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Emotional Sobriety: Staying Sober When Your Feelings Aren’t · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  Let's talk about sobriety. Let's talk about you and me.
• 0:05
  Hey everyone, what's up? Welcome back to Recovering Aloud
• 0:12
  to another bite sized episode where today I'm going to be
• 0:16
  talking about emotional sobriety and why you should care about it
• 0:19
  and why it's important and what is it.
• 0:22
  Emotional sobriety is everything in recovery.
• 0:25
  Let's be honest. If I can't handle my emotions
• 0:27
  sober, I'm going to pick up drugs and alcohol again because
• 0:31
  that's what I did all the time. Felt uncomfortable, felt fear,
• 0:35
  felt shame, picked up drugs, went away.
• 0:38
  Sadness, happiness, Picked up drugs and alcohol went away.
• 0:44
  Whoa, my voice sounded weird there, so let's talk about it.
• 0:47
  So when I first came in, like a lot of people, I thought I just
• 0:50
  wanted to stop drinking and doing drugs.
• 0:52
  That's it. That was the problem.
• 0:54
  I don't need to listen to all this other stuff that you guys
• 0:56
  are talking about. That's great, I just want to get
• 0:59
  the heat off. How do I stop using meth?
• 1:01
  How do I stop using coke? How do I stop hating myself and
• 1:05
  breaking promises to myself? I keep saying that I'm not going
• 1:08
  to use and drink and I keep believing it, but then every
• 1:11
  time I'm using and drinking, banging my head against the wall
• 1:14
  wondering how the hell I got here again.
• 1:16
  So as a lot of you probably know this, when you get sober, your
• 1:20
  emotions, your thoughts, your feelings, your uncomfortability,
• 1:25
  it gets louder. All that shit that you used to
• 1:28
  drink over, it comes back tenfold, right?
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  How do we deal with that? Well, that's what I'm going to
• 1:33
  talk about today. How do I not let my emotions
• 1:36
  turn me into the worst human ever?
• 1:39
  How do I not freak out at my family?
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  Right 'cause I know when I first came in, I was living with my
• 1:45
  parents when I was 23 and everybody became my punching
• 1:48
  bag. Every time I felt uncomfortable,
• 1:51
  every time I felt anger, I took it out on my loved ones because
• 1:55
  they saw the real me and I spent the most amount of time with
• 1:58
  them. So today I'm going to talk about
• 2:00
  what emotional sobriety actually is, why so many people relapse
• 2:04
  emotionally before they relapse physically, and what emotional
• 2:09
  an emotional sobriety looks like, what the growth path looks
• 2:13
  like. What how do I know that I'm
• 2:14
  going in the right direction? We're going to touch all of
• 2:16
  that. It's not about being perfect.
• 2:17
  It's just progress, not perfection.
• 2:19
  What is emotional sobriety? Emotional sobriety is not being
• 2:23
  calm all the time, being Zen. It's not about being positive
• 2:28
  all the time, being the happiest guy in the room, and it's
• 2:31
  definitely not about never getting triggered.
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  Emotional sobriety is being able to feel, name label your
• 2:38
  emotions without being controlled by them.
• 2:40
  So if I get angry at somebody in my life or the guy on the
• 2:44
  street, that cuts me off. Not turning into an angry
• 2:47
  person, watching the emotion sort of come and go, laughing at
• 2:50
  it if you will too. That helps me.
• 2:53
  Acknowledging it, not judging it.
• 2:54
  Oh, I'm doing that thing again. You're feeling your feelings
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  without being controlled by them.
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  You're responding instead of reacting.
• 3:01
  You're staying connected to your values even when you're
• 3:03
  uncomfortable. A simple way to think of it is I
• 3:06
  can feel this. I don't need to escape it.
• 3:09
  I don't have to escape it. It's sort of like the analogy.
• 3:12
  I love this analogy is it's like being this guy that can just
• 3:16
  watch trains go by at the station.
• 3:18
  Your thoughts are coming and going.
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  Your emotions are coming and going.
