Blog entry for:

i planned my feelings, and my goal for each day was to feel good. in recovery, i am liable to feel anything. and that is one gift that cuts like a double-edged sword. sure, being capable of feeling the full range of human emotions sounds like a wonderful thing. the problem was, that i was unprepared for how powerful those feelings were. years of suppression made me forgot what feelings were and how i was affected by them. worse yet, was my suppression of feelings was a conscious choice at first that got warped into a need that consumed my every waking moment. but using to change and suppress feelings is an old story for anyone who happens to be in recovery, what i am thinking about today is learning to express my gratitude for getting the gift of unreliable and unpredictable feelings. that smörgåsbord that i do not get to choose from anymore. my feelings are now a reaction to the world around me and apparently inside of me. one of my favorite trite little clichés is ‘i have never died from a feeling!’
that is quite true, although in recovery, feelings have driven me to the point of wanting to use. at those moments i faced a choice, do what i always have done and reach for some instant feeling remover, or do what i have been taught to do, reach for the phone. i will tell you this, reaching for the phone took a whole lot more effort, but that effort was rewarded by another day clean, and you know what, the feelings that drove me to that point were not removed, but the obsession to use was. i learned the very first time i made that choice, that even though i may feel like dieing, living clean is a better and healthier choice, and feelings like farts to disperse as time goes on. so this is early, and i have much to do, on closing good luck my friend Earl, i hope that your move is a good one for you.

∞ DT ∞