This author recently was invited to speak to a group of recovering individuals in a group session at a Substance Abuse Center. The session was on the selected topic “Why We Experience Pain”. It was based upon the articles on this website and material from the book Eternal Sobriety. The emphasis was on how emotional pain is like physical pain and how it is a gift from God to help us know that something is wrong with us. This is a perspective that combats the world system viewpoint that our emotions are the result of what others have done to us. Emotions such as fear, anger, and depression are a result of our thinking with bad beliefs. Negative emotions are a flag that warns us that we need to examine our beliefs and purge the lies from our belief system. If you would like to have a better understanding with respect to this perspective, I would refer you to the article released early last year (2023) titled Building Character – As God Sees It – Killing the Pain.
Additionally, if you haven’t yet read the previous post to this one, you might wish to, as it adds some clarity to the solution for removing emotional pain. Here is that link. As God Sees It – Foundational Attitudes for Spiritual Growth – Renewing the Mind – ETERNAL SOBRIETY
This excerpt from Chapiter 2 of the book Eternal Sobriety provides the simple truth about emotional pain. Be quick to see it and embrace the solution.
Emotions Have Their Purpose
Sometimes our best indicator of a problem is emotional pain. Bad feelings define this state of mind, and we should be quick to learn that this is a positive and not a negative. Our alcoholic belief system, if still active, screams for booze to medicate and remove the pain. Isolating ourselves or anesthetizing the feeling with chemicals or some other self-gratifying action, might temporarily make us feel good, but is never a good solution. Emotional pain does not necessarily have to be a bad state to be in if we can see the positive value of it.
Pain means something is wrong with us. It applies to both physical pain and emotional pain. It hurts when we step on a piece of glass, and our natural solution is to remedy it with first aid. This is how we need to view and handle our emotional pain. The indication of it implies we have a mental problem, and the remedy is to give it the right type of first aid. It’s likely that the mental problem is related to a spiritual problem.
On a spiritual plane the presence of negative feelings implies the problem is within us. It is easy to want to shift the blame externally, and we do that often. You can blame that approach on the sin principle. Negative feelings usually indicate that a belief in our belief system is incorrect. Peace and serenity come from truthful beliefs.
Negative feelings are an indication that we have error in us, and they are not an excuse to blame anything or anyone, but the error. This is an opportunity for us to practice self-control, so we don’t act out on our negative feelings. The right remedy is to seek advice from others who have had the same experience. Sharing our feelings with others is an important part of the recovery process. Seeking advice is looking for alternative beliefs and principles that can lead us to the right thing to do. If we act on the truth behind the spiritual principles found in A.A., the natural growth process will eventually allow our belief system to adapt to new principles, and the old ones will cease to be a problem.
Confusion and other bad feelings can provide a stepping-stone to growth. Therefore, it is important to stand firm, seek truth, and trust the process. The more we act on truthful principles, the faster the removal of the incorrect principle will be. Acting on spiritual principles will eventually lead us in to better beliefs and yield good results for us. The key is to practice, even though we feel the tug of the sin principle. Fear is the biggest indicator of that tugging.
We should be thankful for the consequences that brought us to Alcoholics Anonymous. They provided the motivation that brought us to a state of willingness and the proper attitude needed to embrace this life saving process. Emotional and spiritual growth requires such a process.