Andante

After more than 6.5 years of sobriety in which I have both dealt with serious PAWS issues and made a genuine effort to treat my alcoholism, here’s how I have come to perceive it works for me:

When thoughts inform feelings, it’s likely to be more of an untreated alcoholism issue. When I allow my thought patterns to return to the rat-run of “ego” and self-centeredness that characterized them in active alcoholism, feelings of anxiety, depression, and resentment — as well as the craving for relief via a drink — can result. These I deal with by practicing my recovery on an ongoing basis.

When feelings inform thoughts, it’s likely to be more of a neurological issue. In this case, repeated detoxes from alcohol have left me with a chronic neurobiological imbalance which can manifest as anxiety and depression and exert a negative influence on my thoughts. These feelings and thoughts are unrelated to my environment, my existing mindset, or the status of my recovery. All the lifestyle adjustments or recovery practice in the world won’t entirely cure them because they’re causing a state of mind as opposed to resulting from one. For me, only the passage of sober time (and the occasional prescribed anti-anxiety med) has made much of a difference, although I'm happy to say that at this point the symptoms have mostly faded into the background.

In practice it’s not quite this cut and dried, of course, but I hope my description provides some useful basis for understanding.