Ask An Alcoholic Is A Monthly She Said / She Said Advice Column Penned by Rebecca Rush & Lauren McQ

July 03, 2022

Penned by Rebecca Rush & Lauren McQ, Hosts Of Brutal Vulnerability: A Recovery Podcast About Things Polite Ladies Don’t Discuss.  

How do I break the anxious/avoidant trap, especially with being in recovery? – Dora

The trap happens not from FEELING anxious or avoidant, it comes from ACTING anxious or avoidant. While drinking and using I held my emotions in until it felt like they were going to kill me. Then I got fucked up and they would EXPLODE out in tragic and heartbreaking ways. For a while, my brain linked the feelings to the actions, and I had to remind myself that it wasn’t actually the feelings that caused the actions, it was my (now) ineffective survival strategies. When drunk and high I had no pause between feeling and action, so it’s easy to forget that people cannot actually read feelings, and even if I’m acting, say, anxious, there’s no way to know that it’s because I am afraid of not getting enough from them. It’s okay to feel the way you feel. I guarantee that anyone who lived your life and had your sensitive soul would feel exactly like you do. 

The only way the feelings pass is if I first tell myself that, that it’s okay to feel. If it’s really big, I remind myself that if it’s hysterical, it’s historical and that once the tsunami has crested, I investigate that. If a memory pops up that is old and painful, I can sit in meditation and imagine the scene, sending my adult self in to take care of my childhood or adolescent self. Odds are, if you’re sober, you’re the you that you needed then, so she’ll know what to do. If you have a hard time both sitting and visualizing there are tons of great Youtube videos on parts work. 

If my phone or laptop is heckling me I leave my house without it – distraction. My go-to’s are long walks and posting up at either the coffee shop or Thai restaurant in my neighborhood with a book and/or my journal. If I am slightly less anxious than that I might walk with my phone and a podcast on, other than Brutal Vulnerability (obvs) I find Tara Brach’s to be incredibly soothing. I might go to a meeting, play with my animals, or call a friend who gets it. I may direct my money toward services that help with any anxiety; massage, pedicures, acupuncture, the Korean spa, or a blowout (add extra head massage, obvi). I might change the settings on my phone so I don’t see notifications. Take a hot bath, brew relaxing tea, light candles, and massage my own damn feet if I’m not in a position to spend. 

These scripts have been running in our heads for a long time and nobody just sets them on fire once and walks away forever. It takes practice, and it will not feel good at first. The only way to stop the script in the present moment is by not saying the next line. If you don’t say your next line, they can’t say theirs. Learning how to sit with uncomfortable emotions is strange for people that spent big chunks of their lives feeling entitled to change them through substances. And it can be done. Remember that the anxious and avoidant are two sides of the same coin stamped insecure attachment. Both are afraid the love they need isn’t available to them. When all else fails? Post a thirst trap. Watch the likes roll in.

6/14/2022

As someone who spent my entire life either doubling down on avoidants, using my death grip to try and arrest them into loving me how I wanted them to, AND being disturbed by genuine emotional care to the point of moving cities — I feel you. These relationship dynamics get baked in, and if they make up the majority of our experiences then we become accustomed to thinking they are the only models there are. It becomes the baseline, and dynamics that look different either feel strange or boring. 

A really hard realization for me was seeing that any relationship or flirtationship that didn’t match the anxious-avoidant trap seemed boring. I had grown so used to, and perversely enjoyed, the push and pull of it all. It was a blueprint I felt very comfortable in. In order to break the pattern, I had to actively get uncomfortable. I had to lose the comfort of a familiar hell. Some things can only be found when you lose the horizon.

Losing the horizon for me meant asking; “Whose needs are being met?” In the anxious/avoidant pattern both people have needs (both are intensely terrified they will never be met) and one withdraws and the other doubles down. This results in the need going unmet, and the fear that each has (avoidant – how will I ever be able to meet the needs of this person, I’m so smothered, I am so incapable of love, anxious – how will my needs ever be met, I feel so abandoned, I am too much to love) get exacerbated. Under every conflict is a need – identify the need, talk it out with the person, or find another person. 

Before I started dating again I had to become capable of meeting my own needs, and also hold space that it’s okay to have someone help when appropriate. Overcorrecting in either direction leads to codependency or isolation. Meeting my own needs looked like being able to self-soothe, being able to ask an appropriate person for help, doing things I didn’t want to do, and ( hardest of all) liking myself. I had to accept that my needs weren’t malicious, they weren’t extreme and they didn’t make me a bad person. I had to enjoy my own company, find my values, engage with my interests, and write down a list of things I would not tolerate in relationships, and some things I would like to work towards. Relationships are the giving and receiving of love, so we have to actively participate in both. I had to make mistakes to strike a balance, we don’t know a single thing about our condition until we come across it with awareness. So once we have the awareness we then can act. 

Am I going to keep going for unavailable partners hoping that my love will be the unique love to change them? Am I going to keep recoiling from potential conflict or true intimacy? Or am I going to get a little bit uncomfortable and have some frank and transparent discussions? Intimacy won’t kill you, most of the conflicts I anticipate never happen, and having the conversations are a lot more satisfying than continuing to write stories in my head about what I think is happening. For me, it took changing the type of person I dated as opposed to mending an existing relationship that was beyond repair. At first, it felt excruciating because there wasn’t my usual script of advance and withdrawal, then I realized what I was feeling was just being okay by myself, but also that I had the option of asking someone to be invited in. Awareness gives us so many options, and they are there to be tried.

6/16/22

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BRUTAL VULNERABILITY PODCAST: A recovery podcast about things that nice ladies don’t discuss. Pod hosted by Rebecca Rush of Vulnerability: A Comedy Show, held at The Hollywood Improv, and Lauren McQ of @BrutalRecovery, a recovery meme page on Instagram.

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If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources.

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