There is a strange sadness in this growing freedom. Our souls may have been scarred by the chains with which our addictions have bound us, but at least they were familiar chains. We were used to them. And as they loosen, we are likely to feel a vague sense of loss. The things to which we were addicted may still be with us, but we no longer give them the ultimate importance we once did. We are like caged animals beginning to experience freedom, and there is something we miss about the cage.
Think about this in gard to ideology, for instance leaving white superiority or the ex-evangelical movement. Ideological replacement will often be slow just as physical addiction reckovery is slow.