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  You know that they're not going to park there for long, and you
• 3:25
  know that they're going to be there as long as you let them be
• 3:27
  there parked there. How can I just be an observer at
• 3:30
  a train station watching the trains go by?
• 3:32
  That's the goal here. Because at the end of the day,
• 3:35
  that brings happiness, contentment, peace, and I can be
• 3:38
  myself. I can be connected in that
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  stage. It's important to note that
• 3:43
  addiction and alcoholism, drugs and alcohol, didn't just numb
• 3:47
  pain. It also numbed all the other
• 3:48
  emotions, joy, frustration, fear, shame, boredom.
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  So it's not just about pain. When we get sober, we suddenly,
• 3:55
  we don't suddenly become emotionally skilled adults,
• 3:58
  right? Our problems don't go away.
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  I'm sure you realize that. If anything, they come out
• 4:02
  tenfold. Like I talked about in the
• 4:03
  opening, when you quit drugs and alcohol, it's like someone comes
• 4:07
  in and turns the volume button up to 12 on your emotions and
• 4:12
  thoughts, right? You're not used to letting these
• 4:15
  thoughts and emotions come. You're used to escaping them.
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  So when we get sober, we become emotionally awake adults and
• 4:23
  that's uncomfortable. So physical sobriety versus
• 4:26
  emotional sobriety. Hard truth is, you can be,
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  you're sober doing all the right things and still emotionally
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  unsafe to yourself and others. I've seen this in recovery
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  meetings in spaces, the guy that has 30 years and he's yelling at
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  everybody for not following the things that he agrees with or
• 4:44
  not agreeing with him or he's losing it on the guy outside.
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  You know, you, you see him all happy in the recovery meeting
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  and then you walk outside and he's complete asshole to people
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  on the street, or he ignores, you know, homeless people or
• 4:58
  whatever. I'm sure you've seen it.
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  Don't be that guy. And sure, everyone has a bad
• 5:02
  day, but the goal is progress, not perfection.
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  Again, we are not Saints. So physical sobriety asks, are
• 5:09
  you drinking or using? It's really that simple.
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  Emotional sobriety asks, how do you handle disappointment,
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  resentment, fear, rejection, uncertainty?
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  Oh, what a good list. Disappointment, resentment,
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  fear, uncertainty, rejection, if I can just get a handle on those
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  and let not let those run my life and my thought path process
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  and my behavior, wouldn't life just be great?
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  This is a daily thing, you know, you get it one day and then you
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  wake up the next morning and it's back tenfold or 10 million
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  times stronger. So I, I wrote down here, most
• 5:46
  relapses don't start with a drink.
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  I, I would say that's wrong. I think all relapses start
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  emotionally start weeks before picking up a drink.
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  I think we are subconsciously or subconsciously planning our
• 5:59
  relapse. At least that was my story.
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  My experience the second time I was more conscious of it, but
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  I've been unconscious of those thoughts of now.
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  Wouldn't it feel better if I just got back on ADHD
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  medication? You know, I bet I'd be happier.
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  I'm pretty sad and bored. Remember how fun Adderall was
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  And Vyvanse? And you can get away with it.
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  This time it'll be different. You'll control it.
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  This time you'll give the pills to your wife and ask her for one
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  of the what a crock of shit. Never worked.
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  If you find yourself negotiating like that with yourself, you're
• 6:29
  headed down a dark path. Analyze it, be aware of it, talk
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  about it. It may blow up in your face so
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  they relapse to start with. Emotional build up, unprocessed
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  feelings, old coping patterns, waking back up.
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  And relapse doesn't just happen out of nowhere.
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  It happens often when we're not thinking about it, but it's a
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  result of emotional overload. We can't handle all these
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  feelings and energy patterns in our bodies and anxieties and
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  fears and sadness and despair and boredom.
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  And boredom is fear. But I just can't handle it and I
• 7:03
  need to escape. And I know what's going to work
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  again, but it'll be different this time.
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  Drugs and alcohol, the biggest lie we tell ourselves this time
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  will be different. So a lot of us use substances to
• 7:14
  avoid conflict, quiet anxiety, escape, shame, feel and control.
