Emotional Sobriety

Emotional sobriety is a term first introduced by Bill W. who felt that, though the AA movement had made enormous strides in helping people to become physically sober, many “oldsters”  were still finding it difficult to live in what he referred to as “emotional maturity and balance”. They had “put down the booze” for example, but they were still driven by a somewhat wobbly emotional world. Though they had laid down their primary substances, they were at risk for turning to other forms of self medication like food, sex, spending or compulsive activity. Without addressing the emotional lack of sobriety that led them to use in the first place, balance and maturity still eluded them.

Emotional sobriety is about finding and maintaining our emotional equilibrium, our feeling rheostat, the one that helps us to adjust the intensity of our emotional responses to life. Emotional sobriety is tied up in our ability to self regulate; to bring ourselves into balance when we fall out of it.

Where Do We Process Emotion?

Emotions are processed by something called the limbic system also referred to as our “emotional brain”. 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) meaning that our feelings have the potential to overwhelm our ability to think if they are more intense than we can tolerate or regulate.

What does the Limbic System have to do With Emotional Sobriety?

Emotions are a mind/body experience. When we have good emotional sobriety it means we’re not only thinking  in balance but we are experiencing our emotions, which are coursing through our bodies in the form of mood shaping chemicals like adrenaline (stressing and exiting), serotonin (soothing and regulating) and dopamine (elevating and calming), within a manageable range. The limbic system governs our mood, appetite, motivation, libido and sleep cycles.

When we have problems in our deep limbic system they can manifest as moodiness, irritability, increased negative thinking and perceptions of events, depression, anxiety, decreased motivation, floods of unmanageable emotions, appetite and sleep problems, decreased or increased sexual responsiveness or social isolation.

But anyone who has lived with the ups and downs of addiction or abuse can become emotionally deregulated. For all concerned, emotional sobriety  becomes sorely challenged. Addiction either to a substance or a behavior may indicate a loss of ability to “self regulate” an attempt to use substances or behaviors to bring quiet to a turbulent inner world.

How Does Our Limbic System Get Out of Balance?

When I see clients shoot from O to 10 in a split second, or veer quickly towards extreme modes of thinking, feeling or behavior, I look for some form of trauma. That “black and white” way of being, that makes us think, feel and act in absolutes, may be a trauma related pattern. Fight, flight, freeze is our natural response to physical and yes, emotional danger. From the bodies perspective they are same. Whether we are staring into the eyes of a saber toothed tiger or an irate or drunk parent, our bodies become flooded with stress chemicals like adrenaline that enable us to flee for safety or stand and fight. When we can do neither, as is so often the case as children in abusive homes, we freeze. We become overwhelmed with extreme fear and anxiety until we can’t stand it any longer, then our emotional circuit breakers flip and we “turn off”. We go numb.

When this happens repeatedly, it can undermine our ability to “self regulate” or to bring ourselves into emotional balance. We tend toward emotional extremes going from 0-10 and 10-0 with no speed bumps in between. We have trouble staying within the  4,5 & 6 range. Living in the middle provokes anxiety, we don’t know what to do with it. It makes us feel worried, triggers our hyper vigilance, we wait for the other shoe to drop so we can shoot back to what we know, numbness, helplessness or rage. We lose track of what normal is. Addicts may well be using substances and compulsive behaviors to bring calm to a limbic world that is out of whack.

How Do We Develop an Ability to “Self Regulate” that Leads to Emotional Sobriety?

We learn how to “live and be” in relationships from those who surround us when we’re growing up. Just as addition, subtraction and multiplication form the basis for higher math skills, emotional closeness, distance and interaction form a relationship template from which we develop higher relationship skills.
We learn the skills of self regulation primarily from our parents and caretakers. As children, if we get frightened or hurt, for example,  we look to our mothers, fathers and close people to sooth us, to help us to feel better, to bring us back into balance.  When we get out of balance, they woo us back into a state of equilibrium. They hold us emotionally till we restore our own sense of calm. Gradually we absorb the ability to do that for ourselves.

How Do We Lose an Ability to Self Regulate?

Growing up with abuse, neglect addiction or trauma can deregulate the limbic system. It’s a double whammy. Not only is a child being hurt; but the person s/he would normally go to for comfort may be the one who is causing them pain and anxiety. This pattern can wreak havoc with their ability to learn good skills of self regulation.

