Eh. It depends. It depends on you. You definitely do for a little while, at least. But I, for instance, like booze. I don't like weed. I don't do coke or any "hard" drugs. So, for me to quit opies - I need to not drink for a while, because I'll just get drunk and call someone for opies.

Once I'm at a safe point away from the opies and have gotten my reason back and the drug-seeking behavior subsides, you kinda need something more innocuous to fill the gap if you're anyone like me, and so I drink more now than I did. I drink too much, probably, but I'm not a problem drinker yet. But I don't know what to do to wind down at night naturally. I'm constantly on-guard against going down the same exact path with a new substance, though, so maybe in a few years if I'm not careful I'll be a full blown alcoholic. I think I'll be fine so long as I'm careful and realize that I'm not necessarily going to be fine, if that makes sense.

In other words, addiction is like this many-headed Hydra - you cut one off, another one grows in its place and you still got those other assholes to deal with. You gotta figure out how to live your life sober, but if you're the substance-abuse prone person to begin with - that's the entire battle that brought you here to begin with.

If you're like me and you figure out how to be satisfied sober, you've made it. Stay there. I'm inclined to think, however, that you kinda gotta fill the gap somehow or you'll just eventually have a terrible day or some perfect storm of circumstances and go back to it. Statistically that's overwhelmingly true, anyway. I think you might have more success smoking weed or something, if that works for you, and trying to keep that under control. It's the same road but a lot fewer consequences