While the Root Chakra is rooted in the earth, The Sacral Chakra governs the element of water. It is located in your lower abdomen, just below the belly button, and it is your center of emotion, pleasure, sensation, and creative expression. In active addiction, our Sacral Chakra is deeply compromised. We use substances or behaviors to artificially spike our dopamine (pleasure) and/or to completely numb overwhelming feelings (pain). When the addiction is removed, we often experience "anhedonia"—a joyless phase where life feels flat, gray, or overwhelmingly raw. We need to rewire the brain both to learn how to feel emotions without needing to numb them and to find natural sources of pleasure and flow (rewards).