August, 2021
Volume 2, Issue 4

Quick Tip of theMonthStrength & Hope
A message in support of emotional well-being.

If you cherry pick which
steps or portions of theprogram you want to follow, you are free to dothat, but you risk having a
recovery that is not whole.

Survey Results Show EA Supports Positive Mental
Health Outcomes - Colleen C.
The results are in! The recent survey shows that most of those responding
to a recent EA Fellowship Member survey achieved overall improved
mental health while attending EA meetings; more than 83% said the program had an positive impact on their lives. Those of us who have been in
the program for a while have known that all along, but it’s good to have it
confirmed by the first EA-related data produced by a U.S. university.
EAI worked with Dr. Beth Kotchick, a professor at Loyola University inMaryland, to create a member survey this past spring. The intent of thesurvey was to assess the effects of participating in the EA program. Dr.
Kotchick developed a questionnaire in partnership with the Emotions
Anonymous International Board of Trustees; 264 EA members participated in the survey.
Participants ranked how strongly they “felt” 20 different feelings on ascale from 1 (very slightly) to 5 (extremely) in two time periods: during
the weeks when they first became involved with EA and the weeks prior
to taking the survey. Results showed respondents’ emotional reactivity
decreased by about 30% as they actively used the program. Emotionallyreactive individuals may have knee-jerk reactions to others and have difficulty maintaining planful, thoughtful, trusting relationships.
The survey also asked how the program affected various areas of respondents’ lives such as family relationships, work, and overall mental
health on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). The average positive levelof impact of the EA program was a strong 4.16. Some of the most noted
responses were in the areas of overall mental health, self-esteem, and general life satisfaction.
In addition, some individuals said EA had a positive impact in decreasing
their use of prescribed medication and more than 73% of respondents said
EA had a positive impact on their need to call crisis/emergency services.
While not a study that shows cause and effect (that would be a more complex clinical study), the results do provide a rationale for healthcare providers to consider making referrals to EA meetings. This is a very important statement about the value of EA in respondents’ lives.
We are grateful to all who participated in the survey. More specific study
results will be shared in upcoming issues; see a summary attached here.

Your Trustees
Paul N.— TX
929-399-6515
aibtikarfoundation@gmail.com
President
Steve B.— CA
909-438-4938
stevebell_28@yahoo.com
Vice President
Colleen C.— MN
651-245-5461
coyne2003@hotmail.com
Secretary
Derita P.— OH
216-624-3559
deritapippen@gmail.com
Treasurer
John W.— MN
612-760-0313
johnwerner52@gmail.com
Kelsey W.— IL
618-334-6658
knlweez@gmail.com
Behzad Arabpour Dahouei —Iran0098 913 341 4015
Behzad_7761@yahoo.com

Life as a Loose Garment — Claire
August’s Tools for
RecoveryStep 8Made a list of all persons we
had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Promise 8
Our whole attitude and outlook
upon life changes.
Just for Today 8
I will stop saying, “If I hadtime.” I never will find time foranything. If I want time, I musttake it.
Slogan 8
Know Yourself – Be honest
Helpful Concept 8
The steps suggest a belief in a
Power greater than ourselves.
This can be human love, aforce for good, the group, nature, the universe, God, or any
entity a member chooses as apersonal Higher Power.
Tradition 8

Emotions Anonymous should
remain forever nonprofessional, but our service
centers may employ specialworkers.
Principle 8
LoveDecember 28—Reflection
for Today
To love someone is to givethem something of ourselves. We risk being vulnerable; we want to shareso much of ourselves. That
person learns a great deal
about how we feel andwhat we think. Our openness has given this person
the power to hurt us.
I have come to understandthat in life, friends will
come and some friends willgo, and that’s ok. Perhaps
they have served the uni-verse’s purpose. Who am I
to question the universe?
So I accept it. There was atime when I could not accept it. Definitely with age
and working 12 step programs comes wisdom.
I have learned to “wear life
as a loose garment.” I don’tknow who originated thatquote that I have heard in
the rooms. I am grateful for
the wisdom and that I don’t
have to suffer anymore if
the entire world isn’t
friendly to me.

What Honesty Allows — Luz M.
Knowing who I really am and being honest allow me to create
and to build authentic relationships with myself, with others
and with my Higher Power. It allows me to cope with mystrengths and my weaknesses; my shortcomings and my assets.
It's an ongoing process to rediscovering myself with a different
light each time. An adventure of self-acceptance and inner reconciliation which will make them more free and with a fullerlife.
Thank you to everyone who made a contribution
to EAI in the past fiscal year. Our new fiscal year
began July 1. Your contributions allow us to offer
free materials to those in need, scholarships to
new groups, and make more materials available
for free to everyone. Please consider making adonation to support EAI today.

You can find the Trustee Reflections on the website,www.emotionsanonymous.org.
This month we focus on Step 8.
Page 2

Contribution Gratitude

A Turning Point — Gail R.