This also can set up for addiction later in life. When we aren’t able to bring ourselves back into balance when we’re upset, we may reach outside of ourselves for something that will bring quiet to our inner storm. Drugs, alcohol, sex, food or spending become used for self-medication; for self regulation.

Following is a list of characteristics that adults, who have grown up with trauma in the form of abuse, neglect or addiction, may exhibit.

Deregulation in the Limbic System

  • Depression with Feelings of Despair
  • Hypervigilance/Anxiety
  • Hyperreactivity/Easily Triggered
  • Emotional Constriction
  • Learned Helplessness
  • High-Risk Behaviors
  • Somatic Disturbances
  • Desire to Self-Medicate

Relationship Issues

  • Loss of Trust and Faith
  • Loss of Ability to Take in Caring and Support from Others
  • Cycles of Reenactment
  • Distorted Reasoning
  • Survival Guilt
  • Traumatic Bonding
  • Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses

How Can We Achieve Balance?

In order to achieve sustainable emotional sobriety we need to process those unresolved emotions that churn around inside of us or deaden our ability to live in the present by bringing them into consciousness and translating them into words so that we can understand them as we feel them. As we do this we reframe the past through the more mature and aware eyes of today. We create new more mature and balanced meaning.

And because the body process emotions, here are some tips to create body balance. These are nature’s mood stabilizers; they act in the same way that anti depressants act; they help us manage our moods.

  • Exercise to stay in shape and to get that daily dose of serotonin, nature’s natural antidepressant. Serotonin keeps our moods balanced and up beat. It calms anxiety and improves our sleep.
  • Eat nutritious foods and avoid caffeine, and an excess of white sugar and flour.
  • Maintain a network of supportive relationships. Sharing emotions releases serotonin. Touching releases oxytocin, that bonding chemical that mediates emotional closeness. It paradoxically helps us to feel close and connected AND to set boundaries.
  • Hot baths or showers give us a shot of prolactin (and serotonin) which is associated with that serene state that  nursing mothers enjoy.
  • Twelve Step meetings and group or one to one therapy release serotonin as we share our feelings. This brings us into balance through the phenomenon of limbic resonance, one mammals ability to balance another (think of petting a dog or cat and bringing heart balance).

Serotonin management amounts to paying attention to all of those little things that make us feel good and systematically building them into our daily routines. Walking to work, exercising with a friend, taking time to relax and just be, breathing…all allow us to calm down the natural way. We know intuitively that certain activities open that secret door into our sense of well being. Even thinking positive thoughts throughout the day releases serotonin into our bodies, creates heart rhythm coherence and elevates our immune functioning; we can sense it. When we intentionally make these sorts of activities and intentions part of our daily lives, we’re managing our moods the natural way and taking care of our mental (and physical) health. So that instead of engaging in synthetic mood managers that may be unhealthy or self destructive, we can depend on those that are sustainable and natural to stay in balance and to achieve and maintain emotional sobriety.

All of this is from Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance

Attaining Emotional Sobriety (click here for 3 min video)

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Characteristics

Deregulation in the Limbic System

Our emotions are processed by something called the limbic system also referred to as our “emotional brain”.  Emotional trauma can de-regulate the limbic system causing us to go from 0-10 without being able to regulate our intense emotional responses.  When we have problems in our deep limbic system they can manifest as moodiness, irritability, increased negative thinking and perceptions of events, depression, anxiety, decreased motivation, floods of unmanageable emotions, appetite and sleep problems, decreased or increased sexual responsiveness or social isolation.

Addiction can be seen as a problem with self regulation; a lack of ability to regulate powerful emotions, use of substances and behaviors.

Depression with Feelings of Despair
The limbic system regulates mood. When we are deregulated in our emotional system, we may have trouble regulating feelings such as anger, sadness, and fear, all of which may contribute to depression. Elevated levels of cortisol, associated with the fight or flight response, are also found in high amounts in people who report feeling depressed.

Hypervigilance/Anxiety
When we’re hypervigilant, we tend to scan our environment, people’s faces and moods and relationships for signs of potential danger or repeated relationship insults and ruptures (van der Kolk 2004) to protect ourselves against perceived danger.

Hyperreactivity/Easily Triggered
Living with relationship trauma can over-sensitize us to stress. The limbic system gets set on high alert, it is cocked and ready to go. Consequently we may over-respond to stress or blow out of proportion conflicts that could be managed calmly. Stimuli reminiscent of relationship trauma, such as feeling helpless or humiliated, can trigger intense reactions.

Emotional Constriction
Emotional numbing is a natural response to trauma and can last anywhere from a few hours to many years. Emotional constriction  refers to a restricted range of feelings or a lack of expression of authentic emotion. The kinds of sharing that are part of therapy and 12-step programs slowly and over time counter this numbing and constriction as we learn to safely feel and share our strong feelings in the presence of others.

Learned Helplessness
When we feel we can do nothing to affect or change the situation we’re in, we may develop learned helplessness, that is, we may give up. We may lose some of our ability to take actions to affect, change, or move a situation forward (van der Kolk 2004). The program slogans “Take the next right action” and “a day at a time” help the person who feels immobilized to break their frozen position and move forward.

High-Risk Behaviors
Whether to jump-start a numbed-out inner world, act out intense emotional and psychological pain or mood alter– high-risk behaviors may be self medicating by stimulating a predictable rush of adrenaline. Adrenaline can be as addictive to the brain as heroin.

Somatic Disturbances
Because the body processes and holds emotion, we may experience our unconscious emotions as somatic disturbances. Some examples of emotional pain affecting the body are back pain, chronic headaches, muscle tightness or stiffness, stomach problems, heart problems, or heart pounding, sweating, queasiness, shivering, and shaking (van der Kolk 2004).

Desire to Self-Medicate
The emotional, psychological, and physiological setup that accompanies relationship trauma can lead to self medication, in which we seek a chemical solution for human problems (van der Kolk 2004). Thus, the relationship between trauma and addiction takes hold. Emotional and psychological trauma leads to self-medication, and self-medication leads to continued and ever-complicated emotional and psychological problems.

Relationship Issues

Those who have experienced relationship trauma through addiction, may tend to re-create dysfunctional patterns of relating in the present, that mirror unresolved issues from the past, whether or not addiction is still present. This can occur through psychological dynamics such as projection (projecting our pain onto someone or a situation outside the self), transference (transferring old pain into new relationships), and reenactment patterns (re-creating dysfunctional patterns of relating over and over and over again).

Loss of Trust and Faith
When our personal world and the relationships within it become very unpredictable or unreliable, we may experience a loss of trust and faith in relationships and in life’s ability to repair and renew itself (van der Kolk 2004).

Loss of Ability to Take in Caring and Support from Others
The numbing response along with the emotional constriction that is part of the trauma response may lead to a loss of ability to take in caring and support from others (van der Kolk 2004). Additionally, as mistrust takes hold, our willingness to accept love and support may lessen.

Loss of Ability to Take in Caring and Support from Others
People who have felt traumatized may have a tendency to isolate and withdraw into themselves when they are feeling vulnerable. They have learned to take refuge in avoiding connection. Isolation is also a feature of depression. Unfortunately the more we isolate, the more out of practice we become at making connections with people, which can further isolate us. Twelve step programs, one to one and group therapy help to restore connection with others.

Cycles of Reenactment
The reenactment dynamic is one of the most common ways that trauma from one generation gets passed down through subsequent generations. We tend to re-create and repeat the relational patterns that are familiar, even if they do not work to get us what we really want.

Distorted Reasoning
We make sense of situations with the developmental equipment we have at any given age. When we’re young, we make childlike or immature meaning, which may be laced with magical thinking or interpretations that are based on the natural egocentricity of the child who feels that the world circulates around and because of them. We may live by this meaning well into adulthood.

“Stinkin thinkin” is also a sort of cocktail of denial and truth distortion that grows out of minimizing and hiding the pain and degradation of addiction.

Survival Guilt
The person who gets out of an unhealthy family system while others remain mired within it may experience what is referred to as “survivor’s guilt.” This person may become overly preoccupied with fixing their families, because the thought of being happy when their families remain locked in dysfunctional ways of living can be very painful to them.

