Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery

Thom’s Nutshell: Look for the benefit in all situations - practice positive opportunism. In another passage from Joe C.’s Beyond Belief, Allen ties our daily reflection to Emotional Sobriety and the importance of dislodging our false self in pursuit of an emboldened authentic one. Our music is provided by the great southern artist Jefferson Ross. Learn more about Jefferson at jeffersonross.com Vis...

Thom’s Nutshell: We all have opinions. We all prefer certain outcomes. But attaching expectations to them is a choice. Disappointed? Upset? Devastated? Check your expectations. Why do we avoid going towards our pain? Because we don’t have faith in our ability to cope with it. In emotional sobriety we work on our self-esteem, which is part of that perpetual engine moving us towards wholeness. From...

Thom’s Nutshell: Rather than praying for circumstances to change, pray for the strength and wisdom to face those circumstances. “This shouldn’t be happening!” Well, it IS happening. So how do we deal with it? Riffing on Rumi, Paul McCartney, and Kathryn Grody with superfriend Joe Chisholm. Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com   Our music...

Thom’s Nutshell: Ignoring our own dark potential only makes it stronger. Avoid washing dishes and there are not only more of them, they are also harder to clean. The difference between a reasonable and unreasonable expectation. From Allen: You can want from the best in you, or from the worst in you. You can want from what is healthy and solid, or what is empty and covetous. Wanting from neediness...

Thom’s Nutshell: “The promise of perfection is a red herring. Don't be distracted from your pursuit of learning and improving.” Patrick celebrates eight years of sobriety and the gang discusses the importance of honoring recovery milestones. The 5 Points of Balance: Staying clear about our values and worth in the face of criticism (not letting others edit your sense of self). Calming our anxiety a...

Thom’s Nutshell: “Recipe for peace of mind: KNOW what you believe. KNOW what is important. KNOW what is within your control. LIVE congruently with what you believe.” Thom and Patrick discuss “the upside of addiction” (as a means of climbing out of it), emotional sobriety and relationship struggles, using during therapy, and approaching addiction as a binary choice between life and death. Our music...

Thom’s Nutshell: Step 16: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of someone else. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. They told me to stop at 12. “Taking others’ inventory” gets to the heart of our functioning. Allen brings this back to Piaget’s studies of pre-operational stages of development. Our emotional development influences our consciousness, and the more immaturity we have, the more we loo...

Thom’s Nutshell: "Live this moment as if you chose it. Might as well. And maybe you did." Give yourself permission to doubt. Give yourself permission to disagree. Give yourself permission to decide. Add more self! Reflecting on the emotional sobriety of Viktor Frankl and Christopher Reeve, and having the courage to credit your own point of view. In emotional sobriety we find the “positive opportun...

Thom’s Nutshell: “So much energy we spend wishing things to be different. There are always better uses of our time.” Anxiety is consistent, persistent and disciplined. It wakes up first and works out every morning. To change we must be at least as disciplined. Joe C. talks about the many ways (often with the help of community) we medicate this condition. Allen digs into our relationship with Self,...

Thom’s Nutshell: “When you want something, do you begin with a commitment to make it happen or a list of reasons that it probably won't?" The mighty Carol Carter joins us again from the front of a different kind of recovery: triage from a flood which devastated her home. In our pursuit of emotional sobriety, integrity matters most. In adjusting our expectations to meet the moment, we can also “cha...

Thom’s Nutshell: “ Life is a wonderful blessing, with many great disappointments. Can you see disappointment as a gift?” In emotional sobriety, we attempt to believe that we are here to learn from whatever we are given, which Thom calls “positive opportunism.” How can we use what disappoints us to become a better person? How can we use it to be productive? Acting “as if” this was the plan all alon...

Thom’s Nutshell: One of emotional sobriety's greatest challenges is for us to understand and accept our contribution to our own distress without becoming distracted by self-condemnation. Shame and humility are not the same thing. One of the first levels of self-acceptance is an utter refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with ourselves. When we take ownership over our own existence, there’s...

