Hello Sensation

... I feel you near. Hello emotion, I see you coming my way. I'd like to invite you in, to sit with you for tea, to finally get to know you better.

For the longest time I've felt awkward around emotions, much like being around members of the opposite sex. I felt I was better equipped at handling their presence with a few swigs of liquor or a couple tokes off of a joint. While this most likely never took away my clumsiness around women or displaying emotions, it gave me the false sense of comfort to separate from my separation anxiety / to temporarily detach from my attachment disorder.

Of course I didn't realize when I first began experimenting with drugs & alcohol that I carried these fears of connection around with me, as it has taken peeling off a few layers of the onion while shedding a few burning tears to discover the underlying matters.

I just knew when I felt different or strange in social situations & that taking a mind altering substance beforehand seemed to alleviate it. Or at least give me a really good excuse for acting strange & different..

When I first sought out addiction therapy & 12 step programs, I was hopeful for deliverance from the misery & horrors of my failed attempts of using for escape. I'd figuratively & almost literally reached the end of my rope. The handful of times I used toward the end I was immediately hurling myself into certain psychosis... the shadowy people & dark figurines surrounded me.. just like the emotions & sensations I thought I could negate, they too, had me fenced in.

Hello darkness, I feel you near... 
Hello shadows, I see you coming...

I had been inviting them in for tea, I had gotten to know them all too well. . .

Calling the authorities in a panic on these demons I had willingly invited inside my domain didn't ever bode well, but after multiple visits to hospitals, institutions, & jail I was eventually able to get well.

Leaning into the discomfort is a new & challenging concept to me in this area of my recovery, but I find it so utterly necessary for my growth.
To leave the past & darkness where it lies was all I knew I wanted, but recovery has given me a new design for living. Beginning with surrendering, I can now accept the things I find undesirable, things that didn't quite go the way I thought they should for me.

If I strip it all away, I still have a thinking problem. always "Thinking, thinking...." Today I have the choice to notice my thoughts as just that. I can then identify them, label them good / bad / or neutral. I no longer have to be reactive to my thoughts, while noticing the underlying emotions behind them, & furthermore the initial sensations spawning the emotion. 

I can then invite them all in.

Inverse Reasoning

I spent most of the night in search of desperately needed sleep, Ultimately, I ended up lying in bed tossing & turning in search of (what I deemed to be) desperately needed answers. My pursuit of either came up empty handed leaving me with more questions of "Why this? / Why not that? Why me? / Why not me?" than I could keep track of.  As the first signs of dawn began to soak through a thick layer of clouds, eerily spreading that soft, dim light of early Autumn daybreak.  As an addict in recovery I despise this feeling of impending doom more than the misery of abusing a substance itself. I should have been sleeping, not obsessing over things out of my control..

Life today is far different now for the most part. I have progressed to an awareness that sleep, relaxation, appetite, physical health, my mental well-being and deep connection with others are my most prized possessions. When any of these staples become sacrificed or inadequate in sobriety it instantly triggers feelings from my past of self neglect, self abuse, or just being completely devoid of self. When I am having an off day mentally or physically due to lack of self care now, it feels so much like being hungover from drugs & alcohol that I actually feel similar shame & guilt. I have to accept that this may always be the case for me...

Fighting an internal  battle day in & day out can wear on you, like waves constantly pounding upon the beach, crashing down over and over. Sometimes its low tide, leaving you exposed and vulnerable, sometimes the high tide is exhilarating yet overwhelming. The only thing you can be certain of is it will always be present, surely there shall be storms, just as there shall be calm sunny days, just as the tides of life shall constantly ebb & flow.. they never cease. 
"This too shall Pass"

Since I'm not living in G.I. Joe land, I don't consider myself the militant one, an operator, or that I possess special forces. ... I won't subscribe to the"Knowing is half the battle." mantra, or any other military-ism. 

Simply knowing something doesn't  always cultivate the kind of deeply inspired change necessary to progress. You can know a lot of things but still ignore the signs, warning labels, surgeon generals "suggestions" or that California "Knows" that almost everything causes cancer. Chances are that most of us continue on with the "Ignoring is bliss" mentality.

People that smoke know it is bad for them.

I knew for a long time that I was an alcoholic, but until I could accept my alcoholism... accept that I had lost my right to use or drink successfully to escape.. I couldn't change.



Just because I'm not a veteran of foreign wars, doesn't mean I don't have symptoms of PTSD, suffering many of the same horrors with the best of them..... as a warrior on the front lines of my recovery from a hopeless state of mind, body, and spirit.

You never turn your back on the ocean, you always keep an eye on those next set of waves forming, just like with the disease of addiction I have to be aware that it is always there, keeping and eye on it through a daily reprieve of working my program.

Then I have to accept that the waves of life on life's terms are never going to subside & I am never going to be the master of the tides. Nor shall I ever be in control of when, what, where, or fucking why a wave will come crashing down from over my head, pulling everything I had been planning on out to sea with the undertow.


I believe that half of the battle is awareness / while the other half is acceptance.

It is not up for me to understand or to figure it out.

It is only up for me to be aware & accept it.

To be on the victorious plane of serenity, I needed to accept that I could never win this conflict while mired within my own psyche. I stepped out of my comfort zone at the bottom, took a good hard look at myself, becoming aware of my underlying traumas. The ones I had previously thought I could just drink, use, or act out over, or run away from until they disappeared into the rearview mirror. I wasn't aware that with awareness comes choice. I believe in accepting the choice to change & seeking to live in the solutions instead of floundering in the problems.