{"id":575,"date":"2011-08-27T11:33:42","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T15:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thecelebritytherapist\/?p=575"},"modified":"2011-08-27T11:46:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-27T15:46:27","slug":"maintaining-emotional-sobriety-during-difficult-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thecelebritytherapist\/2011\/08\/maintaining-emotional-sobriety-during-difficult-times.html","title":{"rendered":"Maintaining Emotional Sobriety during Difficult Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thecelebritytherapist\/files\/2011\/08\/happy2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-583\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/243\/2011\/08\/happy2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>There have been many books, blogs, and articles written about emotional<br \/>\nsobriety, however, the word sobriety often scares people off who are not in<br \/>\nrecovery from drugs or alcohol or some other type of addiction whether it is<br \/>\ngambling, sex and love, shopping, internet, co-dependency or food.\u00a0 Sobriety usually means being sober \u00a0\u00a0from drugs<br \/>\nand\/or alcohol. In fact one definition I found for sobriety is &#8230;&#8221; <strong>sobriety<\/strong> is continued abstinence<br \/>\nfrom alcohol and psychoactive drug use.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0When you add the word \u201cemotional\u201d to the<br \/>\nword, it then becomes about how we feel once the addiction is gone? \u00a0Or Do we feel happy, joyous, and free once the<br \/>\naddictions have been eliminated?\u00a0 Or Are<br \/>\nwe managing our emotions once we are sober? \u00a0And\/or \u00a0Are<br \/>\nwe able to have healthy relationships in recovery?\u00a0 Although all these definitions are valid, I<br \/>\nwant to bring emotional sobriety to the mainstream.\u00a0 I want to bring emotional sobriety to not just<br \/>\nthose who suffer with an addiction, but how about the rest of society that live<br \/>\nin depression, anxiety, fear, resentments, and misery?\u00a0 Not only do I want to make emotional sobriety<br \/>\navailable to those who suffer, but how about those who are living a meager<br \/>\nexistence? Or \u00a0\u00a0How about allowing<br \/>\nemotional sobriety be available to anyone who is not living on purpose or with<br \/>\npassion?\u00a0 Or for those who do not even<br \/>\nknow there is more to life than just surviving with the basic needs of<br \/>\nsurvival?<\/p>\n<p>My favorite definition comes from<br \/>\nauthor Dr. Ingrid Mathieu, \u201cI believe that emotional sobriety is less about the<br \/>\nquality of the feeling (\u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d and more about the general ability to<br \/>\nfeel one\u2019s feelings.\u00a0 Yes, emotional<br \/>\nsobriety can be about being able to control and regulate our emotions when we<br \/>\nremove the addictive substances or behavior, but emotional sobriety is so much<br \/>\nmore.\u00a0 It is all about being comfortable<br \/>\nin our skin right now in this very moment even when chaos exists around<br \/>\nus.\u00a0 It is about living mindfully<br \/>\nexperiencing each feeling moment by moment, watching them ebb and flow, but not<br \/>\nallowing them to define you.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, emotional sobriety is<br \/>\nall about discovering balance and creating a sense of well-being within<br \/>\nourselves.\u00a0 It is also about knowing who<br \/>\nyou are and allowing yourself to express the good, the bad, and the ugly, and<br \/>\nremaining grounded as these ideas, beliefs, feelings, and desires make their<br \/>\nway to our psyche and everyday existence.<\/p>\n<p>Sherry Gaba, LCSW, is a Licensed<br \/>\nPsychotherapist and Life Coach and author of The Law of Sobriety: Attracting<br \/>\nPositive Energy for a Powerful Recovery.<br \/>\nSherry is a well sought out speaker, facilitates workshops, teleseminars,<br \/>\nand is now offering a $45 consultation for 30 minutes.\u00a0 She can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:sherry@sgabatherapy.com\">sherry@sgabatherapy.com<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelawofsobriety.com\">www.thelawofsobriety.com<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sgabatherapy.com\">www.sgabatherapy.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There have been many books, blogs, and articles written about emotional sobriety, however, the word sobriety often scares people off who are not in recovery from drugs or alcohol or some other type of addiction whether it is gambling, sex and love, shopping, internet, co-dependency or food.\u00a0 Sobriety usually means being sober \u00a0\u00a0from drugs and\/or&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":402,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,24,26,27,29,30,34,37,39,41,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,56,58,59,60,61,64,67,201,69,70,72,73,75,77,78,79,80,82,83,177,84,85,86,87,89,92,93,94,96],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-addiction-specialist","tag-addictions","tag-agoura-hills","tag-agoura-hills-psychotherapist","tag-alternative-medicine","tag-binge-eating","tag-calabasas","tag-celebrity-addiction-2","tag-celebrity-rehab-2","tag-co-dependency","tag-diet","tag-dr-drew","tag-drug-addiction","tag-feelings-and-emotions","tag-food-addiction","tag-gambling-addiction","tag-health","tag-internet-addiction","tag-intervention","tag-law-of-attraction-2","tag-life-coach","tag-life-coaching","tag-lindsay-lohan","tag-malibu","tag-melody-beattie","tag-metpahysical","tag-michael-lohan","tag-moorpark","tag-motivation","tag-positive-action","tag-positive-change","tag-pupose","tag-recovery-2","tag-recovery-coaching","tag-recovery-information","tag-rehabilitation","tag-self-discovery","tag-self-discovery-professionals","tag-sherry-gaba","tag-shopping-addiction","tag-simi-valley","tag-spiritual","tag-spirituality","tag-substance-abuse","tag-thousand-oaks","tag-vh1","tag-weight-loss","tag-westlake-village-psychotherapist"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Maintaining Emotional Sobriety during Difficult Times - The Celebrity Therapist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thecelebritytherapist\/2011\/08\/maintaining-emotional-sobriety-during-difficult-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maintaining Emotional Sobriety during Difficult Times - The Celebrity Therapist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There have been many books, blogs, and articles written about emotional sobriety, however, the word sobriety often scares people off who are not in recovery from drugs or alcohol or some other type of addiction whether it is gambling, sex and love, shopping, internet, co-dependency or food.\u00a0 Sobriety usually means being sober \u00a0\u00a0from drugs and\/or&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thecelebritytherapist\/2011\/08\/maintaining-emotional-sobriety-during-difficult-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Celebrity Therapist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-27T15:33:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-27T15:46:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thecelebritytherapist\/files\/2011\/08\/happy2-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sherry Gaba\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Maintaining Emotional Sobriety during Difficult Times - 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