Discontinuing your substance use is an important part of your recovery journey. However, there is more to substance use disorder (SUD) recovery than abstinence. Another important step on your journey to a healthier you is fostering emotional sobriety.
What Is Emotional Sobriety?
Emotional sobriety is synonymous with emotional regulation. As noted in an article from Addiction & Health, emotional regulation can be defined as your ability to influence your emotions, including the duration and severity. Moreover, you can regulate your emotions both consciously and unconsciously through emotion regulation strategies.
Listed below are some of the strategies used in emotion regulation:
- Reappraisal
- Obsessive rumination
- Self-declaration
- Avoidance
- Inhibition
Whether adaptive or maladaptive, emotional regulation strategies are an important part of how you process emotions in different situations. However, if you have difficulties managing your emotions, it can lead to emotional distress. Chronic emotional distress can make it difficult to reach emotional sobriety. Therefore, without emotional sobriety, it is more difficult to maintain your resilience to cravings, which can lead to relapse. Thus, how can you build healthy emotional regulation skills to process self-defeating patterns that encourage substance use?
The Benefits of Emotional Regulation in Recovery
As noted in Addiction & Health, one of the key features of substance use is the temptation born out of craving. Moreover, encountering your triggers can make it more difficult to avoid relapse because of an inability to utilize emotional regulation strategies, such as cognitive reframing to negate the craving. Therefore, building healthy emotional regulation strategies can be beneficial to your emotional sobriety and long-term recovery.
According to an article from Emotion Journal, the ability to successfully regulate your emotional expression increases your overall well-being. Emotional regulation and well-being have a correlating relationship with a broad mindset. Thus, a broad mindset may expose you to more novel information on emotional regulation. In addition, being exposed to innovative information may make you more open to accepting that information.
Building Emotional Sobriety in Everyday Life
At The Guest House, we believe in holistic healing as an approach to treating the whole person in body, mind, and spirit. When you can connect with every part of yourself, you can truly start healing beyond abstinence to full emotional sobriety. Moreover, maintaining your emotional sobriety is a lifelong process you will continue to learn from throughout your life. We know recovery is a process, not a destination, so we are dedicated to supporting you now and beyond your time in treatment.
Building emotional sobriety is an important tool for your long-term healing and recovery. Developing and maintaining your emotional sobriety can feel impossible when you have difficulties with emotional regulation. However, when you learn how to build healthy coping strategies, you can reduce your cravings and triggers for substance use and decrease your risk for a relapse. At The Guest House, we believe in the power of holistic healing to treat the whole person in body, mind, and spirit. Therefore, you can learn how to reframe your thinking patterns to dismantle self-defeating behaviors. Call today at (855) 483-7800.