Pubdate: Mon, 12 Apr 2004
Source: Daily Times, The (TN)
Copyright: 2004 Horvitz Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.thedailytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1455
Author: Steve Wildsmith

WHAT FILLS THE VOID AFTER RECOVERY?

Just For Today

As a drug addict, once I took away the dope, I looked for something else to 
fill the void inside me.

It's hard to describe what that feeling is like to someone who hasn't 
experienced it. It's an overwhelming, gnawing ball of darkness that sat 
like an anchor in the center of my chest. When I was high, drugs covered up 
that void. Once I was clean, its presence was undeniable.

My first few times through recovery, I sought something external to fill 
that void. Rather than recognizing it for what it was -- an ugly, infected 
emotional wound that would take time and effort to heal -- I thought 
something else could ``fix'' it. I tried a lot of things -- relationships, 
money, work -- but nothing seemed effective.

That's because I carried around that emotional wound, and it was all too 
easy, without drugs to cover it up, to try and fill that void with 
something tangible. As an addict, I wanted the quick fix, the easy solution 
- -- something I could do that would remove those troubling emotions 
instantly. It took a couple of relapses for me to understand that the only 
sure way to repair that wound is through the 12 Steps of recovery.

Among other things, addiction is a disease of the feelings. We use to keep 
from feeling negative emotion -- guilt, shame, depression, fear, loneliness 
- -- and once the drugs are removed, those feelings come flooding back. We 
may have to face the consequences of our actions -- things we did while 
using drugs that hurt those who love us -- or we may no longer have drugs 
as the armor to keep from remembering traumatic or tragic events from our past.

Recovery teaches us to deal with those negative emotions, which are all 
balled up together in that dark void that weighs so heavy on us. The 12 
Steps help us to recognize that drugs are just a symptom of a much larger 
problems -- an over-inflated ego and an emotionally scarred inner self that 
doesn't know how to function in society.

Those emotions can often seem too overwhelming to deal with without the aid 
of dope -- but we don't need drugs to cope with those feelings. Feelings 
are just that -- emotions that ebb and flow like the tide, washing over us 
in powerful waves one minute and retreating the next. We have to remember 
that feelings, as powerful as they might seem, won't kill us -- no one ever 
died from a ``feeling attack,'' as one recovering addict told me several 
years ago.

Eventually, the longer we abstain from drugs, the clearer our minds become. 
The fog begins to lift, and the confusion that permeated our brains in 
early recovery starts to dissipate. It becomes easier to keep our feelings 
in check, and we no longer feel like our minds are in a constant state of 
chaos and disorder.

For me, the only thing I've found that keeps my mind focused and helps me 
deal with negative emotions is the 12-step program of recovery to which I 
belong. I've learned that life on its own terms can be dealt with, without 
me having to get high. And incidentally, that goes for negative and 
positive emotions; I used not only to forget about emotional pain, but also 
to heighten my emotional pleasure during good times in my life.

But eventually, I reached a point where I didn't feel anything -- not 
happiness, not sadness, not joy, not sorrow. I felt nothing but the hunger 
of my addiction, always screaming for me to get more. Any semblance of 
humanity I had and any sort of spirituality I might have obtained were 
gone. I lived like an animal and felt like a vampire, a man without a 
purpose and without a soul.

Today, I know I have a choice. I don't have to go back to that subhuman 
existence. Recovery has helped me fill that void, but doing so has meant 
constant work on the inside. I can experience feelings today, both positive 
and negative, and I know two things: that they won't kill me, and that I 
don't have to get high to cover them up.

Steve Wildsmith is a recovering addict and the Weekend editor for The Daily 
Times. His entertainment column and stories appear each Friday in the 
Weekend section. You can contact him at  
or at 981-1144.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart