Filling the Void

I talk a lot about "filling the void." And so I wanted to share my blog post this week on it. Hope it helps someone.

l0velyjune.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/filling-the-void/



Filling the Void

There’s a hole in a donut. There’s a hole in a car tire. There’s NOT a hole in you.

I need to come out and say that right from the start, because I believe it’s one of the most important lessons any addict needs to learn in order to fully recover. It’s a Hollywood fallacy. It’s misinformation. Somewhere along the line, maybe in some self-help book, we were taught to believe that we have a void inside us, and that notion is, simply, wrong.

Part of my recovery, part of many traditional recovery plans, was learning how to “fill the void,” that aching, empty, bottomless pit inside your soul, the “hungry heart,” as Susan Peabody calls it, that feeling of needing SOMETHING that if you don’t find it or get it or stuff yourself with it, it keeps you from feeling whole and complete. So, being the insecure, unhealthy people we are, we tend to fill that void with garbage—we latch onto destructive people, get involved in inappropriate relationships, take drugs, have sex, smoke pot, spend money, overeat, drink. All the while believing that if we found the right stuff to fill ourselves with, that empty feeling will go away.

And the truth is, anyone who has ever suffered, anyone who has ever lost a loved one, there is a real, physical feeling of emptiness. If I pay close attention, I can actually FEEL a void in my heart. And yet, I ask you to believe that there isn’t one.

What if that empty feeling was not an actual empty space inside you that needed to be filled? What if there was no void? What if that empty feeling is just part of you?

What if you sat in a room with it and experienced it instead of trying to stuff something in it, hide it or cover it up with love, sex, drugs, or food? What if you just accepted it like a flaw, like a dimple or a slight indentation in your skin? Something you cannot get rid of; something you must make peace with and accept?

I suggested this idea to someone on the boards, and the response I got was, “Thanks. That would be nice. But there really is a void there. I know it, I feel it and it’s the driving force behind all my actions.” And yet, individuals who have lost limbs still believe and feel their limb exists. Individuals who believe in God have seen and felt him, even though he cannot physically be seen or felt.

My point? If you can imagine that God exists, you can imagine that a void doesn’t.

So this is what I did. I locked myself in my room for four days straight one week and I sat with it. For the first time ever, instead of curling up and rocking, trying to avoid the emptiness, I let it in. I told myself, “This is a part of me, so I will experience it, know it and accept it.” And I did. And every time it crept up on me, that feeling of being hungry for something, anything, (and there were lots of times, even after the four days in lockdown), I said, “This is a trick.” And it was. It was and is a psychological trick. And eventually, just like making peace with a missing limb, I started to be OK with the idea that, even if it felt like there was nothing there, there really was. I started to understand that nothing, after all, was missing. There was no void. I am whole. And once I got that, I stopped trying to fill myself with garbage. Suddenly, there was no point.

Today’s obvious advice: sit with the empty feeling as long as you can. Experience it. You’re not going to like it at first. But you’ll adapt. You’ll acclimate yourself. Human beings are resilient. Love addicts are especially resilient.