Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery

Joe C. brings an existential framework to the discussion, which dredges up Patrick’s recent brushes with mortality and Allen’s titanic wrestling with the loss of his father at a young age.   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: https://abphd.com/events/   Join an ongoing Zoom meeting wherein participa...

Acceptance of what is sets us on the road to change. While acceptance of powerlessness over alcohol, our dependencies, or lack of emotional sobriety can feel like a form of defeat, like the end of the story, experience tells us that it's only the beginning.  Patrick, Allen and Thom speak to the acute resistance newcomers have towards the notion of powerlessness. What we're trying to do in early re...

Waiting for the other shoe to drop truly puts our ability to regulate to the test, as it reminds us how little we control, and how much of our strength derives from our environments rather than ourselves. The goal of emotional sobriety is to invert that paradigm.   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: https://abphd.com/events/   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://re...

In filing our claims with reality’s “complaint department,” we discover new ways of getting in touch with our disturbances, big and small, in order to free ourselves from unhealthy dependencies. We read some Eckhart Tolle and make fun of DOGE.   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: https://abphd.com/events/   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishin...

Joe C. and the crew discuss their emerging conception of living responsibly with emotional sobriety. Ultimately, this depends greatly on our connection with others and our willingness to live authentically.   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: https://abphd.com/events/   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Join an ongoing Zoom meeting...

A quick one this week. Allen, Thom, and Patrick discuss holding onto ourselves when our relationships are in distress, fear of losing loved ones, and difficulty crying.   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: https://abphd.com/events/   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Join an ongoing Zoom meeting wherein participants read Bill Schabe...

Offering help to those in need without losing ourselves is the order of the day. Before giving advice, “knock on the door” first. Never proceed without a contract. And as always, whether the outcome is positive or negative, try not to take it personally!   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: https://abphd.com/events/   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondo...

Joe C. returns to kick things off with a reading from Gabor Maté’s “The Myth of Normal.” Allen and Thom return to our ongoing discussion about recovery from trauma, in which we usually encounter two traps: either ignoring the trauma, or becoming stuck in it.   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Upcoming events with Allen Berger: http...

Allen and Thom return to familiar emotional sobriety territory of living in the pauses and managing our reactions to fears both real and imagined, which this time revolve around recent Presidential shenanigans.   Thom's book,  Embracing Fear :  https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=   Join an ongoing Zoom meetin...

Returning to our definition of a more mature love, challenging not the concept of “self” entirely, but an expanding our sense of self to include others, embracing relationships. We only get better at this by practicing!   More about Thom’s book “What Love Is” on his website: https://www.thomrutledge.com/thom-s-books   Actor Michael Shannon on love: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/31/nx-s1-5272576/acto...

Picking up the discussion from last week, in crafting our emotionally sober foundation and cultivating our awareness, what do we need to be aware of to fully “see”? What we’re aware of and what we’re conscious of is determined by our current level of development.   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Check out Howard Malitz’ Seasons o...

Our awareness is what we use to make contact with the world. The quality of that contact will determine how well we can cope with or adapt to any situation that we’re facing. If our awareness is entirely focused on others instead of ourselves, our contact will be diminished, just as the same is true if the polarity shifts the other way. Our ability to respond to situations will be compromised if o...

Patrick and Allen deal with their own fears and resentments surrounding the Los Angeles wildfires. Patrick welcomes to the pod Los Angeles residents Josh S. and Danny B. to discuss how this natural disaster has touched them and their loved ones, stress testing their own recoveries. The appropriate alignment with reality that emotional sobriety entails puts us in touch with the darker side of human...

Why are some people surpassingly resilient in sobriety, not only restoring to their wellness conditions pre-alcoholism and pre-trauma, but emerging even better than they were before? Conversely, why do some of us languish in stress and depression as a new normal, post alcohol, drugs, or traumatic exposure?   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishi...

Responsibility creates empowerment. Closing this year of the podcast as we look ahead to 2025, Allen, Thom, and Patrick consider the evolution of the concept of emotional sobriety. So much of it comes down to relationships. Standing for ourselves while continuing to show up for others. The more we allow for flexibility, the freer we become.    Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs...

A quick one, before Christmas - Thom and Patrick talk about their sideways shuffle towards emotional sobriety, accepting the things they cannot change and locating the courage to change the things they can.   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Check out Howard Malitz’ Seasons of Sobriety podcast: https://pod.link/1460539626   Join an...

Allen, Joe, and Patrick continue their ongoing discussion of the holiday season, encountering new challenges and opportunities to hold onto themselves while showing up for others.   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspublishing.com/   Check out Howard Malitz’ Seasons of Sobriety podcast: https://pod.link/1460539626   Join an ongoing Zoom meeting where...

Thom, Patrick and Joe bring to the conversation their individual anticipations and dreads of the Thanksgiving holiday to come. The emotional sobriety philosophy and practice - now as much as ever - has the capacity to ground us.   Check out Howard Malitz’ Seasons of Sobriety podcast: https://pod.link/1460539626   Join an ongoing Zoom meeting wherein participants read Bill Schaberg’s 30 Things : Pr...

Four of us take stock of our personal arcs towards greater emotional sobriety. Happiness, as Herb Kaighan frames it, isn’t a product of the work we do. It’s a byproduct of our relationships with a life of meaning and purpose, as well as our contributions to humanity. Thom advises self-compassion coupled with personal responsibility - so that we’re keeping ourselves accountable but through a langua...

Going into yet another fraught American Presidential election, Allen, Thom, and Patrick discuss their fears and feelings of debt and responsibility to their fellows. On top of the political implications that come with the event, these times of intense conflict truly put our emotional sobriety to the test.   Access a few of Thom’s political pieces:   Open Letter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lR...

Friend of the pod Howard Malitz of Seasons of Recovery talks about an extreme test of emotional sobriety on a recent road trip. Thom gives us an update on his recovery from cancer and advises giving people we’re crossed up with the benefit of the doubt. And if we must make assumptions about people, let’s try to make better ones! Read the AA Grapevine from today’s episode -  The Guy Who Ruined My M...

Joe C., Allen, and Thom welcome author William Schaberg (Bill), author of 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well to discuss recovery and emotional sobriety, reading a passage from his book along the way. In striving to attain unity but not uniformity with our fellows, we pursue what Bill refers to as “the most extreme form of democratic pluralism imaginable.”   Learn more about or purchase 30...

Joe C., Allen, and Thom read from William Schaberg’s 30 Things: Practical Advice for Living Well to further explore the dismantling of “shoulds.” Our self-centeredness that’s expressed in an inability to not accept others’ feelings is also an expression of emotional dependency. One goal of emotional sobriety is to connect with others more readily and deeply. As Schaberg writes, by laying aside our...

The fellas discuss the role of anger in emotional sobriety. We also read a thoughtful email from one of our Australian listers, about holding onto ourselves in toxic families of origin.   To listen to pitches from, Allen, Joe Chisholm, and others from their recent ICSAA conference in Orlando, FL: aasecular.org   Learn more about Joe C., Secular AA and Rebellion Dogs here: https://rebelliondogspubl...

On the journey towards forgiving others, we can’t bypass our grief. Thom, Patrick, and Tom Potash discuss both processing and letting go of grievance, focusing today on our families of origin. One way of looking at forgiveness is as our natural state when we aren’t holding onto old pain.   Tom Potash found his earliest inkling of what forgiving his mother could mean for his emotional sobriety in t...