Emotional Sobriety (E35)
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Gill discusses emotional sobriety. She explains the idea of emotionally staying the same age you were when you started drinking, and how to work on becoming more emotionally mature. You’ll learn about distress tolerance, how it impacts our sobriety, but especially how it impacts the first few weeks of sobriety.
Key Takeaways
Emotional reactivity makes us focus more on our immediate situation, and not be able to consider the future. Someone who is having a strong emotional response may just focus on getting drunk as an immediate relief from the negative stressor.
Being reactive and having a low distress tolerance constantly threatens your sobriety. When you can move to being proactive, you’re not triggered all the time. The less triggers, the less likely you are to drink.
Emotional sobriety is the ability to tolerate what you’re feeling without having to do something to make the feeling go away.
Cite this episode
Tietz, G. Episode 35: Emotional Sobriety. Sober Powered. 2021
Sources
Winward, Jennifer L et al. Changes in emotional reactivity and distress tolerance among heavy drinking adolescents during sustained abstinence. Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research vol. 38,6 (2014): 1761-9.
American Addiction Centers. Emotional Immaturity and Addiction. 2020
Seay, N. Does Addiction Stop My Emotional Growth? Clearview Treatment Programs.
Winward JL, Bekman NM, Hanson KL, Lejuez CW, Brown SA. Changes in emotional reactivity and distress tolerance among heavy drinking adolescents during sustained abstinence. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2014;38(6):1761-1769.
Clayton, I. What is Emotional Sobriety? Psychology Today. 2011.
