Overheard in Recovery: Collateral Damage

One of the things about addiction is that it has a way of numbing feelings. Many people get in the "habit" of using as a coping mechanism for feelings they don't like. So it comes as no surprise that when you numb feelings, you end up losing touch with all feelings. It came as no surprise, then, when I overheard the following:

Good feelings are collateral damage in addiction. You lose them just like you lose the feelings you are trying to hide from.

No wonder people new in recovery don't know what it really means to feel "happy." The only way any feelings could break through the Numbing Wall of Addiction was to go to extremes. So it turned out that in order to feel

• anger one had to go to rage
• sad one had to go to grief
• happy one had to go to euphoria

and so on. Normal range emotions fall by the wayside. They don't break through. We don't even know we have them. I remember sitting in a group many years ago with the members focusing on one of the other people. The leader kept asking the person on the "hot seat" what he felt. Over and over and over, a broken record, he kept saying, "Well, I don't know."

Pretty soon the group members got fed up and started challenging. "What do you mean? You have to know. Everyone has feelings." On and on it went for about 5 or so minutes. Different scenarios and questions were posed. No luck.

Finally the counselor stopped the discussion. He looked at the group and in a quiet, caring voice he simply said, "He's not lying. He really has no idea how he feels."

That was a numb way to live. It was collateral damage to the process of addiction. Fortunately it doesn't have to be that way. Recovery gives us the ability to feel again. We don't like all those feelings. They are strange. They don't make sense. But once we learn to live and cope with them it becomes a sense of comfort to once again be in touch with what is happening in our lives and souls.