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  That was a big one for me, feeling in control.
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  When you take away those tools, you know that that's the the
• 7:26
  best solution to alcoholism. I always say this is alcohol,
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  right? Otherwise we wouldn't have
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  started it. Best solution to addiction is
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  drugs, otherwise we wouldn't have taken them.
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  They worked for something. They allowed us to escape
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  something that was uncomfortable or feel a certain way, or they
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  allowed us to be in control of our feelings, whatever.
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  It's different for everybody. For me, it was I want to control
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  my feelings. I don't want to feel this way.
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  I want to be able to just escape this thought, this emotion, this
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  fear. I don't like fear.
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  I don't like ruminating. That's what drugs and alcohol
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  did for me until they didn't. Now I'm left with what do I do?
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  You take away my solution. Now what?
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  I need to find a spiritual solution.
• 8:07
  But that's not what we're talking about today.
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  When those tools are gone, drugs and alcohol, we're left with low
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  frustration tolerance, big reactions, black and white
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  thinking either zero to 100, right, It's either terrible or
• 8:19
  it's really good. There's no one between all or
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  nothing emotions. And you might notice things like
• 8:25
  overthinking everything. So overanalyzing, overthinking,
• 8:28
  spinning stories in your head. It's going to be this way.
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  This is going to happen. And then he's going to say this
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  and I'm going to say this. And then we're going to fight
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  and I'm going to win and I'm going to look stupid.
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  I'm going to be an idiot. I might as well not even go.
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  Taking things personally, feeling rejected easily, needing
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  external validation from others or things, material items and
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  wanting relief. Now that doesn't mean you're
• 8:49
  failing. It means your nervous system is
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  relearning safety. Emotional sobriety is a skill,
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  not a switch that you can flick on.
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  Nobody becomes emotionally sober by willpower, by just trying
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  really hard and flipping the switch.
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  Discipline right just doesn't. You can't just Jim bro your way
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  into it. It's like everything in recovery
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  in sobriety. It takes practice and
• 9:11
  consistency and it's not sexy. Nobody wants to hear that, but
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  it's it's consistent effort, not perfect effort, progress, not
• 9:20
  perfection. Practice looks like pausing
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  instead of reacting, right? So taking a breath as your first
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  answer, that's a practical tool. I love when somebody pisses you
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  off or something happens and you want to just erupt.
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  Your first word should be and maybe not that obvious.
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  You don't need to breathe in someone's face and spew their
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  your fucking breath all over them, but your first word should
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  be a breath. There should be no first
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  thought. Wrong.
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  I was always taught take a pause.
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  It'll benefit you in all areas of your life.
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  Naming what you're feeling. So I'm doing that thing again.
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  This is blank. This is fear, this is sadness,
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  this is happy joy, anger. Tolerating discomfort without
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  escaping. So being comfortable in the
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  uncomfortable, learning that feelings rise and fall just like
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  trains at a train station. They're going to go through this
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  too. Shall pass, just not in my time.
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  A big shift happens when you realize this feeling doesn't
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  need to be fixed. Oh I love that.
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  There's nothing wrong with this feeling.
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  There's nothing wrong with me, just is happening right now.
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  Anxiety is a favor I love. I love analyzing anxiety when it
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  comes when I get really nervous before I speak or before I do, I
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  don't know, before I do a, a speaking engagement, speaking in
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  front of a bunch of people or going to talk to somebody that
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  I'm makes me very nervous. I feel it in my stomach.
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  You know, it might be different for you, but I feel it in my
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  stomach, the butterflies, the sort of pit that's
• 10:48
  uncomfortable. Now when that happens, I just, I
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  see it, I notice it, I put attention to it, I focus on it
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  and I just say that's a pattern of energy moving through my
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  body. That's it pattern of energy and
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  it's going to pass and it works for me every time.
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  You know it it I don't dwell on it and say I'm a bad person.
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  Oh my God I'm going to fuck up. I can't believe you're nervous.
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  How can you be nervous for this? I get nervous before sharing in
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  meetings sometimes of like 4 people.