Thom’s Nutshell: Rigorous honesty begins at home. Joe C. joins us to discuss the ways relapse is experienced by the loved ones of the relapser, and how we can think about these distressing events differently. The universe isn’t guided by structure and order alone. There’s chaos as well. We have influence, but not control, and with emotional sobriety we can more clearly see that distinction. Thank...

Thom’s Nutshell: “You cannot work both sides of the serenity prayer. Choose. Commit.” Emotional sobriety is about moving forward. The key to unlocking long term recovery is learning to support ourselves internally by organizing our experience to deal with the struggle. To move through and out of relapse, we can’t collapse into a pile of “shoulds.” Relapse occurs for addicts when they haven’t accep...

Thom’s Nutshell Wisdom: “Practice conversations to convey rather than convince.” Healthy Conversation is “present-centered.” In a healthy conversation, we don’t need to know exactly what we’re trying to convey. With defenses down, we learn more. How much “we,” and how much “I” can we include in any relationship? How can we get on the same side of the problem? Anxiety is at the root of why we do th...

Former guest and longtime friend John Amodeo joins Allen and Thom to advocate “gentle presence” 9 making ourselves available to the full range of what we’re experiencing in the moment, whether pleasure and pain. People are afraid of their emotions - “If I start crying, when will I stop?” The greater danger, in our experience, is the suppression of emotion. We also touch on processing failure and m...

Thom checks back in after a long period of freezing weather and system crash in Tennessee, Allen gets honest after recent familial struggles. What makes it difficult for us to own our bad behavior? This week is emotional sobriety through fear and wreckage, demanding cleanup. Thom's Nutshell: Can you describe how you think as well as you can describe what you think?" "In The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holid...

Thom’s Nutshell: "How much of what you believe do you really believe?" Allen and Patrick review a recent Slate article about Emotional Sobriety and push back on some of its premises. Emotional Sobriety isn’t just about taking care of ourselves, it’s about dismantling expectations and developing an entirely new way of living. It offers not just inner peace, but true freedom. The article: “I Quit Dr...

On clarity, which comes with emotional sobriety: an antidote to impulsivity, rumination, indecision and procrastination. Thom’s nutshell wisdom: Your ego has one value system, your spirit another. Beware of identifying with one and acting from the other. We all experience this. It is the source of our deepest hypocrisy. This is the human struggle: personally and globally. Our hearts go out to the...

"I didn't have a choice." You're selling yourself short. Or you mean, the choice seemed obvious to you. But still, you made the choice. Or - you are making an excuse, ducking responsibility, for a poor choice that you made. Because... We always have choices. Even not making a choice is a choice. Follow us on social media. Instagram: thomrutledge2 Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs Learn more about Jo...

Today’s Nutshell Wisdom: The big difference between passing judgment and exercising judgment: One focuses attention on something I do not control. The other focuses on precisely what I do control. Today we’re back to the serenity prayer and describing what emotional sobriety’s “discovery of new possibilities” could practically mean. Follow us on social media. Instagram: thomrutledge2 Joe C. Twitte...

Joe C. quotes Joseph Campbell: “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Thom’s nutshell for today: “Measure your progress in units of willingness instead of willpower, with degrees of self-acceptance rather than change." Allen, Thom, Joe and Patrick each talk about how their understanding of emotional sobriety has evolved over the p...

For this week’s nutshell, prioritizing comfort will eventually make us very uncomfortable. We talk amends and pull some wisdom from Arthur Schopenhaur (via Joe C.’s “Beyond Belief”). Sending love and emotional sobriety to you all this holiday. We’ll be back for one more in 2025. Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com     Follow us on social...

On learning from our mistakes. Whether or not the mistake results in an immediate change in our behavior, learning is always taking place if we can get out of our own way. Thom and Allen advise staying with our heartbreak (or other forms of grief), feeling it without being stuck in it. Notice when we are “offended by reality.” There’s an opportunity there to de-personalize the pain, and thereby su...

Nutshell of the Day: “Even introverts need connection and support. Solitude is vital. Isolation is deadly.” On the eve of Joe C.’s sober birthday, he drops by to talk about managing expectations, staying sane and emotionally sober during Thanksgiving. Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com     Follow us on social media. Podcast Twitter: @Em...