June 2, 2021

Stephen Ebbett, AAC’s chief digital and marketing officer, was recently featured in Fatherly magazine about teaching his two sons the importance of emotional honesty and how it is a sign of strength, not weakness.

In the article, Ebbett recalls the realization he made early in his life that keeping a “stiff upper lip” was expected of him and how, through the years, he came to understand how detrimental this can be to a person’s mental health.

For some people, if emotions are withheld, they can manifest in negative ways in addition to mental health conditions, such as unexplained anger or rage, self-harm, alcohol abuse or drug addiction. As Ebbett mentions in the piece, research has shown that mind-altering substances can become a coping mechanism for stress and difficult emotions, providing a temporary respite from reality and everyday life.

Fortunately, this was not the case for Ebbett, but as the CMDO for an addiction treatment provider with a deeper understanding of the link between bottled up emotions and mental health and addiction, he offers a few suggestions for other fathers that he implements for his own children.

To read the entire piece, visit Fatherly.