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  It just happens. Most emotional suffering comes
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  from resisting feelings, judging feelings like I just said,
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  trying to control feelings, willing your way out of anger
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  and into joy. I should be happy all the time.
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  Biggest lie you'll ever tell yourself.
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  No one is happy all the time. And if they are happy all the
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  time, they're lying to you or they're snuffing their emotion
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  down, or you just see them in the happy moments of their life
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  and not the rest of their life. Trust me, you cannot be happy
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  all the time. Emotional sobriety is.
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  I can sit with this even if it's uncomfortable.
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  There's a difference between sitting with it and sitting in
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  it. Sitting in it is self pity.
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  I'm a piece of shit, ruminating thoughts, feeding the thoughts
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  and gassing up the thoughts and letting them control your life
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  and keep you stuck. I do that with the gym a lot.
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  I don't want to go to the gym because it's uncomfortable, it's
• 12:07
  far, I don't like working out anymore.
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  Then it spins into, oh, you're never going to go to the gym, or
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  maybe we'll just go tomorrow, or you're a piece of shit, you're
• 12:14
  going to get fat. All this bullshit, Analyze it,
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  recognize it, move on. Action common signs you're not
• 12:21
  emotionally sober yet. Want to normalize this?
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  So sometimes you might still be growing in emotional sobriety.
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  You shut down during conflict. Oh, that's I, I do that
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  sometimes. Yeah.
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  You turn off, shut down, go quiet, you explode, then feel
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  shame about it, yelling at your wife, your husband, your
• 12:39
  partner, and then you feel like a piece of shit after.
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  By the way, difference between guilt and shame.
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  Guilt is I did something bad. Shame is I'm a bad person.
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  You avoid difficult conversations.
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  That's another good one for me, too.
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  I can do that. You catastrophize small
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  problems, right? Making mountains out of
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  molehill. Who does that here?
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  I'm sure a lot of you do. I do that too.
• 13:00
  This is the worst. I'm never going to pay my
• 13:02
  mortgage. I might as well be homeless.
• 13:04
  I'm going to lose my house. I'm a piece of shit.
• 13:07
  I'm never going to get a job that I like.
• 13:08
  You know how it goes. You look outside for your
• 13:11
  relief. That is a big one for us.
• 13:15
  I use outside things to change my insides, full stop.
• 13:17
  So recovery isn't about deleting these patterns, it's about
• 13:21
  updating them, right? You just need to update your
• 13:23
  plan. We're unlearning.
• 13:25
  It's sort of like addition, uh, subtraction by addition, right?
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  We're adding new patterns. We're not necessarily getting
• 13:33
  rid of these ones. I mean, we kind of are, but
• 13:35
  we're also, we're replacing them with new patterns instead of
• 13:37
  focusing on getting rid of these ones.
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  So emotionally sober, what that actually looks like, it doesn't
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  mean calm all the time, happy all the time, unbothered all the
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  time. Impossible.
• 13:45
  You cannot be Zen all the time. Those people that you're hanging
• 13:48
  out with that are Zen all the time and Happy Joyce and free
• 13:51
  24/7, Hang out with them for a weekend, Go travel with them
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  somewhere. You'll see the real side of
• 13:56
  them. Drive with them in traffic.
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  It'll come out. Trust me.
• 14:00
  I went to Vegas one time for a sober conference.
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  Fucking oh man. These people turned into
• 14:05
  different animals when we had to pick a restaurant and we had to
• 14:08
  come together to travel and do the same.
• 14:11
  You could really see the alphas come out and the type A and type
• 14:15
  B people. Oh it's hilarious.
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  You want to find out anything about anyone who the true person
• 14:20
  who they really are go on vacation with them.
• 14:23
  So emotional sobriety looks like I'm triggered and I know why I
• 14:28
  don't like this feeling but I won't escape it.
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  I can feel anger without becoming destructive.
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  I can feel sadness without numbing it or escaping.
• 14:37
  Another thing I like to do is I like to ask myself if I didn't
• 14:40
  feel this judgment, if I didn't feel this anger, what would I
• 14:43
  feel around it? Sounds really stupid and simple
• 14:47
  and like it wouldn't help but try it.
