E288: How to “Sit With It” Without Avoiding, Suppressing, Ruminating, or Escaping

Sober Powered: The Neuroscience of Being Sober

Gillian Tietz, MS, CPRC

Science, Self-improvement, Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Learning to manage emotions is one of the most difficult parts of sobriety. Many people don’t think they were drinking to cope, only to find out once they try to quit that they were. When I was drinking and in the first couple of years of sobriety, I used to make things more difficult for myself because I couldn’t manage emotions. I would ruminate, avoid, or escape with other self-destructive things like sugar, blowing up at people, or feeling completely overwhelmed. Part of being sober is learning how to deal with life in healthy ways, and not making things worse for ourselves. That’s what this episode is all about. What to listen to next: E269: Autopilot Mode E251: Here's Why Your Emotions Are So Intense E216: 4 Types of Impulsivity: Which One Are You? Work with me: Community & Meetings: Living a Sober Powered Life https://www.soberpowered.com/membership Sober coaching https://www.soberpowered.com/sober-coaching Weekly email: You’ll hear from me on Fridays https://www.soberpowered.com/email Free resources https://www.soberpowered.com/free Courses: The non-negotiable mindset https://www.soberpowered.com/mindset-course Don’t try harder, try different https://www.soberpowered.com/willpower Support the show: If you enjoyed this episode please consider buying me a coffee to support all the research and effort that goes into this podcast https://www.buymeacoffee.com/soberpowered Thank you for supporting this show by supporting my sponsors https://www.soberpowered.com/sponsors Sources are posted on my website Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Learning to manage emotions is one of the most difficult parts of sobriety.
0:05.0	Many people don't think that they were drinking to cope,
0:09.0	only to find out that once they try to quit, they actually were.
0:13.0	When I was drinking and in the first couple years of sobriety,
0:17.0	I used to make things more difficult for myself because I couldn't manage emotions. I would ruminate,
0:23.7	avoid, or escape with other self-destructive things like sugar, blowing up at people, or just feeling
0:31.0	completely overwhelmed. Part of being sober is learning how to deal with life in healthy ways
0:37.4	and not make things worse for ourselves.
0:40.4	And that's what this episode is all about.
0:42.8	And before we dig in, I'd like to take a moment to thank my sponsors who made this episode possible. Welcome back to the sober powered podcast. I'm your host Jill, and today we are talking about
1:07.4	sitting with it. But before we start, I want to tell you something really exciting.
1:13.1	I am officially an auntie. Auntie Jill. My brother and his wife had their first child a couple
1:20.9	days ago, and it's a really exciting time for my family. So I just wanted to share. In last week's
1:26.4	episode, though, we talked a lot about
1:28.1	self-control and willpower. And a part of self-control that we don't think about as much
1:33.8	is tolerating difficult emotions without escaping into self-destructive behaviors. So that would
1:41.1	mean resisting avoidance, suppression, or self-medication.
1:46.4	Poor emotion regulation skills are associated with higher impulsivity and being more likely
1:53.1	to use alcohol to cope.
1:55.5	A client asked me recently, what is emotional sobriety?
1:59.8	And I explained that emotional sobriety is being okay with how you feel
2:05.0	without having to enhance it, change it, or make it go away. Emotion regulation is about accepting
	...

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