EAI could not operate without donations and we deeply appreciate yoursupport! Recent gifts have been received from these groups and individuals:
Burlington, IA
Bend, OR
Virginia Beach, VA Ukiah, CA
Midwest City, OK
Lombard, IL
Buffalo, MN Retreat Fridley, MNSaint Alban, UK
Wed

I think for me, learning to believe in a higher power that tome felt "invisible" was very difficult. I was raised with noreligion. My father was a lawyer so we believed in the "Godof reason." That god was not helpful. I had been in and outof 12-step recovery for a while, and wasn't really using anyof the tools, just went to a few meetings when things seemedtough. My life got to a point where I felt it was unmanageable, and I had friends who had spiritual lives and seemed tobe happy, and I wasn't. I couldn't grasp the idea of a higher
or greater power that I couldn't see, or understand. Finally
one day I had a thought that felt like something that didn'tcome from me, telling me that it was ok if I didn't understandthat power - the important thing was to learn to use thatpower. Wow! Where did that come from? and what did itmean? That was a turning point for me, where I started tomove slowly from skepticism to belief.

10 Anonymous Individuals
Jim J
Kathleen G
Kelley S
Tally N
Richard P Nina W
Mark D
Marilyn J
Ron L
Rachel F
Joyce M
Carmelita B
Kathleen E Colleen C
Kathleen M Larry W
Louis M
Audrey L

Leigh B
Melvin J
Mireia C G
Rachel G
Shannon U
Bob W

Administrative NewsWe are very pleased to welcome Sharon Boisselle to our office staff! Sharon replaces Carleen Schmidt, whoretired in June. Sharon will be responsible for shipping and production.
We are also happy to announce thenew slate of officers on the Board ofTrustees. Paul Nouri takes on the roleof President, Steve Bell is now Vice
President, Colleen Coyne remains inthe position of Secretary, and Derita
Pippen steps into the Treasurers role.
The Board will not meeting in August.
The Annual Membership Meeting isin the works for the fall. More information will be provided in the comingweeks. We plan to hold a hybrid meeting this year—open to individuals in
the area who wish to attend in person
as well as on a virtual platform so others throughout the world may join aswell.

It Would have Helped to Know — Chris D.
While I was walking my dog today, I had this thought:"How you feel about me has nothing to do with me."I think it's true--and I wish I had been raised to believe thisand see my life this way. I feel like, perhaps, I would have
had much greater peace in my life.

Please write!
We encourage member reflections! Thank you to members
who send in their thoughts and allow us to publish them!
Please consider making a submission of your writing tosubmisions@emotionsanonymous.org.
Reflections can be as short as you like! Try to keep them tono more than 300 words. Please note which step/promise/tradition etc. you are referencing.
Office Information
EAI P.O. Box 4245 St. Paul MN 55104-0245
Office Hours: M-TH 10a.m.—3 p.m. CT
Phone: 651-647-9712
www.emotionsanonymous.org
Page 3

Assessing A 12 Step Approach to Mental HealthEmotions Anonymous

Introduction

Figure 1

Emotions Anonymous (EA) is a twelve-step program composed of people who cometogether in weekly meetings for the purpose of working toward recovery from emotionaldifficulties. The organization was founded in 1971 in St. Paul, Minnesota and has morethan 300 registered support groups in each of the U.S. and Internationally. The program
counts as its members both people who have and have not received a diagnosis of mental
illness. The intent of this survey is to asses, based on self-reported outcomes, the effectsof participation in the EA program on emotional health using clinically validated scales, aswell as internally developed questionnaires.
Methods
Data was collected online in April and May, 2021, via an anonymous survey administered
via Qualtrics. Invitations to participate in the survey were distributed to Emotions
Anonymous members via email and advertised on the Emotions Anonymous website,social media and mobile app. Those completing the survey were provided theopportunity to request a promotional code for a nominal discount toward the purchase ofEmotions Anonymous materials. A total of 264 respondents completed some portion of
the survey; approximately 175 respondents provided enough data to be included in theanalysis of participation in Emotions Anonymous and associated outcomes.
Table 1Conclusion
The survey results indicate that most (figure 2) members who took the survey experience
Resultsoverall improved emotional health while attending EA meetings. The proportion ofThe PANAS scale is a widely used measure of emotional experience that consists of two

participants who achieved positive affect, decreased negative affect, and decreased

separate subscales that measure positive and negative affect. The participants wereemotional reactivity were generally consistent across key demographic variables, including

asked to rank how strongly they felt twenty different feelings on a scale from 1 (veryparticipant gender, ethnicity, education, employment, marital status, and geographic locationslightly) to 5 (extremely) during two time periods: during the few weeks when they firstof EA meetings. These results provide a rationale for mental health providers to consider

became involved with EA and the few weeks before taking the survey. The results inmaking referrals to EA meetings. To attempt to establish causality, a more extensive study

table 1 show mean improvements in Positive and Negative Affect of 30.74% andwould need to take place that independently surveyed members at multiple intervals, starting

32.28%, respectively.

with when they began the program and take into account a greater number of social andeconomic determinants of health.

The emotional reactivity scale that was used (referenced in table 1) consisted oftwenty-six situations when potentially strong feelings could arise. Participants wereasked to rank how they reacted in each situation on a scale of 1 (not at all like me) to 5(completely like me). The mean improvement in emotional reactivity was 30%.
Participants were also asked to fill out a fifteen-item questionnaire (figure 1) relating tohow the program has impacted them in different areas of their life including family andfriend relationships, work and overall mental health. The scale was from 1 (EA has hada significant negative impact) to 5 (EA has had a significant positive impact). The
average level of impact across all areas was 4.16. Among those for whom it wasapplicable, 65% indicated that EA has a positive impact on their reliance on substances
to manage emotions, 53.8% indicated that EA has a positive impact on their use ofprescribed medication and 73.1% indicated that EA had a positive impact on their needto call crisis hotlines or emergency services.

Figure 2