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  If I didn't feel this judgement towards this person driving this
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  car, cutting me off or not holding the elevator for that
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  old lady, what would I feel? Insecurity, fear.
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  Emotionally sober people still struggle, still get overwhelmed
• 15:03
  and still feel fear and all the feeling.
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  Fear is a secondary emotion. Anger is fear is bodyguard but
• 15:09
  they trust themselves to get through it without self
• 15:11
  destruction. What a way to live.
• 15:14
  Trust the difference. All right?
• 15:16
  Practical tools for emotional sobriety.
• 15:19
  One name the feeling. Instead of I'm spiraling, try.
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  I feel rejected. I feel overwhelmed.
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  I feel unsafe. Naming it reduces its power.
• 15:29
  Label it. Don't judge it.
• 15:31
  Delay the reaction. 2. Delay the reaction.
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  You don't have to respond immediately.
• 15:36
  Take that breath. Like I said, your first word
• 15:38
  should be a breath. Maybe not Not intense.
• 15:43
  You don't have to respond immediately.
• 15:45
  Space creates choice. 3 Regulate before you reason.
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  You can't think clearly when your nervous system is
• 15:52
  activated. I think it's, what's his name,
• 15:55
  Chicago Cubs guy Bill Murray. Bill Murray says there's nothing
• 15:59
  you can't do better. Relaxed, more relaxed.
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  I love that. There's nothing you can't do
• 16:04
  better when you're relaxed. 3 deep breaths, ground, move, then
• 16:08
  decide. 4 separate feelings from facts.
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  Oh, this is a good one. I love this.
• 16:13
  Feelings are real, they're not reality and they're not always
• 16:16
  accurate and they don't also always give the best directions
• 16:20
  to in life. What's real here?
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  What's me spinning a story? Perception on said thing.
• 16:27
  Perception is everything. Practice 5.
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  Practice self compassion. Talk to yourself like someone
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  you're responsible for. Talk to yourself like you would
• 16:36
  an 8 year old, not someone you're disappointed in.
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  OK, so again, name the feeling, delay the reaction.
• 16:43
  Regulate before you reason, separate feelings from facts.
• 16:47
  Practice self compassion. Closing in, closing.
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  Emotional. Sobriety isn't about being
• 16:52
  perfect. We talked about progress, it's
• 16:54
  about being free. Trust me, this is a freeing
• 16:57
  place to be and you don't just do it one day and then it's
• 17:00
  turned on for life. This is a daily, sometimes
• 17:02
  minute to minute practice. I find myself from time to time
• 17:06
  focusing on my breath, watching it come in through my nostrils,
• 17:09
  go into my stomach and then back out again.
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  Counting, sometimes meditating throughout the day, just being
• 17:14
  aware of my surroundings. Ground myself, ground yourself.
• 17:18
  This is about freedom from constant emotional chaos,
• 17:21
  reacting on impulse, needing escape to survive feelings.
• 17:25
  If you're sober and still struggling emotionally, I want
• 17:28
  you to hear this clearly. OK, listen up.
• 17:30
  You're not doing recovery wrong, you're doing the deeper work.
• 17:35
  Physical sobriety keeps you alive.
• 17:37
  Emotional sobriety helps you actually live.
• 17:41
  It's a lifelong practice, not a finish line.
• 17:44
  I heard someone once say sobriety and recovery.
• 17:48
  Recovery is for marathon runners, not sprinters.
• 17:52
  You need to be a marathon runner in this life.
• 17:57
  One step at a time, 1 kilometer at a time, one mile at a time
• 18:00
  for my American friends. One day at a time.
• 18:03
  Thank you for listening. If you haven't followed the
• 18:05
  podcast or rated the podcast yet, please go and do so.
• 18:08
  It helps me immensely. Recovering out loud pod on
• 18:11
  Instagram. I love you all.
• 18:12
  Send me a message if you want me to talk about something or just
• 18:15
  to say hi. Have a wonderful day.
• 18:17
  If no one's told you this yet, I love you.