A Scottsdale Treatment Center Focusing On Emotional Sobriety

A Scottsdale Treatment Center Focusing On Emotional Sobriety

A Scottsdale Treatment Center Focusing On Emotional Sobriety

When you’re in the throes of addiction and looking to make a change, you’re taking the first steps toward a life of sobriety. However, there’s more to full sobriety than just quitting the substance you’re abusing. A Scottsdale treatment center like Desert Cove Recovery can help you get on the right path. To avoid relapse, you have to create a lifestyle that reaches deeper into emotional balance. By working towards emotional sobriety, you can fight against the thoughts that led you to abuse a substance in the first place.

What Is Emotional Sobriety?

The term ‘dry drunk’ is used when one who may no longer abuse alcohol anymore still exhibits some of the destructive behaviors that come alongside addiction. That behavior exhibition is because achieving emotional sobriety is just as important as attaining actual abstinence from a substance.

As defined by Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Dr. Bill Wilson, emotional sobriety is essentially the process of establishing healthy connections and honestly evaluating yourself not to seek validation from external sources. Dr. Wilson believed that emotional sobriety relates not just to the quality of your recovery but also the stability. Quitting the addictive substance is just the beginning, according to Dr. Wilson. Writing what was originally a letter to a depressed friend and then later published in the January 1958 edition of The Grapevine, Dr. Wilson said, “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.” [1]

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Emotions and Depression

This depression he speaks of was the focus of recent research from Harvard University that noted the link between emotions and addiction. [2] Specifically focusing on the feeling of sadness, the researchers suggested that sadness is a key trigger in relapse for those who suffer from addiction. Dr. Wilson knew this even in 1958. He knew that emotional sobriety and strength was just as important to your physical recovery from substance abuse as was abstinence from the substance itself. He believed that bringing your unconscious and irrational fears and compulsions in line with what you know to be true when it comes to addiction was key to maintained physical sobriety. In a nutshell, your emotional wellbeing throughout rehabilitation and after needs to focus on true and lasting healing.

Why Is Addressing Emotional Sobriety at a Scottsdale Treatment Center Important?

Researchers and those with decades of experience in substance abuse rehabilitation know that discontinuing the use of a substance is a crucial and first step of recovery. However, it’s also imperative to address negative feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that accompany substance abuse.

Doing so will help you avoid relapsing. Those negative feelings of sadness, guilt, and shame can often be triggers for continued substance abuse. Additionally, being emotionally sober means you’re able to confront and accept all emotions that play into your addiction. When you can do this, you then can process them and appropriately place them out of your way to a free, fully sober life. A Scottsdale treatment center’s compassionate staff will help you learn to have a healthy relationship with your emotions. You will gain learn how to use positive strategies to maintain sobriety.

Scottsdale Treatment Center Empowers You With Emotional Sobriety

At Desert Cove Recovery, we know that working toward your emotional sobriety will look different for everyone. A treatment therapy that works better for you may not be one that works as well for another. Our staff works with you to focus on achieving a balance of your emotions through behavioral therapies and holistic practices. Our main goal is to help you heal physically, spiritually, and mentally. Other centers may just treat your physical addiction. But we’re a Scottsdale treatment center committed to your total recovery and life of sobriety. Our programs help you work toward balance and greater emotional awareness. You will learn to use healthy and productive coping skills to maintain sobriety.

We know that deciding to quit using a substance is only the first step to sobriety. Our team wants to walk hand-in-hand with you as you take this journey to include your emotional sobriety as well. We’re not just about helping you abstain from a substance. We want to empower you to make life-impacting changes on your physical, mental, and spiritual path that will give you true freedom from dependence and addiction. If you’re ready, we’re waiting. Contact us today.

Sources:

[1] https://silkworth.net/alcoholics-anonymous/the-next-frontier-emotional-sobriety/

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/90450668/harvard-researchers-discover-one-negative-emotion-triggers-most-addictive-behaviors