When He Finally Understood What He Was Really Chasing

“I didn’t know how to love myself, so I chased anything that felt close.”

Will’s shift didn’t come in rehab. It didn’t come after hitting bottom. It came in a sentence—one that admitted the thing he’d spent his life running from:

The drugs weren’t the addiction. The emptiness was.

For years, Will substituted chaos for connection. He didn’t need another high. He needed to feel held. Needed to feel seen. Needed to believe he was worth more than the momentary hit of dopamine that told him he was alive.

And when he finally said that out loud, something broke. Not him—his pattern.

That’s the shift. When you stop managing symptoms…And start confronting the wound they were trying to cover.