The second
part of Step One from the Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous is “…that our
lives had become unmanageable”. By the time I was ready to surrender many parts
of my life were unmanageable. I couldn’t pay bills, maintain any type of healthy
relationship (be it friendship, romantic or familial), keep commitments to family
job, etc. or keep up any semblance of self-care. Saying this, I believe that
the true root of my unmanageability lay in the fact that I could not manage my
emotions.
I
first started self-medicating to deal with emotions I didn’t like (i.e. –
couldn’t manage) such as fear, anxiety, sadness or anger. These were all painful
emotions to my psyche and who likes to suffer pain? In an attempt to manage
this pain, I began to drink alcohol and later would partake of marijuana,
cocaine and crack (and a slew of other types of substances ranging from
depressants to psychedelics to stimulants). Escaping the pain of my emotions
through self-medication worked for many years. I believed I had found the
solution to my problems. After awhile I wanted to escape or increase any type
of emotions. If I was feeling happy I wasn’t satisfied and wanted to feel even
happier. Snort some cocaine or smoke some crack and my dopamine increased providing
me with a false sense of heightened happiness. It wouldn’t last long and it was
a quick nose dive back to one of the emotions that caused me pain. As a result,
the whole cycle would begin once more.
Once
I sobered up I began the journey of learning how to manage these emotions. Part
of the 12 Steps is getting rid of unwanted baggage – resentments, anger, fears,
etc. I firmly believe that in order to prevent myself from getting more baggage
I had to learn how to manage my feelings – all of them. The first step was learning
how to identify them. I had started to regularly self-medicate at the age 16.
The majority of all future relationships, crises and problems were dealt with
in an intoxicated state. As a result of this I never properly learned how to
handle any of those things in a healthy fashion. I sobered up at the age of 35
and about nine months into my recovery I entered into a relationship with
another alcoholic who hadn’t started self-medicating until her early 30s. We
would get into arguments and I would handle them the way a 16-year-old would
causing her to become even more angry. I couldn’t understand why she was
getting angry at me as I had never learned how handle confrontation in a healthy
manner. It took several years, working a good 12 Step program, outside help and
personal growth (on both our parts) for us to begin to resolve issues in a
healthy way. Fast forward over 10 years later and we are still together and
still learning. It isn’t always perfect but it’s 100 times better than it was
in the beginning.
One
thing, early in our relationship, that frustrated my partner was my response
when she asked me how I was feeling. I would say, “good”. She would say that
isn’t a feeling and I would insist that it was. After debating this multiple times,
I finally printed off a list of emotions from the Internet (they had faces
beside each) and put them on my fridge. Whenever she asked me how I was feeling
I would point to three of them and say why I felt that way at the moment or
earlier in the day. I think this may have been our couples’ therapist’s idea
but can’t remember for sure. Regardless, this helped me begin to learn how to
identify my emotions.
I’ve
since learned that the words we attribute to our emotions are our way of
describing what is going on in our bodies. When I my heart rate increases, my
muscles tense and my face gets red there is a good chance I’m angry. When my
heart races, I have trouble breathing, my stomach in is knots there is a good
chance I’m anxious. When I have a lump in my throat and my eyes water there’s a
good chance I’m sad. Etcetera, etcetera. By paying attention to my body and
becoming aware of what physiological responses relate to which emotion I have learned
to react to each feeling in a healthier way. The old me would get angry and
have an unhealthy outburst. Now, by gaging what is going on in my body, I can
tell when anger is building, decide my options for a healthy reaction and proceed
with said reaction. It doesn’t always work but as the Big Book says, “progress
not perfection”.
Dave
the Dude
