Managing Emotions (Reflection)

In order to stay bet-free and sober, one area that needs daily maintenance is my emotions. A lot of emotions personally are kept in the ‘grey area’ thanks to modern medicine. I still from time to time go to extremes. Extreme highs like happiness and deep, deep, dangerous lows such as anger and sadness will lead me to relapse. Personally I find the extreme highs more dangerous than the lows. I can be so elated that I need a drink or bet just to calm down and regulate my body & mind.

One area that can help is meditation. A few techniques I use include imagining a balloon in my stomach inflating and deflating as I breathe in and out. Another method I like is picturing four boxes labelled by their numbers and breathing in and out to each box. In ‘me and my mate Jeffrey’ Niall uses a simple breathing technique of breathing in positive energy and breathing out toxic energy.

HALT is another area that needs to be considered both to maintain your emotions and discourage the use of drink, drugs or gambling. If you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired you are at a higher risk of becoming emotional and/or relapsing. The best ways to combat these include having breakfast as part of a three meal a day diet. Consuming healthy snacks such as bananas and nuts. Letting go of resentments can be a game changer for anger. Having gratitude lists can help too. Avoid loneliness by reconnecting with society through regular meetings, Men’s (and Women’s) Shed activities or by joining a club that’s interesting to you. There are also hundreds of courses both short and long term you could enroll in too. It brings you back to ‘habit stacking’, you could be ticking self-development, learning and loneliness boxes. To avoid tiredness try not to over or under sleep. Be active throughout the day and eat well to encourage a better quality sleep. Doing some journaling too can help get thoughts out of your head before bedtime.

There are courses that can help regulate your emotions. CBT & DBT can both achieve this. Something I’m personally looking into at present is ‘Recovery College’. If I was to define DBT I would say it is the process of living in the now and walking the middle path. It was a course I did in addiction so I couldn’t appreciate the benefits of it as much as I could do now. Other areas DBT looks at is self-soothing, challenging thoughts and introducing pleasant activities into your daily life.