Therapist Roger Andes, longtime friend and frequent collaborator on Thom and Allen’s 12-Step workshops, drops in to discuss his latest experiences with self-esteem. Influenced in large part by the work of Nathaniel Branden, it’s a central theme to his area of study and touches every level of the recovery process.

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

Living peacefully with the irreconcilable is at the core of what creates change. Thom and Allen alternately draw upon their own journeys towards acceptance - past and present. 

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

On a weekend of record heatwaves, to escape the crushing anxiety Thom and Patrick invite longtime collaborator Carol Carter on the pod to gauge her emotional sobriety after retiring from her longtime job. Thom shares some details about the attitude he’s trying to bring to his cancer diagnosis and treatment, while Patrick laments losing $750 in the space of five minutes, and how that challenged his emotional sobriety like few things in recovery have.

Check out our earlier podcast, Start Right Here, for an archive of amazing interviews and Emotional Sobriety-adjacent content with Allen and Thom:

https://pod.link/1525039302

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

As much as we strive to cultivate our emotional sobriety, learning to lean on self-support rather than environmental support, those expectations and rules inevitably come creeping back in, and that’s okay. We’re resistant to sudden changes in circumstance because they force us to locate our center of gravity all over again. Using the present moment as fully as we can is a key to surviving the curveballs life sends our way be they cancer (Thom), divorce (Allen), or online bullshit (Patrick).

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

Health care and financial insecurity are just a couple of the subjects Thom, Joe, and Patrick touch on as they contemplate how life’s most challenging dynamics truly put our emotional sobriety to the test.

Thom Rutledge’s “Let Fear Be Your Teacher”: https://www.thomrutledge.com/_files/ugd/e71801_8293179808864a26bd9b105520d458eb.pdf

His book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

What does it mean to respect ourselves, and how can we put it to work once we’ve attained some physical sobriety and begin to move towards greater emotional freedom? Joe C. from Rebellion Dogs joins us from a workshop at Hazelden Minnesota to lend his perspective.

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Erving Polster’s book referenced in the episode, Every Person’s Life Is Worth a Novel: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Persons-Life-Worth-Novel/dp/0939266377

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

Allen references Erving Polster’s book while contemplating how the broad span of our lives have a dramatic richness and fullness that can illuminate crucial details about our present. Patrick celebrates 5 years of continuous sobriety.

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Erving Polster’s book referenced in the episode, Every Person’s Life Is Worth a Novel: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Persons-Life-Worth-Novel/dp/0939266377

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

Picking up with Thom Rutledge about his recent struggles with depression, something that’s been with him since his early days of recovery. This form of crisis dovetails with a passage from Allen’s 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: “Getting stuck is our signal that it’s time to learn something new. The trouble we are experiencing, wherever it’s showing up in our lives, is highlighting the next step in our development, the next step in our emotional maturity, the next step in our recovery. That step is the journey of emotional sobriety.” Allen Berger returns to the podcast next week.

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.

The team unpacks their month of hard knocks and give their best shot at illustrating how life's heaviest challenges can deepen our recovery, aid us on the path towards greater emotional freedom, and improve alignment with our emerging value system. Joe C. of Rebellion Dogs joins us to help bring a candle into the darkness.

Follow us on social media.

Podcast Twitter: @EmSobrietyPod

Instagram: thomrutledge2

Joe C. Twitter: @Rebellion_Dogs

Allen’s book, 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety: https://www.amazon.com/12-Essential-Insights-Emotional-Sobriety/dp/1955415129/

Thom's book, Embracing Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Fear-Turn-Scares-Greatest/dp/0062517759/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Join Allen & Thom at our Thursday night, 7pm PST Zoom meeting on Emotional Sobriety and the Steps (login information below):

https://zoom.us/j/330149513

Password: 375986

For our ongoing video series on Emotional Sobriety and the 12 Steps, visit our YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHEM2-kqLkfp3I4c0jy-X-g

Also, please join our “Emotional Sobriety and Recovery” FB Group at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/120450976662519

We’d love to stay in touch in between meetings.

We appreciate feedback! Contact Patrick, our producer, at [email protected] for any questions or comments.