I’ve kept no secrets about how difficult the last year has been for me after a miscarriage, separation, and uncertainty of a marriage. And oh yes I am a severe codependent recovering from addiction with little idea how to love myself without external validation.
            The reality of the human condition is this; pain is inevitable, suffering IS more avoidable.  But no matter how much I read, write, pray, meditate, work a program, yadayada, the fact of the matter is I’ve had to process feelings.  And sometimes, there is nothing to do but feel horrible or cry my face off.  Before recovery, I would wake up dreading the actions of the night before.  Now I wake up with a terrible lump in my throat like “Oh yeah, this is my reality today and it’s nothing like what I envisioned.” And yes I can write gratitude lists and tell myself it will get better, but there are very few things I have found to do in an instant that can shift my mood like being of service to others.  One of the most amazing gifts of being in such prolonged emotional pain is the ridiculous amount of compassion you develop towards others. Being of service is the single most efficient way to get out of our own minds while positively impacting others.  Is this not a total win/win??!! When people hear “service to others” they think volunteering at a shelter or donating clothes and food to a local center, but the truth is we can be of service over and over throughout our day, every day.  So to jumpstart you in vibrating at a higher frequency tomorrow, I have started a very basic list of ways you can be of service to others, IMMEDIATELY:

1. Call someone you know who has been struggling and tell them you have been thinking of them and wondering how they are.  If you are limited time wise, call hands-free from the car or just explain at the beginning of the call that you only have a few minutes but needed to reach out.  Here is the key, JUST LISTEN TO THEM, don’t try to fix ANYTHING.  Just hold a safe space for them to feel their feelings.
2. SMILE at a perfect stranger today.  In fact, lets get crazy, see how many perfect strangers you can look in the eye and smile at in one day! Need to be held accountable? Make it a contest with a friend!
3. TEXT someone that you love them.
4. Hold a door for someone or let a car out in traffic.
5. Give your hard working lunch or dinner server a few extra bucks.  Chances are they may need it more than you!
6. Keep blank note cards around the house and write to someone about how special they are. Snail mail can be a nice surprise these days. Seriously, just do it and see how good you feel when you drop it in the mail…
7. Compliment someone!! Why not tell EVERY PERSON you encounter today something positive about them from a smile, to the shoes they are wearing, to the way they handled a particular situation.
8. Choose NOT to forward a negative Facebook post so your followers can avoid one additional negative vibe in their day.
9. If someone engages you in gossip, bring the conversation somewhere else, JUST FOR TODAY.  Don’t let someone be spoken of today if they aren’t there to present their side or defend themselves!
10. And when all else fails, just stop in the moment of suffering and ask the universe, "How can I be of service in this moment?" Something WILL come to you!

RealYou Revolution, LLC. is New England's premier resource for cutting edge                                                     substance use disorder services.

     Advanced Intervention - Recovery Coaching - Family Support Services 
                  Case Management -Sober Companions - DUI/OUI Support 
            Self Esteem Development - Anxiety Management Management 

For an addict (I use this term to include alcoholic), feeling our feelings is a critical component to dealing with addiction and recovering from addiction.  It is important to understand that someone who has been numbing their feelings for years is going to go through a phase in early recovery where they begin to feel feelings for the first time, and it’s typically a scary and unpleasant experience.  I remember hitting about the four-month mark crying on the phone with a woman in the program telling her I would rather be trashed every day of my life then feel the way I did at that moment.  Everything I had avoided dealing with was coming out of my cells, pains and struggles I had stuffed down for over 15 years.

 Another important piece in understanding addiction is that the addict essentially stops growing emotionally around the time they first started using drugs and/or alcohol. For many of us the path started with pot or drugs as early as 12 or 13.  This applies to anyone and everyone recovering from addiction whether 15 or 50.  So recognize that now you have this person who has stopped the addictive behaviors but has started to have some uncomfortable feelings come up, who has the ability to deal with such issues on the same level as a teenager or preteen.  This is why as many support systems as we can put in place are critical to the recovery process.  Meetings, sober peers, therapists, recovery coaches, it doesn’t take one or two of these but ALL of these to increase the chances of success and long-term sobriety or the ability to bounce back quickly from a slip.

            Even after a significant amount of time in recovery, having feelings come up is risky.  The addict wants to instantly “fix” the feelings and have control over numbing them or making them go away.  So aside from the initial support systems a person must develop the proper coping skills that work for him or her. This even applies to physical feelings… I know every time I got sick in early recovery I wanted to drink because in the end that was what I did to feel better.  A person cannot simply be told what works for them, they have to learn to develop and understand these coping mechanisms as they see fit for themselves. The key to feeling negative feelings is not to sit in the pain to sulk and stay depressed; it is to process through these feelings until they have left us.  Taking a line from the wonderful Pema Chodron: “ The best thing you can do is learn how to fail really well, to hold the pain of things happening that you really don’t want to be happening … to experience the rawness of vulnerability … and to know the experience of when something terrible happens it means an opportunity for you to evolve into a better place, a new experience”.  In the end, life happens; we must all understand that moments and feelings pass, yes, both the bad and the good.  The beauty of life in recovery is being able to recognize this, be in moment, and ride the wave.

RealYou Revolution, LLC. is New England's premier resource for cutting edge                                                     substance use disorder services.

     Advanced Intervention - Sober Companions - Recovery Coaches - Family Support Services - Case Management -DUI/OUI Support - Anger Management                                   Self Esteem Development - Anxiety Management