Stuffing down the pain

"Our fear of pain is what leads us to addiction. We can't bear the pain of our current situation or the memories of a painful past, so we numb ourselves in an effort not to feel it.

The irony here is that our efforts to avoid pain just cause us more pain--and make true happiness impossible. We don't take the risk, so we never get what we want. We don't face the difficult past, so we are never free of that pain. We don't sort out the painful present, so we never make things right. And the pain just goes on and on. We can't be numb 100 percent of the time. And in sobriety, we can't be numb at all. So we need to learn how to experience our pain--truly feel it--and just sit with it."

Ah, numbing the pain. I know how to do that so well. I use drugs, alcohol, sex, food, tattoos... anything I can get my hand on to make that pain go away. All that stuff I've been stuffing down for decades now. But in sobriety, it's got to come out.

I'm working on my fourth step again; looking at all the resentments I have against other people. The list just keeps growing, as I'm sure it will continue to do over the course of my life. I suppose even people with serenity get mad every now and again. Hopefully I can figure out what that means about me, and how to let God lift some of those things away from me.