A Newsletter Showed Me Why Writing Is Healing Me From All Of My Trauma

The Explanation Effect is a beautiful thing I wish I had discovered earlier. However, for some reason, I stumbled on it when I needed it the most.

I almost slipped and bought alcohol yesterday. I left it at the cash register and ran away. I'm so glad I did not drink. It's life or death for me.

Every period of sobriety I've ever had was very painful and exhausting.

I relapsed every single time.

The relapse is so much more painful than the pain from sobriety but I still did it for some dumb reason.

It always ends the same.

I end up losing my job, completely broke with debt, extremely sick, and suicidal.

Eventually I find myself in a rehab facility, a psych ward, or a hospital.

No rational person would do this, but I'm special.

I am a master at self-sabotage and burning my life down just to have to try and rise from the ashes once again.

It feels like being trapped in purgatory.

A friend once told me I hold the world record for most day-one alcoholics anonymous chips. It hurt my feelings and was a saucy thing to say, but that’s only because it held some truth.

I have had a couple of year-plus periods of sobriety but lately, I tend to string together a couple of weeks or a month then slip and it’s off to the races all over again.

This time, however, is much different.

I have a lot of inner peace that I lacked before.

I was wondering what was different.

Then I randomly opened a newsletter in my email and heard about the Explanation Effect.

The Explanation Effect is a mental model that says the act of explaining something to somebody helps you understand it more deeply.

In my case, this effect is happening as I pour my heart and soul onto these digital canvases and share with all of you fine folks.

By writing about my addiction, mental health struggles, and my trauma, I am understanding it all on a much deeper level.

I'm beginning to understand why I do the things I do.

Why I think the thoughts I do.

Why I have all of these unhealthy behaviours.

This allows me to change things.

You can't fix what you don't know is broken, so writing has allowed me to understand what parts of me I need to focus on.

I need to accept my past mistakes and my trauma, it's a part of me now. I don't need to justify my bad behaviour or bury my trauma. I can just let it be.

If it didn't happen, I wouldn't be doing this right now and following my dreams.

Also, now that I understand my unhealthy behaviours and why I do them, I can begin to work on changing them.

I can find healthier ways to cope with whatever life throws at me. It won't happen right away but with time and effort I'll get there.

So I want to give you all a little piece of advice.

Journal, journal, then when you're finished, journal again. Just do some form of writing to help to better understand yourself and things that ail you.

So even if you don't want to share your darkest moments on the internet for the world to see, you should start to write down your thoughts and journal about the things messing you up inside.

You'll get to know yourself better and you can change the things causing you pain.

Much Love

Patrick

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