The emotional landscape of frontline care work remains an evolving field of inquiry, particularly within the Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) sector. This study examines whether AOD workers in the UK navigate the traditional intricacies of Arlie Hochschild’s (1983) “emotional labour” theory, and if so, to what extent. Originally developed to describe the commodification of feeling in corporate service roles. Hochschild’s (1983) “emotional labour” encapsulates the regulation of emotions to align with organisational expectations, leading to estrangement, emotional dissonance, and identity erosion. To interrogate the relevance of this framework in therapeutic contexts, six AOD professionals from four UK organisations participated in semi-structured interviews for this research. Participants described an emotional practice forged through trauma, lived experience, and emotional authenticity connection. This study concludes by offering a reframed perspective on emotion regulation in therapeutic work, one that challenges dominant paradigms. While the findings are exploratory, this research invites deeper inquiry into AOD labour as a deliberate accessing of feeling, rather than a reinforcement of Hochschild’s (1983) model of managing emotions to meet occupational expectations.