Evening is different. During the day there's noise, work, people, obligations that fill the space so there's nowhere to fall. In the dark that space stays empty and no one is guarding it.
Silence isn't calm. Silence is an echo. Everything that could be pushed aside during the day comes back in the silence and sits down next to you. Thoughts that were easy to ignore between meetings now have nowhere else to go.
Solitude magnifies everything a person spent the day pressing down. There's no need to pretend, no one to pretend for. No need to seem fine, no one to check. And exactly at that moment comes the offer of relief that works fast and reliably.
Addiction doesn't like witnesses. It works best where there's no one to ask what's actually going on. Evening, in an empty apartment, in silence with no phone ringing, the door stands wide open.
It's not a coincidence that relapse mostly comes after dark. It's logic. The day can be survived on performance. The evening has to be survived with yourself, and that's a different discipline no one really gets taught.
Silence isn't the enemy. The enemy is what moves into the silence when there's nothing else there.