I’m so sorry to hear about your breakup and your pain. I know it was caused by your addiction - the same was true for me - but that doesn’t make it any easier.
In addiction we give up everything for the addiction. It’s a dance with alcohol (or drugs, or sex, or whatever the addiction is) and only a dance with alcohol. Every other dance partner is second or third or thousandth place, and the relationship with alcohol always comes first. The result is selfishness and chaos. The result is breakups, pain, betrayal, even death. It is a dance with the devil.
The solution is learning to live a healthy life (which for us means a sober life). It is possible.
For my emotions, I still find they are intense at times but they have calmed as I have practiced my sober skills. My sober skills include daily accountability check-ins with my Daily Sobriety Renewal partner (he’s in my addiction recovery group; we call each other every morning), and also daily voicemails to my sponsor. I also do prayer and meditation. I do journaling and recovery readings also.
That combination of activities, for me, helps me to keep my mind and my expectations clearer and more balanced, and I find it prevents a lot of the intense emotional swings I used to get.
I do exercise also. Working out my emotions at the gym is helpful.
I didn’t start doing all those things at once. The first thing I did was to start attending meetings and spending time daily on Talking Sober. There’s a gratitude thread that I like to post on, where I focus on my gratitude about the challenges I face and the opportunities that come to me through them:
I also like to scan the list of threads and provide supportive comments to others.
This thread has lots of good books and groups too:
I have found that the biggest part of getting sober, for me, is staying connected, daily, with other people actively working on their recovery.
It is possible. I know it’s hard, but I promise you it gets better. 