it doesn’t immediately remove the pain underneath.
This is why so many people get sober and suddenly feel anxious, restless, depressed, angry, emotionally raw, or completely lost.
You may find yourself asking:
“Why do I feel worse now?”
“Why is my brain so loud?”
“Why can’t I just relax?”
“Who even am I without this?”
The answer is often simple, even if it’s painful. You’re finally feeling what you were running from. And that can be terrifying.
New Ways to Keep Running…
One of the sneakiest parts of recovery is that the running often doesn’t stop when the substance does. It just changes outfits.
It can don the disguise of become obsessed with productivity, over-exercising, binge-watching TV, losing yourself in relationships, scrolling for hours. It can also take the shape of becoming hyper-spiritual, working nonstop and staying busy every second of the day.
These things can look healthy from the outside and in moderation or with conscious choice, most are. But under the cloak, the aim is still the same as the addiction you have moved away from:
Don’t stop moving long enough to feel.
Sobriety can expose how uncomfortable stillness really is.
Without substances, many people discover they don’t actually know how to sit with disappointment, uncertainty, boredom, grief, rejection, guilt, or emptiness. No one taught them. So the nervous system keeps searching for exits and ways to avoid having to. Not because you’re weak, but because avoidance became survival.
Turning Towards Instead
Real recovery begins when you interrupt the automated goal of ‘how do I escape this feeling?’ and consciously ask ‘how do I stay with myself though it?’
That shift changes everything. As dramatic as is sounds, it is true. I have helped many people stop running and start to turn inwards. It’s scary and painful and new but the relief that comes from being able to stop running is palpable in the room. It’s often a moving, goose-bump moment.
Turning toward doesn’t mean drowning in emotion or endlessly analysing yourself. It means learning that feelings can exist without immediately needing to be fixed, numbed, or outrun.
On the outside it can look like:
sitting quietly for five minutes instead of distracting yourself
journaling honestly
admitting you’re angry
crying without apologizing
calling someone instead of isolating
noticing anxiety without obeying it
going for a walk without needing to “optimize” yourself
learning what rest actually feels like
asking for help
being bored without panicking
If you are shaking your head in disbelief that these things are possible for you, you are not alone.
Many people who have found sobriety discover they’ve spent years, decades even, abandoning themselves emotionally. Turning toward yourself after that kind of distance is not instant. It’s a relationship rebuilt slowly and purposefully. It requires love, nurturing and patience which may be also take time to cultivate and seen foreign at first.
You Don’t Need to Become a Perfect Person
Sometimes, recovery culture accidentally creates another trap, a sort of self-improvement obsession. A new mountain to endlessly climb. Suddenly every moment has to be healing, every habit optimized, every trigger conquered, every moment productive, every moment expertly processed.
I look out for these ideas and beliefs when working with my clients and will gently bring them to awareness to help you from treading too far down that particular path.
Recovery isn’t about becoming emotionally flawless. You haven’t failed if you still struggle or feel hurt or are impacted by stuff out there. You are human.
The goal is to stay with your humanness and love it. To vow to yourself that you won’t abandon yourself to go on the run again.
The goal is to notice the urge to do so (because it will most likely pop up as this was how you did life for a long time) and choose differently more often.
Building a Life You Don’t Need to Escape
Eventually, sobriety stops being just about not using and becomes about building a life that feels inhabitable.
What do you want in yours? Genuine connections with people who really know you? Routines that support your nervous system? How about honesty instead of performance or being able to give yourself permission to rest? Meaning instead of numbness? Connection to yourself as well as with others?
These things take time, sure, but they are within your reach, despite the voice that is telling you right now that other people can have these things but not you. (This comes up a lot too in therapy.)
You quit your addictions when that once seemed impossible. Perhaps you’re wondering ‘now what?’
Now it’s time to stop running.
I’m rooting for you.
I Got Sober, Now What? The Pivotal Next Step
Contact
info@nicolahare.com
