Alcohol - My Cure All

I find it more and more that I really don't like pain. Any kind of pain, physical or mental; but I guess the mental pain is the worse. My first instinct when I am in pain is to get rid of it. Though you can always take something for the physical pain the mental pain doesn't seem to have a magic pill.

Alcohol used to be my cure all! It was the best. It really SEEMED to cure it all. Headache - gone! Backache - gone! Heartache - gone! It worked wonders on any ache! But now that I am sober, it really is hard to cope with all my aches. I just want them gone as soon as possible! This is one of my biggest challenges in sobriety, learning how to cope.

With the help of steps and AA I have been learning new ways to cope by coming to meetings and sharing, by calling my sponsor and by staying connected. I have also grown to have a new understanding that it is ok to hurt; everyone hurts sometimes. And that the hurt feelings will go away. It also helped to understanding that when I am hurting I am actually growing spiritually. And that I am actually coming to terms with an event and I am processing it. Unlike when I was drinking, I was just drowning all the feelings. I wasn't processing them at all, I was stuffing them down, one on top of another. No matter how much I drank they never went away. They actually got worse.  

So now when I struggle with pain it doesn't last days, weeks or months anymore. I let the feelings just be there and allow myself to process the pain, knowing that the only way to the other side is through.