Tapping into Emotional Energy for Stable Recovery

Here are some thoughts and reflections on going to any lengths necessary to stay clean (to be in stable recovery from detrimental compulsions and their underlying psycho-emotional factors).

A common trope you hear in the recovery community is, “You would have done anything to get to the dope house, right? If you want recovery as bad as you wanted dope, you’ll do anything to get it.”

A former counselor once put it another way: “Addicts are highly resourceful. Think of the crazy shit you’ve done to get your fix. The energy you put into lying, manipulating, stealing, finding ways and means to get more. If you applied a fraction of that energy and effort and creativity into recovery, you’d be set.”

These things are true. No doubt.

But it’s not that easy, when urges for self-destructive behaviors are experienced viscerally while the impetus to be in recovery comes from a logical, calculated decision rather than being based on an emotional yearning.

When my thoughts and feelings have an argument, my feelings tend to win.

I can logically anticipate the emotional devastation that awaits on a self-destructive path, because I’ve been there too many times before to expect it to end up any better this time around, or ever.

I can visualize a future of falling from grace and trust with my family, running out of second chances, being homeless, being isolated, suicidal, and all the rest.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to emotionally feel the gravity of that hypothetical future, which is why it is challenging to tap into the urgency needed to course-correct.

When I remember the lowest points of my life, I can mentally recall that it was awful, jarring, hopeless, and unacceptable to the point of forcing me to change. But tapping into the full emotional depths of the pain I was in, is trickier.

Sometimes it’s like I am viewing the trauma of the past and the potential trauma of the future through an objective lens, not fully realizing that this is my life and there is so much at stake.

This disconnection from the emotional depths of my own experience, is certainly a symptom of the pattern of binge-eating and drinking that I’ve been in since January.

Whyyyy?

My best understanding of the “why” of these behaviors is that as a child, I learned without even knowing I was learning it, that my upset emotional states could be calmed by certain foods, tastes, and textures.

So early on, eating became my way of feeling OK. I was a troubled child who had no idea what I was getting into, so I coped this way often.

“Feeling OK” more specifically means, the mind being distracted from the troubled emotional states, the feelings being set aside, crammed down, anesthetized.

Due to the way brains work, the more times we do a thing, the more automatic and less conscious the process becomes (this is why you can drive to work safely without even necessarily consciously registering what’s going on around you).

If that thing is particularly rewarding on some level, the deepest parts of the brain get fooled into thinking it is necessary for survival. This combines with habitual automation to level up a habit into its final boss form: Addiction.

This same process is associated with every substance I’ve ever used, as well as escapism via video games, sex, codependent relationships, social media, and plenty of other fUn sHiT.

Through the repetitious process of escaping from and numbing emotions, I think the overall emotional processing system becomes impaired. This has twofold implications:

1. Instead of being processed in a healthy way, undealt-with emotions accumulate in the subconscious mind, and while I am consciously unaware of what is stored in there, it still impacts my thoughts, drives, and behaviors in often inexplicable and unsettling ways. There is nearly a tangible energetic weight to the mass of subconscious feelings that have been rejected, forgotten, and disowned through self-numbing coping behaviors.
2. Through repetition of using substances and behaviors to numb my feelings, I find myself in a perpetual state of emotional numbness and disconnection even outside of the moments of using those behaviors.

Which brings me to my current predicament of seemingly being unable to consistently tap into emotional urgency to bring about persistent positive changes.

I am not emotionless altogether, but I am somewhat disassociated from my emotions. I think I also tend to replace emotions with thought processes (intellectualizing my emotions), but that’s a whole other can ‘o worms…

As I wrote earlier about the potential future of falling from grace, being homeless, and being in a state of suicidal lunacy, I did feel something subtle and unpleasant twisting in my gut. That’s good. I’ll have some more of that, please.

So my emotional processing system is at least endeavoring to operate. It needs a good tune-up and some repairs. When you change the oil in an automobile, you don’t fill it up with cheap beer instead of oil, and cheep beer isn’t gonna work on my inner engine either.

To get back in touch with my emotions, common sense indicates that I am to stop smothering them with poison and excess.

Which is hard to do, without feeling the urgency (not to be overly redundant, but it does keep coming back to that).

Here are some ideas for actions I can take to connect to emotional urgency:

1. Have conversations with family and friends about how they felt about me when I was at my lowest points. How did my actions impact them? Listen to them. Don’t make clarifications or justifications. Just face the uncomfortable music, and see my life through their eyes as much as possible.
2. Re-read my journals written in rehab, when I was at ground zero of my own emotional devastation and the ONLY thing left to do was enter recovery or fade out of life like a disappointing fart in the wind.
3. Journal through my memories of my low points, connecting those memories to the resolve and perspectives which led me to 14 months of stable recovery.
4. Journal, meditate, and pray about projects I can work on a little bit at a time for some small wins so I can feel better about my life in general.
5. Put more focus on acts of service that get me out of my own way and open up my heart to the love I feel when I put other people’s interests before my own.
6. In another context, making sure my core self-care needs are met before putting other people first (although one of my self-care needs is to serve others, so self-care and service are inseparable, there is a need for balance and discernment here).
7. Invite my rejected emotions to be expressed. For instance, I cram down a lot of my anger without realizing it because of a belief about myself that “I am a peaceful person.” Moving my body and dancing to cathartic music while tapping into my anger and releasing it, has been one of the most healing things I’ve ever done. But it’s not habitualized, so I hardly ever do it (yet). Making a weekly or monthly practice of this and then doing so as needed, may be a supreme idea.

Any other suggestions for applying some laxative to my emotional system? I’m listening.