All I Wanted Was to Feel Better

I was having a great morning, belting out some song on the radio, when I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw the BMW practically on my bumper. "What the hell?" I muttered, checking my speedometer. I was going 75 in a 65 mph zone. I tapped my brakes. "Back up, buddy," I said out loud. But he didn’t.

When I looked again, I could see the man gesturing frantically in his driver's seat, probably yelling at me to get out of his way. "Asshole," I said, louder now, tapping my brakes harder this time. "If you want to go around me, go ahead. I'm not moving."

But he didn't go around. He just stayed there, riding my bumper like a lunatic. I was growing more anxious by the minute. The music was still playing, but all I could think about was the guy in my rearview mirror.

It took me longer to come to my senses than I'd like to admit.

What the hell am I doing? I asked myself, this time in my head, as though somebody might overhear me taking unwanted ownership of my ridiculous behavior. I quickly pulled into the traveling lane and let the guy pass, but as he raced by me, I couldn't resist the temptation to give him the finger. My heart pounded and my muscles were tight—if he wanted a fight, I’d give him one. 

As I breathed in deep, trying to move past the feeling, I couldn’t help but think about what had just happened. I’d been driving along, happy and content, when my mood abruptly changed. While it would’ve been easy to blame the other driver, I knew it was my own fault. And as much as I hated to admit it, the whole scenario felt a lot like getting high. It took a good ten minutes for my breathing to return to normal.

Later that day, I started to think about all the things I’d used over the years to avoid a feeling I didn’t like, and I wrote them down. The list was long and contained things like drugs, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, relationships, anger, fear, self-pity, shame, exercise, food, and nail-biting. While I had given up smoking and biting my nails, I was still using so many things. As I looked at the list, I realized not all of it was bad. Exercise, for one thing, is generally a good thing. Relationships too. But I was using them as a distraction.

For years, I thought that once I put down the drugs, I’d feel good all the time. I’d be happy. Of course, that’s not the way it happened. Sobriety had just cleared the path. It didn't change me or show me all the other ways I used things to try and feel better in any given moment. That was where my work began. Identifying those things became the start of my recovery process. It was only then that I was able to change and share the process with others.

Whatever is on your list, whether you mindlessly scroll on your phone, drink five iced coffees a day, or obsess over the past or future, change requires effort. A good place to start is to figure out what needs changing.

Now, when I still slip back into old habits while driving in the fast lane, I see it right away. All I have to do is pull into the travel lane and let it pass.

This is the second in a series about what needs to go.