By Andrew John Tucker, LCSW, CASAC-G

You’re graduating Thursday. Or next week. Or next month. And while everyone around you is asking what’s next? with bright voices, something quieter is happening inside you.

You don’t know what you want.

Somewhere in the picture is a substance. Maybe alcohol. Maybe weed. Maybe pills. Maybe sports betting, gaming, or scrolling. And depending on where you stand, the question lands a little differently.

If you’ve been sober a while, it might sound like is this what I got sober for?

If you’ve been thinking about stopping, it might sound like if I stop, will I finally know what I want?

If you’re still using and not sure, it might sound like am I numb because of what I’m doing, or am I doing it because I’m numb?

This one is for all three of you.

A graduating student sent me a message recently.

It read, “I don’t have an interest in anything. It’s really just difficult for me, I’m not sure why, but it just is.” They didn’t say where they were on the spectrum. They didn’t have to. It’s more common than people talk about due its crushing silence.

First: wherever you are, you’re not behind.

Psychologists James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente’s Stages of Change model describes behavior change as moving through phases: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.

Contemplation, sitting with the question of whether to change, is a real stage of the work. Most people spend significant time there. It’s not stalling. If you are somewhere between I’m fine and something has to give, you are exactly where a lot of people are.

Your brain might be part of why you can’t feel anything.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has spent her career using brain imaging to study what substances do to the reward system. Chronic use turns down the dopamine receptors that respond to pleasure, motivation, and interest. The parts of your brain that say I want that get quieter.

If you’ve stopped, those receptors are slowly coming back online. Clinicians call the temporary flatness anhedonia, and it is one of the most common, least-talked-about parts of early and middle recovery. The Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, led by Dr. John F. Kelly, has shown that quality of life keeps improving for years into recovery. The flatness lifts. It just doesn’t lift on the timeline anyone promised you.

If you haven’t stopped, the substance is actively turning down the same system that would help you figure out what you want. That doesn’t make you weak. It means the question is harder to answer while the volume is low.

What the substance might be answering for you.

Psychiatrist Edward Khantzian at Harvard Medical School developed the self-medication hypothesis, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1985. His core idea: people often use substances not for fun, but to manage internal states they don’t know how to sit with. Emptiness. Anxiety. Boredom. The sense of not knowing who you are.

If you’ve stopped, you took away the medication and the state it was treating is still there. That isn’t a sign you weren’t ready. It’s the real work starting.

If you’re still using or thinking about it, this is the part to get honest about. What is the substance answering for you? Because something is. And whatever it is, it deserves a better answer than the one you’ve been getting.

You don’t have to find your passion this week.

A 2018 study in Psychological Science by Paul O’Keefe, Carol Dweck, and Gregory Walton found that the find your passion mindset can actually make people give up faster on interesting things, because if it doesn’t feel electric right away, they assume it isn’t for them. Their research suggests interests are developed, not discovered.

You don’t have to wait for lightning. You have to be willing to be a beginner at something a little boring for a few weeks and see if it gets interesting.

Some small experiments this week.

Pick one thing. Not your future. One thing. A walk somewhere new. A class. A book. A volunteer shift. Coffee with someone whose job sounds strange to you. Notice what happens in your body. A lean toward, or a pull away. Either is data.

Reach out to one person. Connection is one of the most reliable on-ramps back to caring about things.

Notice your relationship with the substance this week. Not to change it yet. Just to notice. When you reach for it. What it does for you. What it keeps you from feeling. Awareness is the first move in every direction.

Sleep, food, and movement. The reward system needs the basics to come back, whether you’ve stopped or not.

One more thing.

The not-knowing is not a sign that you failed school, that you got sober for nothing, or that you should keep using because nothing matters anyway. It’s a sign that the structure that was carrying you, the substance, the school, the schedule, is gone or going, and now you get to find out who you are when you’re the one choosing.

Wherever you are in this, the question is yours to sit with. You don’t have to answer it this week. You just have to stay close enough to hear what it’s telling you.

If anything in this article resonates with you and you’d like to explore it further, I offer Individual Therapy and a Wednesday Morning Men’s Group. Visit me at www.addictiontherapynyc.com to learn more or schedule a consultation.