The Hollow Ache
Chris had always been searching. Growing up in the vibrant chaos of London, they were surrounded by endless possibilities: late-night hookups, intoxicating affairs, the fleeting high of a stranger’s attention. It felt like love, or at least the closest thing to it. But the momentary rush always faded, leaving them lonelier than before.
At first, Chris thought their problem was just bad luck. Then they believed they just hadn’t met the right person. They jumped from relationship to relationship, from bed to bed, convinced that this one would be different. Each time, they ended up devastated, either ghosted, betrayed, or trapped in a cycle of neediness and resentment that left them emotionally drained.
But there was something else, something deeper than love or sex, something Chris had been avoiding for as long as they could remember. They had never felt entirely right in their body, in their identity. As a kid, they had slipped playfully between gender languages, feeling comfortable in both masculine and feminine expressions, but by adolescence, that fluidity had hardened into confusion. It wasn’t just about who they loved—it was about who they were. They experimented, tested boundaries, sought affirmation through the gaze of others. Maybe if someone else loved them, the questions about their own identity would fade into the background.
“Love is not a cure—it’s a mirror.”
The Descent into Obsession
By their late twenties, Chris’s love addiction had crippled them more than the occasional binge-drinking ever had. They stayed in toxic relationships long past the expiration date, begged for partners who no longer cared, and lost themselves in the fantasy that the right love would fix them. And when relationships weren’t enough, sex became the escape—a hit of dopamine, a quick numbing of the void.
Chris had also started experimenting with crystal meth during sex, an entry into the world of chemsex—a place where pleasure and obliteration blurred into one. At first, the drug made them feel fearless, euphoric, like they could love without inhibition, like they could finally lose themselves completely in another person. But soon, the drug itself became the lover. The sex without it felt dull, muted, like something was missing. The comedowns were brutal, filled with paranoia and shame. More than once, Chris lay awake for days, heart racing, their body exhausted but their mind unable to rest, scrolling through hookup apps like a gambler at a slot machine, convinced that just one more encounter could make them whole. They worried that they would never again be able to enjoy love—or even their own body—without it. The fear clawed at them: “Had they ruined themselves forever?”
The breaking point came on a bitterly cold winter night in Soho. Chris sat in their tiny flat, phone in hand, waiting. Not for a single message, but for multiple. They had sent texts to at least eight different people: former lovers, one-night stands, someone they’d met online and traded flirtations with. They needed something—a response, an invitation, a flicker of interest to affirm that they mattered.
But midnight came and went. The replies weren’t coming or they were rejections. No one wanted to be with them.
The silence was unbearable. It felt like suffocation, like being swallowed by a black hole. Their body buzzed with anxious energy, the kind that usually sent them rushing out the door to find someone—anyone—to fill the void. But that night, they stayed put, their heart pounding in their chest.
A quiet knowing surfaced in them, unshakable this time: This will never be enough.
“You don’t need to chase what’s already yours.”
Seeking Help in Twelve Steps
The next morning, they stumbled into their first SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) meeting in a cramped church hall in Bethnal Green. A circle of strangers welcomed them.
Chris sat, hands clenched together, listening to others share. A middle-aged woman described how she had spent years chasing men who didn’t love her, sacrificing everything just to be needed. A young man admitted he had lost his job from watching porn for ten hours a day in his office. Another person spoke of spiraling out of control, losing themselves in sex work, in manipulation, in a never-ending hunger for approval.
Chris didn’t know what to think.
They identified, at least in part. They had felt that compulsive pull toward others, the desperate need for attention, the inability to be alone. But they had never lost a job over it. They weren’t that out of control. And was love addiction really the right term? Wasn’t love supposed to be a good thing?
Still, something in the stories rang true, so they kept exploring. A week later, they went to a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting. After all, wasn’t meth part of the problem? The meeting was packed, the energy intense. People spoke about heroin, about crack, about waking up shaking for another fix. Chris listened as members described white-knuckling their way through cravings, counting days, the terrifying pull of addiction. But Chris didn’t feel that way about meth. Outside of sex, they never thought about it. When they weren’t in a hookup, they had no desire to get high.
They left the meeting feeling like an imposter. “They weren’t really a drug addict, were they?” Not in the way these people were. Maybe they belonged in SLAA, but even there, they weren’t sure. The programs spoke in absolutes: compulsion, powerlessness, surrender to a higher power. Chris wasn’t sure they wanted to surrender their own will to God’s will. They wanted answers. But mostly, they wanted relief.
“Your story isn’t over—it’s just starting.”
