This was a bit of a shock to me one of the first times I took an extended break from alcohol. After a couple of days, when the fog clears, you find yourself sitting there and realize life is kinda dull now.
All that time you had been filling with alcohol now needs to be filled with something. Quitting alcohol didn’t magically fill the time with rainbows, unicorns, and success. You still must find it in yourself to go out and DO things that will bring you joy or success or whatever it is you seek. Quitting alcohol makes it significantly easier to pursue that. However, as you mention, the act of quitting alone is not the magic cure to suddenly finding happiness, success, or, in the author’s hope, a super power.
Hah! I just happen to be a counter-example, but probably very privileged in being able to do so. I've given up on attempting to climb the ladder, I'm on course to retire comfortably so long as I can maintain finding work in similar roles for another 10-odd years.
Been through too much political BS in too many places to even have the ability to "care" about what happens anywhere up the chain from me. I'd have to luck into a company that's truly worthy of it to rekindle that particular heavily stomped fire.
The super-power is the clarity you get from not being in an alcoholic fog. Clarity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for finding happiness*, success*, etc.
That might be the reason that IQ is fairly strongly correlated with depression (and drug use). The less likely you are to believe in fairy tales and bullshit, the more you're forced to conclude that the universe is indeed cold and brutal - and worse, your place in it is absolutely infinitesimal.
I don’t think there is a true causal relationship though… I am fairly smart (IQ tested by a professional amounted to 147) and I am e very happy person. So are my parents that I would deem as smart as me! It’s about finding joy in the small things and accept the fact that at a cosmic scale we do not matter… and that’s fine!
[Citation needed] on the part where you said being smart makes you less likely to believe in bullshit. I know plenty of smart people who aren’t independent thinkers at all.
All that time you had been filling with alcohol now needs to be filled with something. Quitting alcohol didn’t magically fill the time with rainbows, unicorns, and success. You still must find it in yourself to go out and DO things that will bring you joy or success or whatever it is you seek. Quitting alcohol makes it significantly easier to pursue that. However, as you mention, the act of quitting alone is not the magic cure to suddenly finding happiness, success, or, in the author’s hope, a super power.