The Dark Night of the Soul in Sobriety

Strap yourself in — this week’s Ramble is a big one.

This week’s Friday Ramble is about the dark night of the soul, which sounds very dramatic and spiritual, but before anyone worries, I haven’t joined a cult, started wearing linen trousers, or booked a silent retreat where I have to pay £3,000 to be told to breathe.

But joking aside, it is something I have been thinking about a lot lately.

So, what is the meaning of the dark night of the soul?

To me, the dark night of the soul means a period where the old version of your life starts to fall away before the new one has fully arrived. It is not just having a bad week or feeling a bit lost. It is deeper than that. It is when your identity, habits, relationships, routines, beliefs, or sense of direction start to shift, and you can no longer pretend that everything still fits.

In sobriety, this can happen when alcohol is removed and you suddenly have to face yourself, your choices, your friendships, your pain, and the life you have been trying to escape from.

The dark night of the soul is one of those phrases that gets thrown around quite a bit, and I never really know whether people understand what it means or whether they just use it when they have had a bad Tuesday and their Deliveroo turned up cold.

In simple terms, it is a period in life where something inside you starts falling apart. Not always outwardly. You might still be working, training, parenting, walking the dog, going to the gym, pretending to be a functioning adult in Tesco, and replying “all good thanks” when someone asks how you are. But inside, something is shifting.

You start questioning who you are, what you are doing, where you are going, who you are doing it with, why certain environments now feel heavy, why certain people no longer feel right, and why old versions of you suddenly feel too tight to keep wearing, like a pair of jeans from 2012 that should never see daylight again.

That is how I understand it anyway.

It is not just sadness. It is not just stress. It is not just having a wobble. It is more like your soul, intuition, gut instinct, higher self, inner child, or whatever you want to call it, starts tapping you on the shoulder and saying, “You know this bit of your life you keep pretending still fits? It doesn’t.”

And that is annoying, because sometimes the thing that no longer fits used to make sense. A job. A friendship group. A relationship. A routine. An identity. A golf club. A business direction. A version of yourself you worked hard to build but now need to let go of.

This is why early sobriety can feel like the first proper dark night of the soul for many people. I call part of it the sober cull, because that is what it can feel like. You stop drinking and suddenly the whole cast list of your life starts changing.

Some people drift. Some people disappear. Some people get uncomfortable because you are changing and it holds a mirror up to them. Some environments that used to feel like home now feel like standing in a room full of noise where nobody is really saying anything. Some Friday nights that once felt exciting suddenly look like the same play being performed again and again, just with worse hangovers and more expensive drinks.

You question everything. Was I actually enjoying that, or was I drunk? Were they my friends, or were we just trauma-bonding over pints, powder and poor decisions? Do I actually like pubs, or did I just like not being alone with myself?

Who am I if I am not the fun one, the drunk one, the chaotic one, the reliable mess, the one who always says yes, the one who keeps the party going even when the party should have ended seven hours ago and someone is crying in a kebab shop?

Sobriety does this strange thing where it gives you clarity, but clarity can be brutal before it becomes peaceful. Alcohol blurs the edges. Sobriety sharpens them. And when the edges become sharp, you cannot unsee what you now see.

That is what I have been going through lately in a different area of my life.

I have changed golf clubs.

That might not sound like a big deal if you do not play golf, but golf clubs are strange little ecosystems full of routines, familiar faces, gossip, egos, competitions, friendships, cliques, comfort zones, old versions of yourself, and people who will happily tell you what is wrong with your swing despite having the short game of a haunted wardrobe.

I had my normal day, my normal route, my normal people, my normal environment, and now I have uprooted all of that. I drive over an hour away to play and train. That is a lot of time in the car, especially when you are partially deaf in one ear, easily overstimulated in groups, and also capable of having an argument with yourself about a golf shot you hit three weeks ago.

But here is the strange bit. I do not miss the old environment. I do not miss the people I used to see regularly. And I am alright with that.

That sentence has taken me a while to make peace with because the people pleaser in me, the old me, the one who used to need approval from different groups, would have panicked about admitting that. What does that say about me? Am I cold? Am I antisocial? Am I running away? Am I starting again because I am brave, or because I am bored, or because I am secretly a lunatic with golf shoes and a dream that refuses to die?