Traumatic Bonding
Trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately. The profound disruption in basic trust, the common feelings of shame, guilt, and inferiority, and the need to avoid reminders of the trauma that might be found in social life, all foster withdrawal from close relationships. But the terror of the traumatic event intensifies the need for protective attachments. The traumatized person therefore frequently alternates between isolation and anxious clinging to others. (Herman 1997)  Traumatic bonds have a tendency to repeat themselves; that is, we tend to repeat this type of bond in relationships throughout our lives, often without our awareness.

Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses
People who are consistently being wounded emotionally and are not able to address it openly and honestly may develop rigid psychological defenses to keep pain at bay. Dissociation, denial, splitting, repression, minimization, intellectualization, and projection are some examples of these defenses.

Learned Helplessness
When we feel we can do nothing to affect or change the situation we’re in, we may develop learned helplessness, that is, we may give up. We may lose some of our ability to take actions to affect, change, or move a situation forward (van der Kolk 2004). The program slogans “Take the next right action” and “a day at a time” help the person who feels immobilized to break their frozen position and move forward.

Emotional Constriction
Emotional numbing is a natural response to trauma and can last anywhere from a few hours to many years. Emotional constriction  refers to a restricted range of feelings or a lack of expression of authentic emotion. The kinds of sharing that are part of therapy and 12-step programs slowly and over time counter this numbing and constriction as we learn to safely feel and share our strong feelings in the presence of others.

Somatic Disturbances
Because the body processes and holds emotion, we may experience our unconscious emotions as somatic disturbances. Some examples of emotional pain affecting the body are back pain, chronic headaches, muscle tightness or stiffness, stomach problems, heart problems, or heart pounding, sweating, queasiness, shivering, and shaking (van der Kolk 2004).

Loss of Trust and Faith
When our personal world and the relationships within it become very unpredictable or unreliable, we may experience a loss of trust and faith in relationships and in life’s ability to repair and renew itself (van der Kolk 2004). This is why the restoration of hope is so important in recovery (Yalom 1985[QY: Give year, and give complete information in Bibliography]). It is also why having a spiritual belief system can be so helpful in personal healing.

Hypervigilance/Anxiety
When we’re hypervigilant, we tend to scan our environment and relationships for signs of potential danger or repeated relationship insults and ruptures (van der Kolk 2004). We constantly try to read the faces of those around us so that we can protect ourselves against perceived danger. When we’re hypervigilant we’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop or walking on eggshells. Unfortunately, this may also create problems because we may perceive danger even where little exists or become overly reactive to perceived slights, making ourselves hard to be around or even driving a situation toward problems. If we go through the world looking for people to insult us, we can usually find them.

Hyperreactivity/Easily Triggered
Living with relationship trauma can oversensitize us to stress. Consequently we may overrespond to stress or blow out of proportion conflicts that could be managed calmly. Stimuli reminiscent of relationship trauma, such as feeling helpless or humiliated, can make them feel vulnerable, anxious and at risk all over again.

Traumatic Bonding
Traumatic bonds are unhealthy bonding styles that tend to become created in families where significant fear is present. Traumatic bonds have a tendency to repeat themselves; that is, we tend to repeat this type of bond in relationships throughout our lives, often without our awareness.

Trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately. The profound disruption in basic trust, the common feelings of shame, guilt, and inferiority, and the need to avoid reminders of the trauma that might be found in social life, all foster withdrawal from close relationships. But the terror of the traumatic event intensifies the need for protective attachments. The traumatized person therefore frequently alternates between isolation and anxious clinging to others. (Herman 1997)

Depression with Feelings of Despair
The limbic system regulates mood. When we are deregulated in our emotional system, we may have trouble regulating feelings such as anger, sadness, and fear, all of which may contribute to depression. Elevated levels of cortisol, associated with the fight or flight response, are also found in high amounts in people who report feeling depressed.

Brain imaging has demonstrated that trauma can affect the body and brain much more than had previously been understood. For example, in depression, which is a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, the amygdala, which is a center of negative emotions in the brain, runs unchecked–in other words, everything feels threatening. In addition, a center of memory, the hippocampus, may lose nerve-to-nerve links. Brain imaging research shows that both of these centers of the brain may even be altered in size and shape in victims of sexual abuse or in prisoners of war. Research in animals and in people shows that stress or trauma early in life can sensitize neurons and receptors throughout the central nervous system so that they perpetually overrespond to stress (van der Kolk 2004).

