Tian Dayton Ph.D - Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance

In Emotional Sobriety, Dr. Tian Dayton explains in helpful detail how our hearts, minds, and spirits are wounded and what is needed to recover. She describes neuroscience in lay terms so clinicians, recovering people, and families are able to understand how and why our inner selves struggle to find balance and peace. Her understanding of the connections between mind, body, heart, and spirit are what have been needed in the recovery field for a long time. We now have scientific evidence as to why recovery works. This is a masterful piece of work.

When I wrote Another Chance and introduced the roles within the addicted family system, we were in the beginning stages of truly understanding the devastating effect that addiction and other serious forms of dysfunction had on the entire family system. What we were looking at was emotional imbalance that led to both personal and familial imbalance. Today, neuroscience is proving that the mind/body treatment approaches we have been taking for the last three decades are indeed evidence based.

Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, M.A.,
author of Another Chance, Founder of Onsite Workshops

Bill W., cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, took eighteen years to realize the importance of our emotions for a total and balanced recovery. In the article The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety he wrote that once he addressed this aspect of his life, he was given a quiet place in bright sunshine. He had no scientific basis for this. As the founding medical director at the Betty Ford Center, I taught that our emotions are our sixth sense and must be given great credence in our decisions. I had no basis for this. Cellular memory studies and the field of psycho-neuro-immunology are providing the basis for many of our metaphors regarding the heart and our emotions. Dr. Dayton has proven once again that she can interpret, apply, and lovingly teach new knowledge to us in an understandable way. These are attributes of the great teacher she is.

Joseph R. Cruse, M.D., Addictionologist and Founding
Medical Director, Betty Ford Center and Onsite Workshops, Inc.

Emotional Sobriety will be a valued resource for all who want to have a better understanding of the trauma of addiction, relationships, related stress, the effect on families, and the biology that binds these together. It provides insight into the importance of balance in our lives and strategies for healing. A lack of emotional sobriety can lead to self-medication and addiction, a problem that not infrequently destroys the health and well-being of affected youth. Dr. Dayton describes how the skills of emotional regulation are both built and undermined and offers practical suggestions for getting back on track to a healthy lifestyle supported by healthy relationships.

Hoover Adger, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A.,
Professor of Pediatrics, Director, Adolescent Medicine; Faculty Leader;
Florence Sabin College; Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

When primary caregivers consistently allow a child to be overstimulated or grossly understimulated, as can be the case in homes where relationship trauma is present, the child may not learn how to develop an affective range. Instead of being able to regulate emotions, these individuals may bounce from one emotional extreme to another.

In Emotional Sobriety, Dr. Dayton outlines the neurobiology and neuropsy-chology of this emotional imbalance and with compassion and beautiful clarity outlines the steps one can chose to achieve resilience and healthy self-soothing. Emotional Sobriety is a beautiful creation from a very beautiful person.

C.C. Nuckles, Ph.D.

Emotional sobriety, recovery from relationship trauma, and resilience are what we try to teach our clients each and every day in our Codependency Program at Caron, where Dr. Dayton serves as Director of Program Development & Staff Training. As Bill W. said, it is the next frontier. We all need to learn how to live with greater maturity and balance. In this book, Tian Dayton shows us how.

Doug Tieman, President & CEO, Caron Treatment Centers in
Wernersville, PA, with facilities and offices in Boca Raton, FL;

Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; and Bermuda.

The right book at the right timethe addiction recovery community is hungry for understanding and healing the chronic rifts and sores of family trauma. Tian Daytons latest book, which integrates neurological research, clinical insights, the arts, and practical exercises, affirms and uplifts whole-family lifelong recovery.

Todd Whitmer, Vice President, Alumni & Development,
Father Martin's Ashley

Tian Dayton has written a book that not only helps people identify personal patterns of behavior and emotions, and understand their roots, but gives people the tools to begin to deal with life today, in a balanced way. Her straightforward, caring style translates easily to the readers daily lives including examples that will ring true for many and make sense of memories and behaviors that may have confused people while growing up. Tian helps individuals unlock the mysteries of their past and enables them to understand connections to their current behaviors. It provides the necessary tools to take action toward recovery and wellness.

Kieth Arnold, Executive Director, Sierra Tucson

We are an agency committed to creating a safe and just society. TASC (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities) facilitates access to treatment for drug-involved offenders and guides them on the path to recovery. We see thousands of women and men whose adverse childhood experiences have later manifested themselves in substance abuse disorders and entry into the justice system. Emotional Sobriety gives hope that the generational trauma of addiction can be healed, and it offers tools to help individuals and families renew themselves in mind, body, and spirit. This book is a must-read for those who want to understand more about emotional development and resilience building.

Peter Palanca, Vice President, TASC, Inc. of Illinois
(Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities)

The beauty of Tian Daytons work is that she has continued to grow and evolve. Emotional Sobriety is a necessary step if we're going to get beyond our addiction to drama and our story. Recovery is a pathway to freedom and Tian is a guiding light on that pathway.

Lee McCormick, Founder and President of the Ranch recovery center in
Tennessee and director of Spirit Recovery Inc. program creator for Alta Mira
Recovery Centers, author Spirit Recovery Meditation Journal

Emotional
Sobriety

From Relationship Trauma to
Resilience and Balance

Tian Dayton, Ph.D.

www.hcibooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dayton, Tian.
Emotional sobriety : from relationship trauma to resilience and
balance / Tian Dayton.
p. cm.
eISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9860-5 (ebook) eISBN-10: 0-7573-9860-X (ebook)
1. Emotions. I. Title.
BF531.D34 2007
152.4dc22
2007037726
2007 Tian Dayton

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