Originally Posted by Andante

Initial withdrawal symptoms are typically over within a week or so, but in certain cases, a variety of symptoms — including anhedonia — can persist and recur long after the acute withdrawal period is past. These symptoms are often loosely grouped as PAWS — Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.

In the case of anhedonia, some brains don’t bounce back as quickly as others from having their pleasure centers repeatedly bombarded with alcohol over a period of years. It took time for your brain to get into this condition, and it may take time to get out of it, too.

Whether the cause of your anhedonia can be ascribed to PAWS or not, the solution is the same. As others have suggested, get out and explore new interests and activities, even if you don’t feel particularly inspired to. The inspiration should come with time. Right thinking follows right action, as they say.

Originally Posted by fantail

Yes, there's some scientific medical stuff going on too, like Andante says. I'm not going to google it right now so I'll preface by saying this is what I remember reading, so of course it may be slightly addled between now and then. But as I recall, an addict's brain reforms to have many more receptors for the specific endorphins released by their drug... a big one for alcohol being GABA... and less for the others. So you kind of have to starve it out for a while before it starts opening up receptors to match more accurately the balance of endorphins you can get naturally.

In my mind I picture a house built to gather rainwater for its pipes going through a drought... takes the homeowner a few months before they give in that this is going to last for a while, so I better go dig a well.

I'm at six months and last night I took an ice skating lesson in a community ice rink and it made me as happy as anything. That would not have been the case a year ago. Sobriety brought back simple pleasures for me.