Feelings in Recovery

Feelings are one of the shiny coins dropped into the purse when recovery begins.

I feel excited to get up and drink coffee where I used to dread the dry heaves. A shot of Jameson would help. The sunshine now brings a sense of euphoria while it used to cause me to shut my blinds tight so I could wallow in regret until I was high or drunk enough to wander out into the noon day sun. I used to wait until I was so faded I barely knew my name before heading to the grocery store because I had so much anxiety about running into people I knew. High as kite it is easy to float right on by. Now, I secretly hope I will run into someone that I haven’t seen in a while so our kite strings can get tangled up in a hug and a brief conversation.

The realm of feeling emotions has been a wild rollercoaster. I often tell people that feelings in sobriety are the most wild trip I have ever taken. I once ingested 50 hits of LSD while on a road trip in the desert. I did not come down for a month. During this time, feelings (about everything from cracks in the sidewalk to grass growing and people whispering about me) were so fierce that I ended up on an anti-depressant, a sleeping pill and a new anxiety medication. If I look back and compare the intensity of those feelings with the ones I have in sobriety, they aren’t even on the same level.

During the many years before my walk in sobriety feelings floats like jelly fish through the sea of life. They had no place of their own and no way to cling to a spot bearing opportunity. I’d simply take my anti-depressant, anxiety med, sleeping pill, narcotic, pot brownie…. the list goes on. Feelings drifted on and on endlessly. Drifting alone miles of uncharted ocean must have been a lonely existence. Every blue moon they may have gotten lucky and drifted over a dead fish. Excited, many electrical currents shot through magnificent tendrils into bloated and flacid rotten flesh for a rather unsatisfactory climax. If my feelings had a mind and executive faculty I would not be able to stand judge if they yield a knife for their own death. I know when I believed I had no more purpose or direction than a jelly fish suicide seemed not only justifiable but rational and humanitarian. Drifting from shore to shore stinging the innocent and praying on corpses is no way to live.

Feelings. Sobriety feelings have purpose.

But this purpose is sometimes very hard to discover! My feelings have evolved from jelly fish to barnacles. Both equally scary and obnoxious to the sea farer. Due to my lack of marine biology I have no idea where barnacles come from and what they do for the sea. They stick and cling to everything and anything that has any direction or purpose is subject to their infestation and nuisance. I’m uncertain of their ecological purpose, but when present they demand attention, unattended and they reek havoc and change entirely the trajectory of the object they inhabit. Any attempt to step on the suckers and squash them out just ends in a bloody altercation- the barnacle always the victor never showing any signs of being offended. The fact is that barnacles will come and they won’t just float by. They will cling until they receive the proper attention.

Now that sobriety transformed my feelings into barnacles with a purpose from jellyfish with a sting I have to give them attention or they maim beyond repair. The most positive thing I have found about this process is when I get down and dirty with a barnacle I end up repairing my other parts of my ship. To me this process is a lot like training and fitness. I started with a rudimentary overlook and decided I needed to gain fitness in my legs and arms to prepare for triathlon. Doing this has led me to attending to my diet, sleep patterns, core strength and flexibility. The checking and acknowledging the barnacles has led to constant improvement and maintenance in many areas of my life, on my ship.

As long as I am in the ocean of life barnacles will continue to latch. But instead of the barnacles becoming a nuisance they now insight motivation. In sobriety, there is no way to turn feelings back into jelly fish and have them float on by, not even for a day. They may get wildly uncomfortable but I am constantly amazed at the repairs that occur when I sit with them! So here is to feelings, may the best part of the trip continue!