So how does anyone find happiness without alcohol? I find my happiness while being around my family. But I still feel like something is missing. Like I’m just coasting through everyday life and not feeling true happiness. Today is 18 days no alcohol and I’m trying to find joy and happiness. I don’t feel sad or depressed. I just feel kind of empty, like something is missing.
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Welcome. Alcohol and drugs are so attractive because they place the cart before the horse…
For example, with persistence and passion and commitment, pleasure can be a reward from gym work / your career / a relationship / a skill / a hobby. You keep on with the work and feel the pain a of endurance … then feel the pleasure, genuine good pleasure, of accomplishment.
With drugs and alcohol you just bypass any sense of work and get the pleasure immediately. Inevitably you get the pain afterwards though, but by then your neural pathways want to keep hitting up that pleasure again and again.
You need to be patient and work hard at what you want. If it’s sobriety then work your socks off on staying clean, recharge those batteries, flex that brain back into a normal state, find yourself again. Pleasure comes later, like with anything good and wholesome.
Nothing is wrong with you. Joy comes from within and pleasure is something you find through external factors. Seek pause and joy in the mundane and daily.
Good luck.
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For me, happiness is no longer looking in the mirror and hating myself. Happiness is being able to make decisions and do things for others rather than being hasty or using/BSing folks. Happiness and joy come daily with working a program and being of service where I can. Happy feelings come when I envision myself hunting/fishing this fall (without being drunk as shit like I did for years).
Hugs on your 18 friend! It gets more joyous the further we distance ourselves.
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Im happy all the time grateful for each day i wake up sober , in my early sobriety going to meetings making new sober friend helped me , have to fill the void ,exercise is good , if you dont do anything nothing will happen . nothing changes till you change wish you well
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Day 1
I’ve been thinking about happiness lately. Is it overrated? Is contentment better? Having had trauma deal with me recently, I feel a desire to be okay. Not happy. Happy seems arbitrary. I desire to not harm the ones I love anymore. Like a doctor’s mantra: first do no harm. But is that a way to live life? Or the phrase we’re made to thrive… what’s that? Like caffeinated happiness?
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This was so beautifully said. Thanks for sharing. 
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You’re right. I think being content is a form of happiness. Being in the calm of the storm. Even just for a little bit…everything seems okay. I hope that makes sense.
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