Therapy progress reflection worksheet
Emotional sobriety refers to the emotional regulation skills clients need to sustain long-term recovery beyond abstinence.
This article provides an overview of emotional sobriety, its origins, and an emotional sobriety checklist to use with clients.
We’ve included a free downloadable emotional sobriety worksheets PDF that you can save to your electronic health record (EHR) and use in your practice.
What is emotional sobriety?
Recovery often involves more than stopping problematic substance use. While achieving a recovery goal, like abstinence or reducing harmful use, is the first step, it’s also important to address the underlying issues that led to substance use in the first place and strengthen the coping skills to be able to cope with life without returning to unhelpful behaviors. This is often called emotional sobriety.
The phrase was coined by the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Bill Wilson (known in AA as Bill W.), in a Grapevine article titled The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety. In that article, Wilson wrote about the need for people in recovery to go beyond achieving sobriety. He described this deeper work as finding maturity and balance with themselves, others, and their higher power.
He stated, “My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse! Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.”
Wilson believed that he had failed to grow up emotionally and spiritually. He described certain traits and behaviors, such as approval seeking, dependence, security, and “demanding the impossible,” as “adolescent urges” that he believed led to recurrent depression.
The solution for this problem, Wilson believed, was to release himself of his “faulty emotional dependencies,” which he defined as a “demand for the possession and control of the people and conditions surrounding me.” He urged other AA’ers to examine, release, and surrender their own “disturbances,” and focus on helping others.
Whether your clients follow a 12-step philosophy or another pathway to recovery, the core components of emotional sobriety include developing emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills, increasing social support, enhancing interpersonal skills and relationships, and adopting more mindful approaches to life rather than relying on avoidance strategies.
What should an emotional sobriety checklist include?
A strong emotional sobriety checklist covers the skills clients need to sustain recovery beyond abstinence, such as emotional regulation, healthy boundaries, accountability, and social support.
Clients can check off the statements that apply to them, and you can review their answers together in session. The same list appears in our free emotional sobriety PDF.
I can cope with the ups and downs of life.
I can regulate my emotions.
I can self-soothe when I find things difficult or distressing.
I feel all my feelings, rather than avoiding them, but I don’t let them control how I behave.
I engage in a recovery program, treatment, or therapy.
I seek to find balance in my life.
I do not blame others for my behavior or actions.
I have developed meaningful social connections and a recovery community.
I do not seek external validation, but I do validate myself when appropriate.
I seek to help others.
I practice being present and accepting life on life’s terms.
I make intentional and mindful decisions.
I avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms or dependencies, such as attempting to control others, unhealthy relationships, or using other substances in excess.
I am actively working on developing my interpersonal communication skills.
I set and enforce healthy boundaries with myself and others.
I practice honesty and humility, taking accountability for my actions.
I let go of resentments and examine my role in them, making amends when necessary.
I seek support when needed.
I solve my own problems, seeking advice from someone I trust when appropriate.
I practice gratitude daily.
I listen to feelings of anger and irritation to address unmet needs.
How can therapists use the emotional sobriety worksheets PDF?
You can download and use the emotional sobriety PDF in several ways:
Use the emotional sobriety worksheets PDF to provide clients with psychoeducation about emotional sobriety.
Ask the client to reflect on the worksheet, complete the reflection questions between sessions, and report their findings at their next therapy appointment.
Use the emotional sobriety worksheets PDF in group therapy sessions as an emotional sobriety checklist to encourage clients to share more about their recovery with other participants.
Combine this worksheet with other substance use and recovery-related worksheets, including our substance use assessment form, money management in recovery worksheets, urge surfing worksheet, relapse prevention worksheets, and substance use disorder group topics for recovery.
Share the emotional sobriety PDF with coworkers or leave copies in your office.
Use this emotional sobriety worksheets PDF to provide training to interns or supervisees on substance use disorder and recovery pathways.
Sources
Emery, N. N., Walters, K. J., Njeim, L., Barr, M., Gelman, D., et al. (2022). Emotion differentiation in early recovery from alcohol use disorder: Associations with in-the-moment affect and 3-month drinking outcomes. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Herbert, W. (2012). The nuts and bolts of emotional sobriety. Scientific American.
Laudet, A. B. (2007). What does recovery mean to you? Lessons from the recovery experience for research and practice. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.
Wilson, B. (1958). The next frontier: Emotional sobriety. AA Grapevine.
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