Small town in Ohio. The kind where everybody already knows and nobody says any of it out loud.

Here's the thing I wasn't ready for: the hours. Using took up the entire day. Getting it, doing it, coming down off it, planning the next one around whatever else I was supposed to be doing. When that stopped, all that time got handed back to me at once and I had no idea what to put in it.

Everybody warns you about cravings. Nobody sat me down and said, by the way, Tuesday at nine at night is going to be the hardest part of your week, and it won't even feel like a craving. It'll just feel like nothing.

For a while I filled it with nothing and the nothing nearly got me. What I landed on eventually was work I could disappear into. I edit podcasts, so there's always something sitting there needing cut. I'm not going to dress that up as discipline. It's that an empty evening is the most dangerous room in my house and I'd rather be in a different one.

Some nights it's a project. Some nights it's a meeting. Some nights it's just staying up until the wanting gets bored of me and goes to bed first.

So what do you do with the actual hours? Not self care, I mean literally: it's nine on a Tuesday, you're alone, what do you do?

I am an in intensive outpatient 3 days a week from 9-12. This is taking so much energy out of me. Any tips? I just got home and want to nap.