Welcome Tunni, so glad you signed in to share with us. Hope you continue to come and share your journey with us.
There is a lot of recovery material here on the site for NA and AA, along with other addictions. For me the 12 Steps are a foundation and they are a common denominator between the fellowships. We used for the same reason(s), and like you, I had used to bury my emotions, and when they came up, I didn't know what they were and how to deal with them. That is why it is good to have a sponsor, even a temporary one.
Perhaps you can find an online meeting in your area, and it was by hearing others sharing, that I was able to find and label my own feelings. I heard someone share at a meeting about anxiety. I thought, what a whoose. Then as I listened, I learned that I had suffered the same thing.
Under my anger, were resentments, hurt, sadness, rejection, abandonment, and many more issues, some dating all the way back to my childhood. When I quit smoking at 7 years sober, I had to go back to the beginning, because I thought of myself as being clean, I wasn't clean of the old thoughts and patterns.
How did we deal with feeling and the unknown? We used, if not our drug of choice, for me it was food, men, computer, my bed, and found that isolation is part of my disease, it is not a recovery tool. I block myself from the sunshine of the spirit and the bonding I need from the fellowship.
I became totally obsessive and compulsive about my sites. I built 15 and now they are all gone.
