Comfortably Numb

Avoiding the temptation to smother feelings

As many of my readers know, I volunteer as a Recovery Coach at my local Recovery center here in New Haven. I have over 900 hours under my belt and now also my CPRS via the state. As much as we like to think of our center as a safe and SOBER community, we've recently had to address the elephant in the room that was creating tension-People convinced of the benefits of “California Sober” were coming in under the influence of Cannabis, reeking of it many times, to do volunteer work. Eventually something had to change and we now are addressing the issue by asking that whatever volunteers (or staff) choose to do outside the center, if you come in smelling like Cannabis, you will be asked to go home for the day so as to not trigger others who may be triggered by the smell of it. We think this is only fair because.. Gee.. it's called a RECOVERY center not “Cheech and Chong's Aromatherapy Center”. One day, fed up, I picked up a canister of Febreeze and held the button down for 30 seconds. It made, well..SOME difference in stench control. Then, next day, in walks Sir Dispensary McBongwater clearly a bit toasted and smelling like a 90's Snoop Dogg video on steroids.. You can't win 'em all, folks.

It's easy to pick on Cannabis-It smells, it makes people seem lethargic at times, and it seems like everyone here in New Haven smokes the stuff. Easy target, right? Well, what about the conversations around the behavior itself, the numbing not to feel? It can be with relationships and sex, it can be chain smoking cigarettes, social media overload, taking unprescribed sleep aids more then directed to just knock yourself out, etc. Detox's and Treatment centers are generally good at getting substances out of your bloodstream so you can function, but they often lack the tools to teach you how to handle strong emotions, triggers, PTSD, Anger, Anxiety and other things which are behind using. I once worked with a therapist who had me use what I think was called the Onion Method at the time, peeling back layers of emotions to the core emotion. I was asked for a primary bothering feeling/emotion and the therapist would prompt, “And behind that is__.. and behind THAT is??”. It was a powerful practice because you could start with “I feel apathetic” and arrive at “And behind that is Anger, and behind that is Abandonment, and Behind that is Fear” very easily.

I'm not here to suggest either way that you should or should not smoke Cannabis as part of your recovery. I'm not going to scold you for taking an extra Ambien, or buying a fresh pack of Marlboros. What your recovery process looks like for you is what it looks like FOR YOU. What DOES concern me? That a lot of people seem to have simply put down one addiction to pick up something else to fill a void where feelings are. Emotions don't disappear just because you try to will them away. What we repress, as they say, becomes distress. For me, I am not surprised that one time while I was locked up, knowing I was fighting a phony disciplinary write up that might make me lose privileges of a 2 man room and maybe even good time, I took a half a tab of Buspar a friend had for his anxiety. The calm was fairly immediate. The feeling was so chill, I could have easily decided to cop a few more from my friend, but I didn't. After all, if I had a UA (Urine Analysis) that day, I would have pissed “hot” and gone to the SHU. I remember drinking a lot of water to try and be on the safe side. Luckily the next day we stuck to our guns, the CO didn't do a good job explaining the writeup, and it was quashed with no consequences to my roommate and the other guy who was with us. Lesson learned? Stress is temporary, if we remember that.

Buddhist Monk and Author Thich Nhat Hanh has a quote that sticks with me when I think about our desire to simply flee from or mask uncomfortable feelings:

“If you live without awareness it is the same as being dead. You cannot call that kind of existence being alive. Many of us live like dead people because we live without awareness”

This may sound harsh, but I think some of us actually prefer to live like dead people. Dead bodies don't feel, and maybe that's comforting. However, it's important that emotionally numb/emotionally “Dead” people also don't show up for their kids, tend torwards broken relational patterns with others, may practice small acts of self-harm such as binging/purging or cutting, flounder at their work, and lose their spirituality. Awareness doesn't have to mean fight or flight, it means acknowledging feeling S**tty by saying to ourselves “ I feel like S**t today”, or sitting and breathing for 2 minutes, or calling a friend, or writing in a journal how really REALLY “f*cking pissed off” you feel. What you can't express will slowly poison you, like microdosing cyanide. The more you avoid numbing, the more you show up as yourself. The more we show up as FULLY ourself, the more we recover our life.