Hello, dear reader. (Scroll to the bottom for November events & updates!)
When the days grow colder, darker, and shorter, do you have new challenges begin to pop up? Does the addicted voice inside your head get louder, more insistent, and a lot more creative?
“This time of year reminds me of awful stuff that happened in the same season in years past.”
“When the days get cold and dark I’m not sure what to do besides get fucked up at the end of the day.”
“The winter coming feels like impending doom. I can’t tolerate that sensation.”
“The holidays, and having to see my family are coming up. Numbing out during that impending stress, tension, and drama feels like the only way to survive it.”
The emotions and your experience are very, very real. The rationale and the solution presented by the addicted voice, however, are not.
When we start to question our relationship to substances, and maybe start to take breaks from them, or perhaps quit completely — a challenge, *ehem*, an opportunity arises for us. Any time we experience a thought of using the thing we are taking space from, we have a chance to follow the trail of breadcrumbs back to its origin.
We can then choose to do something different. This is the core of our healing.
The first and most important step is to recognize we are having a thought from the addicted voice. Remember — any thought that leads to a desire to use is the addicted voice. 100% of the time. Unblending from it is the exact moment you are breaking free, and literally re-wiring your brain. You can say, “Oh. I’m hearing a thought from the addicted voice.” That’s it. Check the box. Good work!
The second step is to honor your experience and your felt emotions. Yes, last year there was trauma during this season and your body remembers it. Yes, there’s more down time when it’s dark out, and feeling bored is a normal response. Yes, having to go see your family if there’s tension and stress involved is not fun, and having anxiety about that makes sense. Please do not beat yourself up for having an emotion!
The third step is to accept that this is your current experience. Fighting it won’t get you anywhere. Wishing it will go away doesn’t work. Stuffing it down only calcifies the emotion. Life sucks sometimes, and in order to transform the suckiness into something tolerable or even enriching… is to accept that this is the current state of things.
The fourth step is the fun part. This is where we say “thank you, no thank you” to the addicted voice, and we participate in our own little scientific experiment of choosing something different. We have got tons of scientific data about what happens when we escape with substances. That road is well trodden. So what if we choose something else? Tea and knitting instead of hot toddies? A two-hour limit at family gatherings? Doing a ritual to release our grief from fall’s past traumas? Doing a yoga video before bed instead of staring at our phone?
The addicted voice will fight back, you’ll experience a sense of resistance to change, but if you stick with it, you might just break your old patterns and begin to heal.
You got this.
May you be happy and free, dear reader.
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This week is our 100th podcast episode! Our first ever guest, Logan Bragg, is back for episode 100 to talk about sober dating and more! Click here to listen!
Support groups are still every Monday at The Library Vintage at 6pm. HOWEVER, they will be moving locations and starting in December we will be at 620 N. College.
Check out the following flyers for our sober hangs this month! We hope to see you there!!!
