EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY?

[PHANTOM VISITOR]

Given the description of what I understand this to mean, wouldn't a better term be "emotional maturity"?

This type of unrealistic thinking may be characteristic of alcoholics but it's certainly not limited to them.

Seems to me that attaching the term "sobriety" to something other than what it is diminishes what it really is. I don't say I've achieved "physical sobriety" when I recover from a cold, or "financial sobriety" if I win the Lotto.

Or, is it just my immaturity, indicating I need to work on my emotional sobriety and stop picking flys**t out of black pepper?

[vegyman]

I use white pepper, It's easier, Willard.

I think they use emotional sobriiety first so that the newcomer does stray away from it. Once we feel comfortable in sobriety, we mature a lof faster.

[samf]

All I have to add is this fit me to a "t":

"We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people."

(Big Book - Page 52)

I don't much care what they call it. I just needed help.

Samf

[david b]

hi
dito
david b

[truffle]

>:(for the last couple of days it has been very emotional for me

[Carol87]

truffle ... Welcome to AASL ... I hope we will see more of you ...

Emotional sobriety is far more difficult for me to maintain than physical sobriety.? In fact I talked about it at a meeting yesterday ... I've been sober for many many 24 hours but I can't honestly say that for emotional sobriety.? ? The solution for me is to stop isolating, pick up the phone, get to a meeting and most importantly, put my reliance on my God.

And I really like what Sam said about "I don't much care what they call it.? I just needed help"? ?

[CarolD]

;D Welcome truffle ...
It's great to see a new member!

For me
Emotional Sobriety means I am using God and AA
for serenity.

[joyroadman]

i believe it is consistanly using the steps to grow up
it takes time and effort on my part,and i never can arrive,but i can make progress...it is my responsibility to do the work if i want the benefits


a few lines from bill w on the subject....


Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance -- urges quite appropriate to age seventeen -- prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven or fifty-seven.


How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result and so into easy, happy, and good living ... well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all our affairs.

My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came so did my depression.


Emotional and institutional satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing a love appropriate to each relation of life.

Plainly, I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that as long as I was victimized by false dependencies.
Suddenly I realized what the matter was ... My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came so did my depression.
For my dependency meant demand ... a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.

This seems to be the primary healing circuit, an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.

If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love; we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.

Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea ... only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own "hexes" at depth. Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.

[samf]

Hi. Thank you guys! :)

I wanted to say hello, Truffle, too.

Hope you are doing ok.

Hope you can find someone to talk to, either here or wherever it feels safe for you.

Samf

[lsmouse]

I'm suffering from alcoholism, which I find to be an insatiable need for something of this world to fix me and have paid prices for the pursuit of money, property, and prestige. I have stepped on the toes of my fellows and they have retaliated. That leads to what I have found to be the most deadly of character defects, self pity. I'm actually going to shut up now. I'm glad I found this site and hopefully I will find God and then peace.

[samf]

Welcome, ismouse!!! ;D

HUGE hug!

Samf

[markg4468]

Hi Ismouse,

Glad you made it! Keep coming!!
Mark~

[lsmouse]

Good morning all, things are getting better. Staying close and taking action, keys to sobriety. Have a great day.

[Harry]

Hi Ismouse, I like the two keys you have to sobriety. Staying close...I did also. I stayed close to meetings and people who wanted the best for me. And action...wow, this was a biggie. I really would have prefered, if some of what I needed at the time, would have been served up to me on a silver platter. I wanted to feel good now and didn't want to go through doing a lot of stuff I didn't want to do, and didn't want to wait a long time to feel good. Have to be honest here though. I'm glad I had the willingness to do what was necessary to work for what I have today. Anything worth having is worth working for. So I have to add another key to your two and that key would be willingness.

Willingness is the key that opens the door.

Harry

[oberon]

I take great strength and encouragement from the fact that most of the replies to this thread were mostly short and pretty vague................. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D