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that allows me to respond, not react, to me feelings. i experience my feelings as intensely as i can while also moderating their excessive expression. of course, i took what the reading was really about -- the benefits of the eleventh step and turned it into something i wanted to write about -- what exactly emotional balance has come to mean for me. that is not necessarily a bad thing, as when i write about STEP ELEVEN, i seem to be caught in the ‘yeah its great and i…’ mode. so writing about something else gives me a chance to move beyond the pale of the my normal thought pattern.
looking back, when i was an active addict, i did my best to suppress my emotional responses with drugs -- you know the drill number living through chemistry. i was fairly successful at this for years on end, and even up to the end, it still worked, albeit it took a bit more, and some innovation in how and what i took, but i was still quite numb by the time i came to the rooms.
early recovery was a roller coaster of emotions for me, and the worst part was not feeling them, rather was what to do with the emotions i was feeling. i lacked any clarity or experience in feeling emotions, and was certain that they were going to kill me every single day. well i did not die from my feelings then, or at any time since then, and today i know feeling my emotions is not going to kill me. i digress, however, and need to get back on track. no what really would kill me is how i react and handle those feelings. in early recovery, i used all sorts of substitutes in an attempt to suppress my feelings and none of them worked, and eventually i came to the conclusion that IF i wanted to stay clean and LIVE a program of recovery, i would have to accept that i was going to have all sorts of feelings, remove form my pointy little head value judgments about any of those feelings, and allow myself to surrender to those feelings totally and without reservations. only then would i be able to properly react to my feelings and act appropriately to the rest of the world.
tough as that sounds, it has been the sanest of all courses of action for this addict, and thew results are today, with the help of my daily 11th Step, i can do just that feel deeply and moderate my behavior to what is appropriate. i call that the 6th and 7th Steps in action, and a HIGHER POWER taking care of me, by giving me the tools and the insight to do so.
so am i perfect at this yet? not by a long shot, but i am getting better. physical exercise is also helpful to me in this respect, so i guess it is time to get off my lazy a$$ and do some. so i am off to the races!

∞ DT ∞