Confronting the monsters

And leaving them behind

A few months ago I wrote a mini love-letter/pep-talk to myself and fellow-travelers in recovery. My heart for this is “let the reader understand.”

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash // If this was your face, it was 1) my fault and 2) my job to fix you. “We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism” (from The Laundry List, ACA).

When you get sober, some monsters may appear. They were always kind of there, but you drank them away, remember? Now they seem way bigger. You think, “I’m supposed to be living in reality now. Have the monsters always been this big?” Yes. And no.

I remember an EMDR session a few years back. I recalled a scene involving a person who seemed so big and scary. I took a breath and then breathed out a big exhale. “What is happening for you right now?” my therapist asked, soft and wise with wrinkles. He was the first person I’d met in a while who didn’t seem fixated on “right thinking.” He simply sat with me.

I answered, “Oh, this is weird. That big and scary person? They’re shrinking! They’re shrinking, almost to the size of a marble—no, a CRUMB!”

He asked, “What now?”

I answered, “This sounds so weird, but I kinda want to flick them off my finger.”

He smiles and chuckles—“Do it. YES!”

I nearly apologize. Therapist-approved homicidal revenge? No, he’s just been waiting months for me to express something remotely like anger, like finality, like fed-up. Like done.

There are many things I didn’t realize I was allowed to be done with. I was too busy swallowing them like horse pills to realize I could leave the pills on the counter, smile and say “OK” and walk into the next room, take a breath, and move on.

Before you quit, you’re going to feel done. Like done-done. Find a meeting. Or a therapist. Or a friend or two. You’ll know them by their willingness to sit in silence, to not ask you to explain every little thing. Find people who can hold your doneness and welcome your flicking-off of the monsters one by one.