The first time I ever went out drinking was a day of exploration, fun, and carefree unconscious exuberance. At the time there didn’t seem to be any consequences, but little did I know what was going to happen the next morning. Though I wore the headache, irritability, lethargy, and pain as a badge of honor, I told myself I wasn’t going to drink like that again. Oddly enough, once the hangover subsided and I returned to normal, I forgot my vow and was out at it the next weekend seeking a way to be connected with others yet unconscious and unaware.
Now just as I have been physically hungover and sick from drinking too much, I have also felt an emotional hangover when I spend too much time drinking in painful emotions without taking the time to express them responsibly. This happens often with my family where I feel a lot, take on a lot, have racing thoughts and feel internally out of control yet appear dead to the world. The exhaustion this struggle c
reates is breeding grounds for an emotional hangover. The effects of which sometimes take days to recover from.
When I leave and retreat back to the safety of my apartment in Chicago, I slowly and painfully regain the consciousness I worked so hard to suppress. I come away feeling so thirsty for aliveness and connection that it hurts. I literally go through the physical sensations of being hungover even though I haven’t had a drop of alcohol!
The jolt that gets me out of my funk, the water that cures my emotional dehydration, is safety in community. I had the experience of being jolted into aliveness through the tough support of community encouraging me to leave the mess I wallow in and join society as an alive, functioning, and supportive member. While I am getting better at recognizing my foul moods, I depend on the support of other people to help me out of them. When people hold for me the higher vision of being the strong, confident, capable man that I am I can more readily step out of my deadness and awaken to the aliveness of life that is happening all around me. I choose to participate in the abundance around me instead of walking around in a slump only aware of a very narrow spectrum.
Where disconnection is my alcohol, community is the best cure I know for an emotional hangover. The desire and drive to connect keep me in check, and where I once struggled with drinking too much my current area of growth is disconnecting too much. Thankfully through the support of the community at the Center for Christian Life Enrichment, as well as my friends and growth work partners, I am creating the community and the opportunities for the type of authentic connection that are unavailable to me in the grips of an emotional hangover.
I hope you will join me in my efforts to connectand connect authentically by adding to the conversation either online or in person- Here’s to an emotional hangover-free Holiday season!
Ask Merce 