112. Learning to Feel Again
When I arrived at Bon Secours Hospital, I didn’t walk through the doors so much as collapse into them. My body came first—shaking, exhausted, chemically broken—but my mind followed close behind, dragging years of guilt, fear, and regret like a bag I could no longer carry on my own. I told myself I was coming for detox. Just detox. As if I could separate the physical from the emotional, as if my addiction had ever been that simple.
The first emotion that hit me was fear. Not the dramatic kind people imagine, but a quiet, suffocating fear that settled in my chest and refused to leave. Fear of withdrawal. Fear of what the next few days would feel like. Fear of what I had done to myself—again. Deeper than that was the fear of being alone with my thoughts. For years, substances had acted as my shield, my escape hatch. Now they were gone, and there was nowhere left to hide.
As the medications began to stabilize my body, my emotions did the opposite. They came in waves—relentless and unforgiving. Shame was one of the loudest. It followed me down the hospital hallways and sat with me in my room at night. Shame for relapsing after knowing better. Shame for hurting the people who love me. Shame for once again becoming the version of myself I promised I would never be again. In rehab, there’s no distraction strong enough to drown that out. You feel it fully, you sit with it, and some days, it feels unbearable.
Then came grief. Real, aching grief—not just for the damage I caused recently, but for everything addiction has stolen from me over the years. Lost time. Missed moments. Broken trust. Versions of myself I’ll never get back. Lying in a hospital bed, I grieved the person I might have been if addiction hadn’t entered my life so early and stayed so long. That grief didn’t ask permission. It just arrived, heavy and unannounced, and demanded to be felt.
Anger showed up, too. Anger at myself for not being stronger. Anger at addiction for being so relentless. Anger at the false hope I gave myself—that I could control it this time, that it would somehow be different. In those early days, anger felt easier than vulnerability. It gave me something sharp to hold onto when everything else felt soft and exposed.
Rehab has a way of peeling back layers, whether you’re ready or not. Beneath the anger and shame, I found sadness so deep it scared me. A sadness rooted in loneliness—the kind that exists even when people are around. Even when nurses check on you. Even when counselors listen. Addiction isolates you in ways that are hard to explain. Sitting in that sadness forced me to acknowledge how disconnected I had become, not just from others, but from myself.
There were moments of despair when hope felt like a foreign concept. Nights where sleep wouldn’t come, and mornings I dreaded waking up to another day of fighting my own mind. I questioned whether I had it in me to do this again. Whether I deserved another chance. Whether recovery was something meant for people like me, or something I’d always reach for but never quite hold.
Yet—somewhere in the middle of all that pain—something unexpected began to surface. Relief. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to pretend. I didn’t have to lie about how I was feeling or hide how bad things had gotten. In rehab, the truth is allowed to exist. Admitting that I was broken didn’t destroy me—it freed me. There was relief in being honest, in finally saying out loud what I had been trying to outrun for so long.
With that relief came moments of clarity. Short, fragile moments—but real ones. I began to see how exhaustion had driven my choices. How untreated pain had disguised itself as strength. How desperately I had been trying to survive instead of living. Rehab slowed everything down enough for me to actually look at my life, and while that was terrifying, it was also necessary.
Hope arrived quietly. It didn’t kick down the door or make bold promises. It whispered instead. It showed up in small ways—in a conversation with a counselor, in a shared story during group, in the realization that I wasn’t the only one who felt this broken. Hope didn’t erase my past, but it reminded me that my story isn’t finished yet.
There is still fear. There is still shame. Recovery doesn’t magically remove those emotions, but here at Bon Secours, I’m learning that emotions aren’t enemies—they’re messengers. They’re telling me what needs healing. They’re proof that I’m still human, still capable of feeling, still alive. Some days, I feel strong. Other days, I feel like I’m barely holding myself together, but for the first time in a long time, I’m showing up anyway. I’m staying. I’m not running. That, in itself, feels like an act of courage. Rehab has stripped me down to my most vulnerable state, and while that’s uncomfortable, it’s also honest. I’m learning that recovery isn’t about perfection—it’s about willingness. Willingness to feel. Willingness to stay. Willingness to believe that even after everything, I am still worth saving. I came here to detox my body. What I didn’t expect was how much my heart would need it too.
And remember, if you’re struggling or know someone who is struggling, please don’t lose hope. If that had happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to help spread awareness today.
