Build Emotional Resilience in Recovery

When I started my sobriety journey, I faced a wave of emotions that felt almost unbearable. After years of using substances to numb my feelings, experiencing everything without any filters was overwhelming. There were days I felt raw, exposed, and terrified of my own reactions. A colleague often says: “We are emotional people who hate our emotions.” This sentiment rings true for so many of us in recovery—feeling deeply is in our nature, yet those same feelings can be painful, messy, and hard to accept. But learning to embrace them has been one of the most valuable parts of my journey. In this article, I’ll share tips that have helped me and others in sobriety normalize emotions, making them more manageable and a source of strength rather than fear.