Feeling Empty And Depressed After Quitting Alcohol – My Experience

This could potentially be one of the hardest subjects to write on but I am going to give it a try, there is a big possibility you feel depressed and your “lust for life” is gone. Btw a great song and an amazing movie kind of a must-watch and there are some things you can relate to.

While not everyone will experience Depression and that crazy empty feeling in life, most in fact do and the first sign of depression is often just in your withdrawal phase as alcohol increases the body’s production of dopamine and serotonin, two of the body’s “happy hormones” and when you drink too much you will leave you body without much of that happy stuff left. For some people, this will go over in a couple of days but for “us” alcoholics it’s completely different.

The feelings of depression, emotions, and anxiety kinda of come and go but for most true alcoholics starting your life sober again can be extremely hard.

While some articles we write on this website are backed by science I feel that not every subject requires written down science knowledge and recovery is a unique and ongoing process for everyone.

I Could Tell You All This?

Lifestyle Changes: Quitting alcohol often requires significant lifestyle changes. If you haven’t replaced the time and activities previously spent on drinking with healthier and more fulfilling pursuits, you may still feel unfulfilled or bored.

Physical Health: Alcohol abuse can take a toll on physical health, and sometimes, the effects can persist even after quitting. It’s essential to focus on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise, balanced nutrition, and sufficient sleep, which can significantly impact your overall well-being.

Mindset and Perception: It’s possible that your mindset or perception of life hasn’t fully adjusted yet. Recovery from alcohol addiction is a journey, and it takes time to rebuild a positive outlook and find meaning and enjoyment in life without alcohol.

While all these points might be true, in my experience alcohol addiction is led by something inside you whether that is stress, getting over pain and hurt, feeling more confident, deep trauma or just pure addiction whatever it may be those things will remain there when you quit, it’s not like because you dropped the bottle that in the XYZ amount of years, you have been drinking you somehow solved all these underlying issues that got you started to begin with.

But I Don’t Believe In Looking Back And Here Is Why…

Finding and looking for the root causes of “your issues” is going to take you back in time but I believe in moving forward and what’s going to happen that there is a lot you have learned overtime subconsciously while being drunk that you are going to have to unlearn and tackle head on without grabbing the booze.

It’s rather funny that I am writing this and not enjoying much in life myself at the moment, but I am doing things sober now and while I still find 99% of the things I do boring (putting it lightly) it does get a little bit easier overtime.

You can go from not looking forward to “Enter what you do” it at all, to just doing or dealing with it without thinking to much about it, and having a conversation or even just one happy thought that might happen it will almost feel like a bit of win for that day. Honestly, you are going to start feeling the small wins in the smallest things if you just not to hard on yourself, which is something I really want you to know!

It’s life and we all make mistakes, If you keep being hard on yourself and sob in shame you are not going to move forward, we fall and we get back up no matter how hard it is or whatever you have done.

For some there is a lot of Anxiety in the beginning like relationships and events for example that you used to pass with flying colors with some alcohol in you and now you are facing it being your true self and at the end of the day you are blaming yourself which is causing yourself some depression but let me tell you, I have been there and also that part will fade and for me these things just turned into feeling bored, lifeless just no excitement at all.

But as I mentioned before it’s going to be different for everyone.

Well, that kinda didn’t sound that nice that it would turn in a lifeless thing without excitement at all but I believe that’s all just part of the journey and figuring yourself out again. You see we also grow a little bit older and the sooner the better you come at a stage in life where you do you and no longer follow the “Crowds”, do what everyone else is doing but fill up your own time and energy which makes you thinking more positive and gets you feeling more energetic that’s where the process is actually going to happen.

Please Stop The Self Blame

I have done some horrible things or at least I hear it a lot from other people or I see some of the mess I left behind but waking up every morning feeling shame and blaming yourself all the time you are not going to change. I mean sure you most you most definitely got yourself to blame but at some point you got to realise it’s done, and challange yourself to do a bit better next time.

Sometimes you just got to face the consequences of your actions as nobody else is going to fix them for you and you will learn nothing if you don’t.

Just me again, Martijn with a randon text.

Look so here it goes, there are going to be people in your life that are simply never going to forgive you for what you have done and on top of that there are going to be people bringing shit up all the time for whatever reason, and if they can’t move on from something you still got yourself to do it and make peace with it.

Honestly thinking about it, there are a lot of people who just like to blame you for all the shitty things you did maybe to make themselve feel better or whatever reason it may be, it’s about yourself and not anyone else.

What are you going to do? Hop in your time machine and change the past?

So again, stop the self blame and you will be moving another step closer to figuring out what it is that you want to do with the rest of the day, tomorrow or your life. Just don’t try and attach things that have already happened to the events accuring now as that’s truly going to keep you unhappy.

So What Is Your Advice?

Well if you read the entire article your conclusion is probably that I am not sure yet either, but while writing this which took me about one hour I didn’t think much about the shitty but rather had a few laughs and some thoughts from some of the drunk things I did, and I see that as another small win whether this article is helpfull or not I guess.

Maybe, sometimes Zoom out and look at yourself from far far away and laugh as if you are watching yourself in a comedy movie, life is short move forward.