Distorted Reasoning
We make sense of situations with the developmental equipment we have at any given age. When we’re young, we make childlike meaning, which may be laced with magical thinking or interpretations that are based on the natural egocentricity of the child who feels that the world circulates around and because of them. This kind of reasoning can be immature and distorted. When our family unit is spinning out of control, we may tell ourselves whatever is necessary to allow ourselves to stay connected. We may tell ourselves that our drunk mother has the flu or that our sexually invasive father loves us best. We may deny the truth that is right in front of us in an attempt to make more palatable meaning out of confusing, frightening, or painful experiences that feel senseless. We may carry this distorted reasoning into adult relationships.

Loss of Ability to Take In Caring and Support from Others
The numbing response along with the emotional constriction that is part of the trauma response may lead to a loss of ability to take in caring and support from others (van der Kolk 2004). Additionally, as mistrust takes hold, our willingness to accept love and support may lessen. We’re perhaps afraid that if we let our guard down, if we let connection feel too good, we’ll only set ourselves up for more pain when the inevitable happens and we’re disappointed again and again. So we protect ourselves as best as we know how imagining that by avoiding meaningful connection we will also avoid hurt.

Part of recovery is being willing to take that leap of faith to let life and relationships feel good again. This, of course, means that we have to try to set up a recovery network of people who can be reliable enough so that recovery and relationships are reasonably safe. Twelve-step programs and therapy are a great place to start, because rather than depending on only a few people, we have a network of people.

Tendency to Isolate
People who have felt traumatized may have a tendency to isolate and withdraw into themselves when they are feeling vulnerable. They have learned to take refuge in avoiding connection. Isolation is also a feature of depression. Unfortunately the more we isolate, the more out of practice we become at making connections with people, which can further isolate us.

Cycles of Reenactment
The reenactment dynamic is one of the most common ways that trauma from one generation gets passed down through subsequent generations. We tend to re-create those circumstances in our lives that feel unresolved, perhaps in an attempt to see the self more clearly and master or resolve our pain, or perhaps because we are locked in circuits of brain/body patterning that are largely unconscious. We repeat and repeat the relational patterns that are familiar, even if they do not work to get us what we really want.

High-Risk Behaviors
The clients whom I see who are engaged in chronic high-risk behaviors (van der Kolk 2004) seem to be trying to do a couple of things. One, they seem to be trying to jump-start a numbed-out inner world, to feel something, anything. Or they appear to be acting out intense emotional and psychological pain. Another dynamic that appears to be operating is that they are trying to alter their mood–that the high-risk behavior serves to get them high by stimulating a rush of adrenaline. Adrenaline is highly addictive to the brain and may be a powerful mood enhancer. Speeding, sexual acting out, spending, fighting, drugging, or other behaviors done in a way that puts one at risk are some examples of high-risk behaviors.

Survival Guilt
The person who gets out of an unhealthy family system while others remain mired within it may experience what is referred to as “survivor’s guilt.” This term was originally used to describe the experience of soldiers who left mates on the battlefield. This person may become overly preoccupied with fixing their families, because the thought of being happy when their families remain locked in dysfunctional ways of living can be very painful to them.

Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses
People who are consistently being wounded emotionally and are not able to address it openly and honestly may develop rigid psychological defenses to manage their fear and pain. Dissociation, denial, splitting, repression, minimization, intellectualization, and projection are some examples of these defenses.

Relationship Issues
Those who have experienced relationship trauma, may tend to re-create dysfunctional patterns of relating in the present, that mirror unresolved issues from the past. This can occur through psychological dynamics such as projection (projecting our pain onto someone or a situation outside the self), transference (transferring old pain into new relationships), and reenactment patterns (re-creating dysfunctional patterns of relating over and over and over again).

Desire to Self-Medicate
The emotional, psychological, and physiological setup that accompanies relationship trauma can lead to self medication, in which we seek a chemical solution for human problems (van der Kolk 2004). Self-medicating can seem to be a solution in the immediate moment, as it really does make pain, anxiety, and physiological disturbances temporarily disappear, but in the long run, it creates many more problems than it solves. Thus, the relationship between trauma and addiction takes hold. Emotional and psychological trauma leads to self-medication, and self-medication leads to continued and ever-complicated emotional and psychological problems.

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