My wife, who has been a drug and alcohol counselor for decades (although she’s my wife and not my therapist), said something I found helpful. She said that the recovering addict needs to grieve the alcoholic self they are leaving behind. This means allowing oneself to acknowledge, forgive, and forget one’s addictive behaviors and to eventually bury that past self so that the new self can work on their recovery without beating themselves up for all they regret from their alcoholic life. I hope I have explained this enough so that it makes sense.
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Ah, I see what you mean. I thought, by your title, that you were meaning to grieve the fun life I’ve given up. And I don’t actually grieve my past alcohol use at all. I’m quite glad that’s gone. And my life is better now than ever before. But YES!! I do struggle with letting go of all my past mistakes. I sometimes remember something and I’ll get that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I have to remind myself that it’s the past and I can’t do anything about it now. I then take deep breaths and try to let the bad feelings go.
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That’s an interesting idea, never thought of it that way. Thanks for sharing, hopefully someone out there will be able to relate. I see that side of me as dead, I’m a new person with the same name with a new life in recovery. Another chance
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I used the 12 step program it gave me a chance to look at me for the first time . as for my past i started to respect booze and what its capable off for this old Alkie , cleared the past for a better future
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I definitely went through a grieving process earlier on recovery, for all the time I lost, opportunities I missed out on, not being fully present for my children.
I found it important to feel it, process it and then let it go.
I didn’t want to build a resentment towards my sobriety.
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I like this insight. It’s quite difficult to do, no? I’ll think about this. Thank you for the insight.
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DABDA - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance - are the steps inherent to grieving.
It does not necessarily go in linear progression, there can be backsteps, circular thinking, and/or stalling during this process.
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Absolutely. There’s a story that we lived - it was a wretched story but it was our story - when we were deep in our addictions. We were the central character. Our addiction was the other character. In becoming sober, we write the end to that story and file it away on the bookshelf. Part of that process, of writing the end, is grieving the end 
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I have forgiven my drunk self and fully accepted that I’m a no shit alcoholic. I know the parts I played. AA showed me all of that and more. But, I will not forget those miserable times as they are healthy reminders of where I could easily be right back to if I were to give it another “shot”.
Good insight from your wife, TS, how have you begun to grieve for that previous self?
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Great post! Yes, I’ve heard of this before, I’ve even heard about writing a note to your old self.
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I’m less than a week into my sobriety, so i haven’t really figured this out yet. I have realized that I don’t want to be that previous self and that I need to let go both the things I hated and the things I liked about that past life. The two cannot be separated. They are all wrapped up together in a person who doesn’t exist any more. I know i have a lot of work to do to make sure i don’t slip back into old habits, but thinking of my alcoholic self as dead and buried helps me. For me, after I have turned the page on my past, it’s necessary to grieve for the lost identity because letting go prevents me from romanticizing my past.
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This is so true, I am now finally grieving all the trauma that I endure TS66. It makes me so sad and brings up a lot of pain… it is this pain that I am slowly getting used to you. Also you are genuinely so dedicated to helping others. Thanks so much for what you do.