"In homes where relationship trauma or addiction is present, behavior may be inconsistent.  The rules that apply one day don't always carry over to the next.  The same rules that are laid down on Monday may no longer apply on Tuesday and then suddenly on Friday, Mondays rules may be applied as though there was never an interuption in continuity.  Children may see behaviors that sail way past normal, mocks normal, and feels normal all in the same day.  It can be mind-boggling, to say nothing of discouraging, for the family members in this environment to figure out how to act so as to negate through the crazy-making inconsistency.  Some may give up trying and lose all respect for the family rules; others may drive themselves nuts trying to read the minds of other family members (codependency in the making); while others may muster up their own independence and self-reliance because they sense that others are completely asleep at the wheel of normalcy".....  

"Not knowing what normal is can lead to emotional deregulation and problems with emotional sobriety.  We lose our sense of what represents balanced "normal" behavior.  We're not sure what to pay attention to or what to dismiss, what to aim for and what to avoid.  Our emotional compass is off, and our fuel gauge can get broken too.  We no longer know what full and empty feel like.  We can get, get and get, but never feel filled up.  Or we can be very empty and not know how to let in what would help us feel full inside." (from Emotional Sobriety, by Tian Dayton, PhD.)

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As a member of Al-Anon, I have to sometimes be reminded that although not an active alcoholic or dry drunk, I may not be emotionaly sober at times.  That my version of normality, and the gauge I'm using to measure it may not be accurate or working at all.  That the external changes I am trying to gain around me, won't affect the internal changes that need to be made in me.  

When my sense of wholeness, or self can be so adversely effected by another's attitude, behaviors, or words, or I lean into unhealthy people to use as a barometer of how I am doing in life, I am not emotionally sober.  

What are the Signs of Emotional Sobriety?

•  Ability to regulate strong emotions

•  Ability to regulate mood

•  Ability to maintain a perspective on life circumstances.

•  Ability to regulate potentially harmful attitudes or behaviors

•  Ability to live in the present

•  Ability to regulate activity levels.

•  Ability to live with deep, intimate connection.

•  Resilience, the ability to roll with the punches

•  Ability to regulate responses so they are no longer merely knee jerk reactions.

What are Symptoms of a lack of emotional sobriety?

•  Inability to regulate strong feelings such as anger, rage, anxiety, sadness

•  Lack of ability to regulate mood

•  Lack of ability to regulate behavior

•  Not being able to gain a perspective on feelings when they are extreme

•  Lack of ability to regulate self medicating use of substances or behaviors.

•  Inability to live in the present, preoccupies with past unresolved wounds.

•  Lack of ability to regulate activity level. (chronically over or under active)

•  Inability to have deeply feeling intimate relationships.

•  Lack of resilience or the ability to roll with the punches

What are the Solutions: How Can I Come Into Balance?

•  Resolve early childhood and/or relational wounds

•  Learn techniques of self soothing and make them a part of your life

•  Develop a strong relationship network

•  Maintain a healthy body, exercise, rest, nutrition, sensual pleasure

•  Find meaningful activities, work, hobbies, and passions

•  Process emotional ups and downs as they happen

•  Develop inner resources, quiet, meditation, spiritual pursuits

What is Emotional Sobriety?

•  Emotional sobriety is about finding and maintaining our emotional equilibrium, our feeling rheostat.

•  Emotional sobriety is tied up in our ability to self regulate . To bring ourselves into balance when we fall out of it.

•  Balance is that place where our thinking, feeling and behavior are reasonably congruent; where we operate in an integrated flow.

•  When our emotions are out of control, so is our thinking.

•  When we can’t bring our feeling and thinking into some sort of balance, our life and our relationships show it.

•  Emotions impact our thinking more than our thinking impacts our emotions. Our limbic system, which is where we experience and process emotion, actually sends more inputs to the thinking part of our brain, i.e. the cortex, than the opposite. (Damassio)

•  The essence of Emotional Sobriety is good self regulation. Self regulation means that we have mastered those skills that allow us to balance our moods, our nervous systems, our appetites, our sexual drive, our sleep. We have learned how to tolerate our intense emotions without acting out in dysfunctional ways, clamping down or foreclosing on our feeling world or self medicating.

•  Addiction and compulsive, unregulated behaviors reflect a lack of good self regulation.

•  To maintain our emotional equilibrium, we need to be able to use our thinking mind to decode and understand our feeling mind. That is, we need to feel our feelings and then use our thinking to make sense and meaning out of them. (From Tian Dayton PhD)

When I have to look at or try to read someone else, to determine what kind of day I am going to have... I am not emotionally sober.

When my sense of okayness with self is attached to someone else; their attitudes, behaviors or words... I am not emotionally sober.

When I am expecting an unhealthy person to act healthy, and I develope a unregulated reaction to the disappointments I experience, instead of a healthy response... I am not emotionally sober.

When my reactions to life on life's terms, ignite anger or rage because it is not happening on my terms... I am not emotionally sober.

I have found that those with good emotional sobriety tend to avoid unnecessary conflict, but they do speak up where necessary.  They tend to avoid creating unnecessary conflict in their lives; it is simply too costly to their own peace of mind.  They understand that their inner peace is their responsibility, and that if they lose it, only they can get it back.

If we don't like the way someone is treating us, there may be subtle ways of getting the point across before we bring out the big guns.  Changing the subject, removing ourselves, or a well timed comment may do the job with a lot less wear and tear on ourselves.  When speaking up, we try to do it consciously, in such a way as not to rupture further but rather to manage a situation skillfully, instead of simply becoming another crazy-maker under the roof.

Today, I am going to remember...they may be alcoholic... But am I emotionally sober?  Am I standing in my own footprints or is my mood, attitudes, behaviors and words being regulated by someone elses?

John