Hi All, I don’t want to get into a misery contest about the scope and breadth of the wreckage (destruction to selves and especially others that happened as a result of our substance abuse) that all of us may have in our lives. Suffice to say I have more than my fair share. Defects of character as you might know.
I find myself somewhat obsessed by my past mistakes. Engulfed at times with grief, remorse and an immense desire to go back in time to fix things or failing that (which obviously it will fail), fix everything as much as possible regardless of what others may desire or how I have affected them or how they feel now.
The biggest grief by far is the collapse of my marriage which was my fault. My substance abuse over a very long time is a close second. I suppose forgiving myself and having hope for the future in sobriety is the best I can do for myself and others, but I am also obsessed with the concept of being “a good person”. Desiring so badly to stop anymore BS, but sceptical of myself given how poorly I’ve behaved in the past and my selfishness.
I want to shine. I want my kids to be fully proud of me. To look up to me as a role model. For people I’ve wronged to one day say, “wow, you’ve really changed your life for the better…and I’m so proud of you”.
I have to be careful not to fall into the trap of “I am essentially a defective person, and will always be broken”.
Does anyone else experience this? How do you manage these mixtures of thoughts and feelings?
I think you need to give it a good chunk of time. In this time keep your street clean, learn to trust your new patterns and behaviours and sobriety. Become the person you want to depend on day by day. With a whole cleave of distant between this new you and old you, the fact is that you are changing. That’s facts. Keep going, be solid in your self and graceful towards accepting those mistakes (you cannot change them) and that trust and honesty between you and others will gradually strengthen.
Release from the guilt and shame of past acts, broken relationships and broken trust was a process for me. I used the steps of the AA program to do that. The first few steps were about establishing a base of trust in something outside my own head, to give me the courage to face a list, written in my own hand, of all my past bad acts and people I had hurt. Any old wounds were reexamined in the light of my responsibility for the situation, my reaction to the hurts. More courage was needed to share this list with one other person, but I felt so amazingly healed and whole afterwards! I was able eventually to go to the people I had hurt and get right with them, far beyond merely crying “I’m sorry” over and over.
I did those things not so that others would tell me it was OK, but so I could face myself in the mirror. After doing this, especially the list, my capacity to handle negative emotions and situations was suddenly restored, and I never seriously contemplated taking a drink since then.
Aussie I totally understand how your feeling. Aside from the guilt and shame over past behavior I find myself now trying to be that perfect person and telling myself at the same time that’s unattainable. Sobriety is a strange cat, it’s not that I’m afraid of using again but it’s like I’m afraid of making even the littlest mistake and being a failure. I think we have to stop being so hard on ourselves and accept that we’re not perfect and that’s ok, God bless!
For myself, it took time to get beyond my shame and guilt. During that time, I found that living each day as it presents itself…not dwelling on a past I cannot change or worrying about a future that has not yet arrived, kept me more centered and lessened the hold shame had on me. Shame, guilt, grief and unworthiness were part of what kept me spinning in a cycle of drink/remorse/quit/ruminate/relapse/drink/remorse/quit/ruminate/relapse for years.
Finding the calming space within, the compassionate place, the place of forgiving myself for my human frailties…tapping into that space within and truly honoring my innate humanness…this helped me heal that obsession. We are not without faults or horrendous misdeeds or missteps. And even with those, we are still worthy of love and care and compassion. I do not believe that beating ourselves up heals us…I think that keeps us trapped in a cycle of unworthiness. We are all worthy, truly, of our own love and compassion. From that place of self love we can begin each day to heal ourselves and release the pain we carry.
And it isn’t that we need to push away or disregard the hard emotions. Not so. All emotions are valid. We need not let any of them take hold and become how we solely view ourselves. Emotions come and go if we allow them. We do not have to hold them as proof of our unworthiness. We can acknowledge and release. Same with this idea of we are only a good person if we are perfect. That isn’t reality. There is a duality to all of us. We rise, we fall, we rise again.