I have asked myself all of those questions more than once, usually in the car, somewhere on the M25, wondering if following your intuition is a beautiful act of faith or just an expensive way to spend money on petrol.

But the truth is, I believe in this golf dream. Whether I like it or not, the driving force is my intuition. And I am following it.

I did it with the books.

There was no grand publishing masterplan when I started writing. I just had this internal pull that told me to write. To share. To be honest. To stop trying to sound clever and just tell the truth in a way people might actually feel. That is still how I write my books now, and it is how I think I will always write them.

I can have structure, ideas, notes, chapter plans and all the sensible stuff, but the real writing comes from intuition. That gut feeling. That quiet knowing. That little internal nudge that says, “Write this bit, even if it makes you look a bit weird.”

And to some extent, I think intuition is going to become a rare commodity.

AI is making everyone sound the same. Everyone is being told what to write, how to think, what hook to use, what sentence to shorten, what emotional trigger to pull, what pain point to poke, what niche to dominate, what personal brand to become, and before you know it, every human being online sounds like they have been trapped inside the same LinkedIn post factory.

Which is probably why I am enjoying stepping away from all of that.

This Ramble feels different. This is not social media. This is not me trying to impress strangers with a dramatic carousel about “5 lessons from changing golf clubs that will change your life.” This is just me and you. A weekly reminder that we are sober on a drunk planet, trying to build lives we do not want to escape from.

And lately, I have been losing old identities. The sobriety guy. The failed golf pro. The person people thought I was at my old golf club. The version of me that felt like it had to explain every move. The version of me that thought I had to belong somewhere to prove I was alright. The version of me that felt guilty for not needing big groups of people to feel alive.

And the mad thing is, as some of those identities have started to fall away, I have felt more peace.

My eating problem has actually started getting better. I am eating in public again, which is a massive thing for me, and I do not say that lightly. For a long time, eating out had become stressful, embarrassing, frustrating and something I dreaded. I would outwardly look alright, but inside I was tense, anxious and trying to manage something that felt like it was slowly taking away one of life’s simple pleasures.

But since changing environments and letting go of some old pressure, something has eased.

I cannot say for certain that one caused the other, because life is rarely that neat, but I do think stress around holding multiple old identities and being in triggering environments had been weighing on me more than I realised.

Sometimes the body keeps the score long before the brain is willing to admit the game is over.

Now there are new stresses and strains, of course. There always are. Starting again does not magically turn you into a calm monk who floats through life drinking herbal tea and smiling at clouds. Starting again can make you feel like a nobody. And that is both terrifying and beautiful.

At my new club, I am not dragging the same old baggage with me. I am not trying to be the old version of anything. I am not the sobriety guy, the nearly pro golfer, the one who did this or failed at that or used to be whatever. I am just a bloke turning up with clubs, a stubborn dream, two cats at home, Aprill probably wondering why I am like this, and parents who have seen enough chaos from me to deserve a quiet life and possibly a medal.

I actually love that.

I love starting afresh. I love the idea of doing this chapter more quietly. No social media updates about every thought. No need to tell the world what I am doing. No need to document every little swing change, identity crisis, emotional breakthrough or coffee order.

Just turn up. Train. Write. Play. Learn. Go home. Love Aprill. Annoy the cats. See Mum and Dad. Repeat.

That sounds like peace to me.

It has also made me think a lot about belonging.

Most of my life, I have floated between groups without ever fully settling in one. I can be social. I can talk. I can have a laugh. I can appear confident. I can sit with people and enjoy good company. But big groups have never really done much for me.

They often feel like too many egos fighting for airtime, and because I am partially deaf in one ear, crowded places can be hard work because I miss bits of conversation, try to keep up, nod at the wrong time, laugh at something I did not hear properly, and then spend the next five minutes wondering if I have just agreed to join a cult.

One-to-one conversations are where I feel most alive. A proper chat. Depth. Honesty. No performance. No shouting over five people trying to tell the same story.

For years, I judged myself for that. I thought there was something wrong with me because I did not have a huge group of friends, or because I was not part of some big social circle, or because I could happily go and do things on my own without needing twelve people, a WhatsApp group and a group photo to prove I existed.

Then Harold, the fabulous Harold, recommended The Gift of Not Belonging, and I listened to it on Audible in one day.

Finally, I felt heard.