Running from Shame
One night, having missed their regular meeting, Chris decided to try another program: “Sexcompulsives.” Maybe they’d find answers there.
The meeting was different. Stern. Controlled. The room was filled with men in stiff collars, and women were escorted out of the room into a separate gathering. The leader of the meeting spoke with absolute conviction.
“The only real recovery,” he said, “is in strict sexual sobriety. That means sex only within the confines of marriage between one man and one woman. All else is sin. Masturbation is sin. Pornography is sin. Lust is poison, and it must be eradicated.”
Chris felt their stomach churn.
Someone asked them directly, “Are you a man or a woman?”
Chris hesitated. “I… I don’t identify as either—”
“You have to identify as your real biological sex,” another man said sharply. “Recovery starts with honesty. God made you one sex, and you need to embrace it. And you need to give up sex until you’re ready to be married—to a person of the opposite sex, as God intended.”
Chris’s hands trembled. Shame flooded them, pressing down like a crushing weight. They stood abruptly, knocking their chair over, and bolted for the door. As they pushed through it, they slammed it behind them so hard it echoed down the empty hallway.
Outside, they gasped for air, tears running down their face. They had never felt so erased, so wrong. The very thing that had haunted them for years—the feeling that they didn’t belong in any box—had just been used against them like a weapon.
They would never go back.
“If it hurts your soul, it isn’t healing.”
Discovering Nondual Recovery
Then they found Nondual Recovery. It wasn’t a program in the traditional sense. There were no steps, no rigid labels, no endless cycles of confession and repentance. Instead, it was about presence: being here, now, without judgment.
“You are not broken,” one of the teachers said. “There is nothing to fix. There is only seeing through the illusion of who you think you are.”
Chris had spent their whole life trying to find themselves in another person. Now, for the first time, they saw that there was nothing to find. No identity to be completed. No lover to make them whole.
In addition to its meetings and core philosophy, Nondual Recovery had 12 keys: simple, memorable values that guided daily life without dogma or rigid structure. Unlike the 12 steps, which often felt heavy with judgment against supposed “character defects,” these keys felt like open doors rather than restrictions and demands. Chris found themselves returning to them throughout the day.
The first key, awareness, became their anchor, something they leaned on constantly. They used it to cultivate mindfulness, to stay present, to observe their thoughts without drowning in them. Instead of reacting blindly to emotions or falling into old patterns, they could pause, breathe, and see things as they were. The keys weren’t just words on a page; they became part of Chris’s inner dialogue, shaping how they moved through the world, helping them build a life that finally felt like their own.
“Healing isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about seeing yourself.”
The Illusion of Gender and Self
Through nondualistic philosophy, Chris came to understand that rigid gender roles were just another form of attachment: concepts created by the mind, clung to as if they were absolute. The world embraced these illusions, but Chris no longer had to.
They accepted the label “nonbinary,” not because it defined them but because it was convenient. A way to communicate in the world of forms. But it did not define their essence. Labels were tools, nothing more.
At the same time, Chris recognized that biology was an important foundation for their gender expression. Their body was not irrelevant; it was real, and it shaped aspects of their experience in the world. Gender was about something real, not just a social game. But they would never be imprisoned by biology, either.
Their life experience had taught them that biology did not truly define them. They could acknowledge the reality of their physical form while also knowing that their identity was not fixed, not limited to any one category. Accepting reality meant neither rejecting their body nor allowing it to dictate all of their existence.
They let go.
They let go of the need to define themselves by old wounds. They let go of their old ideas about sex and gender. They let go of the fear that they were missing something.
The world could keep its illusions. Chris had found something greater—freedom.
“Labels are for convenience, not for cages.”
A New Beginning
Chris had saved up some money, and with a couple of friends, both queer or nonbinary like them, they decided to leave London. They were moving to Derbyshire, to a small village in the Peak District where life would be slower, quieter, closer to nature. And they were an hour’s drive from Manchester, where they could meet new friends.
For the first time in their life, they weren’t obsessing over who they might meet there. Would they find a boyfriend or girlfriend or a nonbinary partner? Would anyone understand them? None of it mattered anymore.
If they ended up alone, they would be happy. If they met someone new, they would be happy.
Life would unfold exactly as it should, and they would accept whatever it brought.
Chris thought to themselves: “If there isn’t a nondual philosophy group out there, I’ll start one up myself.”
As they left the city behind, watching the skyline fade into the distance, Chris felt something they had never known before.
Not longing. Not fear. Not hunger.
Just peace.
“You don’t find peace. Peace finds you when you stop running.”