Failure is how we learn. Where we go from here. Learning and growing. Not being perfect (doesn’t exist). How we acknowledge and move forward when we have messed up. No one is past redemption. Each moment, a new beginning.
Thank you for your very real share. I completely relate. There is some wonderful feedback here and I’m also moved to share my thoughts:
We are human. The tendency to judge ourselves as bad or defective for making mistakes and being confused, is a social construct rooted in political control. Yes, I believe this idea is an illusion and a trap. The truth is we are each multidimensional spectral beings. We are not on one side or the other of anything. We sway as we learn through life. We reach and we fall and we lose and we grow. We must accept loss in order to gain ourselves. We must accept ourselves in order to gain life.
Tend to your heart, dear one. You are not a “good person” or a “bad person”. You’re a real human being with all sorts of powerful and baffling qualities, who is doing the very difficult task of living on earth at this time. Offer yourself some forgiveness, some acceptance, some understanding, some compassion, as you continue to grow through life. And give yourself some appreciation for making efforts to learn and grow and do better! I sure do appreciate you for that
@Genjacks0n Thank you so much for the sage advice…and yes, I’m not overly afraid of using again either but moreso being a failure. I need to ease up on myself.
@SassyRocks Sassy, much gratitude to you for taking the time and effort to impart your wisdom to me. Living in the moment. Not past. Not future. And there is a duality in us. I am tired of my destructive side running the show. It’s time for my repairative side to take the reins.
There’s also the matter of having a Scarlet A (alcoholic) on my chest. Even though I am sober and more mentally well than I have been in ages, people are so wary. So scared of me. Unwilling or unable to see the authentic me beyond my past problems. I am like a lepper whose been cast out. Does this change? I don’t feel broken, but when I was people open armed me. Now that I’m fixed they treat me like I’m broken.
Thank you so much Tailee. I am 85 days sober today. Closing in on 90. Then 100. I may stop briefly to tell myself l am awesome for that. But I may have underestimated how stained former addicts and alcoholics are in the minds of normies.
I may be proud of myself or feel change, but when it’s not validated by others or recognized I kinda think…well, they just think “once a drunk, always a drunk”. My ex always says, “past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour”. Literally not true, us recovering drunks are literally changing our lives everyday we don’t drink.
It did change for me, but definitely not on my timetable. I drank for a long time, about 35 years, and was a drunk for maybe 25 of those. The entire time of meeting my spouse, courting, marrying, having kids, was all done while I was under the influence. We had been together about 15 years when I got sober. The whole dynamic of our relationship revolved around me drinking, getting in trouble, and her rescuing me or tolerating my bad behavior. Add to that the fact that the first 3 years I was sober, I was on house arrest and parole, so I was very carefully monitored. At the end of my sentence, there was more time that had to pass for me to demonstrate that I could and would stay sober on my own under all conditions and circumstances.
Change is constant. As you continue to demonstrate reliable sobriety, the people around you will learn that you can be trusted. Going to them and asking how to make things right goes a long way toward increasing that trust, but the timing on making that amends is really crucial.
For me, it really took as long as 10 years until my spouse stopped bringing up the past. Each time she did, I had to practice not rising to the bait - to stay calm and acknowledge that I had indeed done those things, and that it was a long time ago and leave it at that. To take the hurt. Remember, as active alcoholics, we get real practiced at eating crow or absorbing shame when faced with facts of our shortcomings “You hurt me again, why do you do this to me?” And we mumble some answer, eat the shame, deny or minimize their pain. In short, we get good at deflecting these emotional arrows. So use that skill in sobriety - if someone brings up a past hurt that you cannot make right, acknowledge that you did do that thing, that drinking had a lot to do with it, and now sobriety is helping you to try to be better.
Time takes time, they say in AA. There’s a lot of wisdom there. And remember, everything is gonna be alright.
