One of the myths of addiction is that if someone simply had enough willpower, they wouldn’t have a problem. It’s critical to understand just how a person’s brain is altered by substance use disorder (SUD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD), and why willpower alone isn’t enough to overcome the symptoms of these diseases. Professional treatment is usually critical to getting started on the recovery journey. However, once that recovery foundation has been established, learning better emotional regulation techniques is a powerful tool for building resilience in recovery. Here’s how.
Defining Emotional Regulation
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), “regulation is the ability of an individual to modulate an emotion or set of emotions.” As the organization explains, there are two ways to approach this, which we provide verbatim:
- Explicit emotion regulation requires conscious monitoring, using techniques such as learning to construe situations differently in order to manage them better, changing the target of emotion (e.g., anger) in a way likely to produce a more positive outcome, and recognizing how different behaviors can be used in the service of a given emotional state.
- Implicit emotion regulation operates without deliberate monitoring; it modulates the intensity or duration of an emotional response without the need for awareness. Emotion regulation typically increases across the lifespan.
The goal is to manage how you feel in healthy and adaptive ways. As you probably learned in addiction rehabilitation treatment, you’re entitled to your emotions, and they’re not “bad.” However, it’s important to recognize emotions as they arise, assess their intensity, and choose appropriate responses rather than reacting impulsively.
People with strong emotional regulation skills can stay grounded during stress, prevent overwhelming feelings from dictating their behavior, and make decisions aligned with their values and goals. These skills are often learned and strengthened through practices like mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral techniques, and therapy.
In addiction recovery, emotional regulation is critical because unmanaged emotions—such as stress, anger, or sadness—are common triggers for substance use. Many people might have even used alcohol or drugs to numb or escape difficult feelings, creating a pattern of avoidance rather than healthy coping. Developing emotional regulation helps you to respond thoughtfully to life’s challenges rather than defaulting to destructive habits.
Why Might Emotional Regulation Be Challenging?
Two key catalysts include mental health issues and previous trauma. The Council for Relationships (CFR) states that certain disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder, often affect your ability to manage feelings effectively, leading to emotional dysregulation—a condition that causes sudden uncontrolled outbursts and impulsive behavior. CFR also indicates that various symptoms of trauma might also create emotional dysregulation, which means it’s more difficult to form and maintain healthy and trusting relationships.
Medical News Today provides the following symptoms of emotional dysregulation:
- Quick and intense mood changes
- Being overwhelmed by your feelings
- Experiencing strong emotional reactions to events that wouldn’t affect other people in the same ways
- Having feelings that are difficult to control
- Not being able to cope with stress effectively
- Increased mental and emotional health disorder symptoms
- Self-harm
- Excessive substance use
Learning Emotional Regulation Techniques
One of the best ways is to partner with a qualified cognitive or dialectic behavioral therapist who can identify key factors in your background, including your SUD or AUD history, and help craft specific methods.
That said, there are different approaches to add to your daily recovery practice that help reduce your stress reaction and provide better awareness of your feelings in the moment and how you respond to them. Here are a few ideas:
- Try deep breathing techniques to calm your nervous system and reduce the “fight or flight” reaction.
- Believe it or not, a simple 10-minute stroll is a terrific and immediate regulation tool because it minimizes the stress hormone cortisol and boosts endorphins—natural “feel good” brain chemicals.
- Maintaining a whole-foods diet is also important for consistent emotional control, as heavily processed foods are shown to contribute to spikes in glucose, inflammation, and gut irritation, which compound negative feelings.
- Mindfulness or meditation techniques are also helpful tools to practice better awareness of how you’re reacting to something and give you the ability to pause and reflect more readily.
- Take a moment to write out how you feel and why. This helps put you more in control of the narrative and focuses your attention on acknowledging the feeling but not necessarily reacting to it.
Find Whole-Person Care at Ivory Plains
Emotional regulation is just one of the many steps you can take to improve resilience and willpower for your life-long recovery journey. At our addiction rehabilitation program in Adair, Iowa, our board-certified professionals believe in whole-person health. Yes, effectively treating and managing SUD and AUD are essential components to your overall wellness, but we believe you’re more than a series of symptoms. This is why our philosophy focuses on many aspects of your life and how we can help you navigate it with confidence. Ask our admissions team for more information about our quality care approach.
