I'm here so I don't get fined.

[trumpet]

kml,

Awesome advise. Yeah, from the year of counseling, and the addiction's mens group I went to for almost a year, we worked extensively on the topic of recognizing, understanding, and processing feelings. They can come and go - but my thoughts override feelings, and my beliefs override my thoughts. At least that's what I discovered. So, having intense feelings now gets me to really think - what are they? Is it a comfortable or uncomfortable feeling? And while processing them, let them pass. They always do.

I was sitting in my vehicle, after the date, and realized I had too much emotion running through me. It wasn't what I call a great feeling - more of like raw adrenaline. And that I wasn't in complete control of them. Some people love the unbridaled, go-crazy feeling. At 40 years old, it made me a bit scared. I now think I wasn't able to process them all at the time. This strong of a reaction really hasn't happened in my life - not to that effect. I'm on an SSRI, had a couple drinks, so the reaction could have been 'enhanced'.

She is a great catch, and that's why I'm so nervous. I feel like I'm the broken one, at least in some respects - still finishing my healing. She had years of healing, and a bad engagement in there as well. She knows what she's looking for in a better sense than I do. I've had a few friends really close to me tell me I'm ready to date, so I got up the courage and asked her.

Having known her for a few years, and conversed with her, I didn't see any red flags. Yet, I think hard questions will need to happen in the dates coming up. And I have to bring up my addiction. That, my friends, will be hard, but necessary.