The phrase "let them" helps us identify our impulse to control. This is brilliant. Emotional freedom, however, requires another step. To stop the impulse to control others, we must feel and process the emotions our defenses try to protect us from. In other words, before we can truly “let them,” we need to tend to the emotions that exist deep within us.

Most people are uncomfortable with emotions. And that makes sense to me. So many of us have been raised in an emotion-phobic culture.

Don cannot bear being alone without being drunk. Without alcohol, the emotions and longings from the past get too close to the surface.