Last Drop Blog

Through therapy I have recently learned about “opposite action”. Opposite action is using a behavior opposite to your emotional urge to turn down the volume on your emotion.

Emotions are very difficult to understand and work through. Everyone has things they tend to gravitate towards when uncomfortable emotions come their way. I personally turned to drinking and drugs to turn down the volume on most of my emotions in the past. When I made the decision to remove drugs and alcohol out of my life I then turned to social isolation to handle tough emotions. If I was feeling anxious, sad, depressed, heartbroken, angry etc. I would gravitate towards my bed or sit alone in my apartment. I would avoid texts or bail on plans to get out and do things because I really was not feeling up for it. All I wanted to do was avoid my feelings or emotions by hiding from the world. Turns out that is not only unhealthy but really one of the last things you should do. I am by no means an expert in opposite action but I have found positive actions to take when I am feeling depressed and sad. Instead of sitting alone in my sadness and spending time to collect myself, I should do the opposite. I should get outside, make plans to meet with friends, be around people, feel connected. It is literally the exact opposite of social isolation and likely the last thing you want to do in the moment, but it is also one of the best things you can do for your mental state. You will likely leave the meet up, event, place you went feeling less sad and less depressed. You did the opposite of what you wanted to do and in turn it made the emotions weaker.

I still am and likely still will be working through these coping mechanisms for a while. I am lucky enough to have found a solid opposite action for feeling depressed but there are more emotions that just that. You can feel angry, fearful, joy, excitement and these can all be very intense emotions. You will likely gravitate towards certain activities or things when these emotions arise and at time they may likely be very unhealthy for your current state. For example, you may feel angry and want to go blow off some steam by lifting, boxing, hitting the bars, etc. these things will actually increase the intensity of that anger. The opposite action for anger is commonly taking a short break, speaking softly, stretching to let go of tension, being nice to others when you really dont want to. I surely do not do the opposite action of my emotions all the time. I am just now learning about this and working to implement it into my life. I still isolate at times and still seek the comfortable coping mechanisms for intense emotions when I know I shouldn’t. All I do know is the last thing I should do when I am sad and depressed is sit in my bed for hours and avoid social interaction. I have pushed myself to go out and socialize or simply be around other people when I feel this way and in turn it has truly made those emotions less intense. I am not saying the emotions disappear entirely, but they do not feel as if they are in full control. This is also a great way to breed self discipline.

I am incredibly grateful that my sobriety journey has essentially forced me to sit with my raw emotions and at times get very very depressed. Without feeling that way, I would not learn how to deal with these things in a healthy way. I would not be able to get in tune with my emotions the way I can today and look to healthy coping strategies to deal with them. I would not be able to have the patience and understanding that these emotions are not permanent and will pass over time.

I felt pretty depressed the past few days and was able to recognize it. I really forced myself to just get up and get out. Did I enjoy myself? No, not really. But I wasn’t sitting in isolation letting my emotions intensify. Instead I did the opposite and turned down some of the noise in between my ears. Whether you are sober or not… you likely have some things “vices” you turn to when emotions start to become a little too intense. Those may be the very last things you should look for when this happens. For me the pattern started to become Sadness > Drink, Sadness > Drink, Sadness > Drink. That is when I really started to get serious about my sobriety. For you it could be emotions and vices much different than mine. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is the best thing for you.