The Freedom to Feel

Drug addicts and alcoholics are not particularly well-known for their patience or forbearance. Most alcoholics/addicts in early recovery are unpleasantly dismayed to learn that although their problems do not magically and instantly go away simply because they are abstaining from drinking or using. In fact, many will tell you “the good news is you have feelings and the bad news is you have feelings.”

Many may actually feel as if they are on the equivalent of an emotional roller coaster because their feelings seem to be all over the place – one moment, they are on top of the world, unbeatable and invincible; and the next, they are in a pit of despair, emotionally drained, and wondering if a clean and sober life is worth the pain and the struggle.

A Normal Part of Recovery

Individuals experiencing this helter-skelter emotional bombardment can take a small measure of comfort from the fact that what they are feeling is entirely normal for a newly-sober former substance abuser.

During active addiction, the drugs and booze change the brain’s chemistry. This is because drugs and alcohol affect the reward centers of the brain, making it virtually impossible for the user to experience pleasure normally.

Even when an individual enters recovery and abstains from further drug use, it can take a considerable amount of time – in some cases, over a year, for the person’s brain to return to normal.

Stuff Happens

Stuff happens, and when it does you can be present and counted on to those who need you (that includes yourself). This week, my girlfriends’ dog passed after a long and happy life. He became sick and his body organs simply shutdown. I have been through this in active addiction and sobriety. The later is far more favorable. Today, I can “suit up and show up” as my sponsor tells me. I can go through anything life throws at me as a direct result of my sobriety. That doesn’t mean emotions like sadness, disappointment or anger are not present. It simply means I have the tools to cope, support and feel without “sitting in my shit” while wallowing in self-pity. When stuff happens, it is another opportunity to grow in sobriety.

Emotional Sobriety

Staying on as even a keel as possible and regulating excessively high and low feelings is known as emotional sobriety and is as much a lifetime project as staying sober. In fact, learning to regulate too-strong emotions is one of the keys to avoiding relapse. Ask anyone with considerable time.

Powerful emotions, especially negative ones, can lead to related feelings of guilt, shame, pain, regret, or discomfort, and in the addicted mind – these negative feelings have habitually been dealt with by masking the pain with drugs or alcohol. If they gave out trophies for the ability to mask pain, I would need an entire room to house them!

Since the goal of recovery is abstinence, the individual must develop new skills for dealing with the almost-unpredictable emotional spectrum caused by a brain that is trying to regulate itself, as well as the trials and travails of everyday life. Practice doesn’t exactly equal perfect, but it does create the opportunity to be comfortable within ourselves which lends itself to happiness.

Safe Haven Recovery is a boutique Florida Drug & Alcohol Treatment Center located in Miami, FL. We specialize in Suboxone Maintenance & Detox, along with, Couples Addiction Treatment. Call us today at 866-447-4650.

About the Author

Matthew Koenig is the principal of Last Call Marketing, which devotes their efforts to Digital Marketing, Content Marketing and SEO, primarily in healthcare and tourism concerns. Mr. Koenig is based out of South Florida. His sober date is June 10, 2013.

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