[RufusACanal]

Emotional Upheaval
Years ago as a guest in one of those hospital supported Care Unit treatment centers I had so cunningly got myself admitted into, I vaguely remember a Substance Abuse Counselor with a nifty plastic name tag in front of a cheap chalkboard talking about the necessity to exercise caution at certain periods in recovery. If what little of my memory serves me correctly, there are particular times when the mind and body of the Alcoholic seemingly without regard to current events, jumps into hyperspace leaving the poor fool Alcoholic wondering which end is up. For example, I will be cruising along in life, no worries, people are wonderful and then BAM, everyone is a dyed in the wool *******, life sucks, there are catastrophes and conspiracies around every corner, my self esteem is **** and the walls are closing in. I know with every fiber of my being that this is the end of my exalted existence and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop the runaway train that is my life from smashing to bits at the next turn. Sounds like the plot of a seriously bad movie, but the emotional upheaval is so intense that I have a flicker of uncertain fear wondering if I will truly return to normalcy. If I had not stayed sober over these years, if I was not armored with certain facts about myself, if I did not have this firm foundation of a new life supported by something far greater than I, if I had not radically changed my thinking and behavior, I would have succumbed to this transformation again and again. How do I know this? All I have to do is look at my Fourth Step inventory where relapse reigned as king in my old life for so many years.

It might be really a short stretch to say I am suffering from several forms of mental illness and chalk up the erratic behavior and unhealthy abstract thinking to any number of congenital birth defects, if I was so inclined to continue looking for excuses. The truth is less horrific and much more plausible; I am an Alcoholic who has by his massive consumption of beverage Alcohol caused certain neurology damage that can be easily attributed to the manifestation of Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. So now I have a more understandable reason for this infrequent and most unruly emotional turmoil. Much like the dreaded Herpes Simplex virus, certain stressors, changes in the Moon’s phases and God knows what else, triggers this insane roller coaster of chaos commonly known as PAWS. Listed below are some of the more pronounced symptoms of PAWS.

1. Inability to think clearly
2. Memory problems
3. Emotional overreactions or numbness
4. Sleep disturbances
5. Physical coordination problems
6. Stress sensitivity


Looking back over the years is a miracle of grace for one such as I, yet in the looking, I can see where I failed to grasp the significance of these mental and physical symptoms and invariably paid the price for this ignorance through repeated binges and sprees; always it seemed that I needed to get sober and healthy long enough to drink once more. I want to write more on this, but have a meeting to attend.

Time for the Early Bird meeting!