Hi, I am 46 days sober. Wow, blows my mind. The days have added up quickly. I notice lately all of my emotions (mostly negative ones) are heightened. I randomly have felt sad and then a few second later felt like i could and sometimes do actually cry. I have also been more irritable and just generally more sensitive. Quick to feel stressed and hard to get back to baseline emotional state.
I was already a pretty sensitive person before so not drinking/not distracting or numbing myself seems to have had this effect on me… any suggestions in how to deal with this? I’d like to be more stable, but dont know where to begin…
Hey Tammy.
Congratulations on your 46 days sober.
I did a lot of crying during my sober journey. Just out of the blue sometimes. Finally feeling all these emotions we are feeling sober can be overwhelming. One day I found myself crying out of the blue while walking and thinking of my daughter who is a recovered addict. They were happy tears she’s working recovery and sad tears that my little girl is/was an addict. Hit me out of nowhere. She been good for ten years.
My only advice is to just feel them.
The worst times are when my wife walks in on me and sees me crying. It gets embarrassing sometimes. It does gets easier. But it still happens a once and awhile.
I say enjoy the emotional relief. That’s what I did. It’s exhausting working a program.
Keep up the great work.
And you’re getting close to a 60 day milestone. That will mess with your brain. Because you’re doing this. And that addictive brain don’t like it.
Great truth of us finding sobriety- we get our emotions back, sad truth…we get our emotions back! I found acceptance was the answer to a lot of how my moods & racing thoughts were coming in & out.
Shit, I have a brain disease. Of course my brain is going to act a bit erratic, I just took its slushy sauce away. It gets better as more time gets added.
No need for this drunk to overthink it. Hugs on your days!
Emotions and feeling them can be difficult when we aren’t numbing them out anymore.
We do learn to cope better being sober, to feel the feelings and either just feel them or to take necessary action, if any needs doing to help the situation.
Crying is good, if you need to cry then cry.
When I cry I remind myself that our bodies actually clear stress toxins and crying can help improve your mood, emotional tears release emotional pain, and release endorphins.
Early sobriety is definitely emotional as others have said. We spent so very long numbing and escaping our emotions
…but all we did was repress them into our bodies…they were/are waiting for us to heal a bit and get them out. Emotions and feelings are okay to feel (tho embarrassing at times, like crying over the produce at the grocery!). But we are all human and humans feel.
This is a great opportunity to befriend those emotions. Oh, here you are sadness, I know, we have had a lot to be sad about, thank you for tending to me, I got it now (or not!)…I will write my sadness in this journal. Or…anger!! I will dance or yell or run you thru my body or write to you…because underneath may be more grief and sadness.
The key for me has been learning acceptance of emotions as they arise…witnessing them…maybe writing them out…and releasing them. Also, learning coping mechanisms not to flood myself.
So yes, all very very normal for us. You can also search on sadness, emotions, irritable, anger, etc and find all sorts of threads on this.
I second counseling. And don’t be afraid to switch if the first one isn’t the right fit. I just started seeing a new lady for that reason and she is lovely.
I’ve been going thru withdrawal on my recent drug of choice. That’s called anger. I find myself crying when before when i got mad. My point is, our bodies are RE learning HEALTHY habits.
It will be OK.
I have done significant time sober from alcohol. I totally understand
But we are all human and humans feel.