It explained something I have felt for years but could never quite put into words. Some people do not feel a strong need to belong to a group, but that does not mean they are lonely, broken, antisocial, or secretly building a shed in the woods to avoid humanity. They can be sociable. They can be confident. They can love people. They can have friends. They just do not get their sense of self from group identity.

That sums up my life.

I do not have many friends, but the ones I do have, I would meet up with if they needed help, and vice versa.

A friend to many is a friend to nobody. I think Aristotle said something along those lines, although I am always slightly cautious with ancient quotes because half the internet seems to think every wise sentence was written by Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus or Yoda.

But the point stands.

I do not want hundreds of half-friendships. I want real ones. The ones where you can sit down, talk properly, tell the truth, laugh at the madness of life, and not feel like you are performing a version of yourself to stay in the group.

That is another part of the dark night of the soul.

You start questioning whether you actually belong in certain places, or whether you were just staying there because it was familiar. And familiarity can be dangerous.

Drinking was familiar. Chaos was familiar. Hangovers were familiar. Bad decisions were familiar. Starting again every Monday was familiar. But familiar does not mean right. It just means repeated.

Sobriety taught me to break the pattern. It taught me to stop, pause, feel, question and then choose.

When I was drinking, I did the opposite. I ignored my intuition. I numbed it. I drowned it. I poured lager, cocaine, gambling, noise, drama and distraction all over the top of it until I could not hear myself anymore.

That is why getting sober is not just about removing alcohol. It is about turning the volume back up on your own truth. And sometimes your own truth is inconvenient.

Sometimes it tells you to leave. Sometimes it tells you to stay. Sometimes it tells you to rest. Sometimes it tells you to start again. Sometimes it tells you that the old version of your life has expired, even if everyone else thinks you should keep eating it because it still looks fine from the outside.

That is where I am at.

I am going through a strange time, maybe even my own little dark night of the soul, but I am happy with it. It is hard. I have questioned everything. I have questioned the golf dream. I have questioned my identity. I have questioned whether I am starting again or running away. I have questioned why I am so peaceful about not missing people and places that used to be part of my normal life.

I have questioned whether I am weird, selfish, intuitive, brave, deluded, or just a man who spends far too much time alone in a car thinking about golf and the meaning of life.

Probably all of the above.

But underneath all that questioning, there is a new energy. A quiet one. Not a manic one. Not the old “let’s tell everyone about this and make it part of my identity before I have even done the work” energy. More like a steady fire.

Books and golf are still firmly part of my life. I love both equally, but in different ways.

Writing fires up my creative brain and allows me to express myself, my weird ways, my mistakes, my lessons, and the bits of life that only make sense once I have written them down.

Golf is the impossible dream. It is the process of finding a way to improve, train, compete, handle pressure, and one day replicate it in professional tournaments. It is also the ultimate gift to my inner child, who was too wounded growing up to truly believe in himself.

Now I have belief in abundance. Some days too much, especially after one good range session when I start wondering whether Augusta has my number. But I have it. And I want to honour it.

This new chapter feels like it belongs to me. Not social media. Not old groups. Not old identities. Not the noise.

Me. Aprill. The cats. Mum and Dad. The books. The golf. The work. The quiet. The faith to follow my intuition, even when I cannot explain it perfectly.

Maybe that is the real lesson this week.

The dark night of the soul is not there to destroy you. It is there to strip away the false bits. It is there to make you question what you have been carrying, what you have outgrown, and what you are still doing only because it used to make sense.

Early sobriety does this. Life will do it again and again.

You will outgrow people, places, routines, identities, jobs, dreams, and versions of yourself you once fought hard to become. That does not mean you were wrong before. It just means you are awake now.

And when you are awake, you have to listen.

That is not always easy. But it is a hell of a lot better than going back to sleep with a drink in your hand.

So my question for you this week is this: are you going through a dark night of the soul right now, or is your intuition quietly trying to tell you something you have been ignoring?

Think about it.

You do not need to blow your life up. You do not need to make a dramatic announcement. You do not need to post a black-and-white photo of yourself looking into the distance with a caption about “new chapters.”

Sometimes you just need to listen.

Then take the next honest step.

If this Ramble makes you feel seen, especially around not belonging, starting again, losing old identities or questioning everything, reply and let me know. I read the replies, and I always like hearing what comes up for you.

Much love,
Sean

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