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A subscriber reached out to me recently and asked if I would talk a little about shame, and I said screw you, nobody tells me what to do. Just kidding… I loved the suggestion and will always take feedback like that.
Wow, what a topic. I had a few thoughts so I decided to just list them. In general, I will say that I no longer feel a lot of shame. I certainly used to. I would think back on certain important moments, and I either wasn’t there, or I was there but not actually really there.
A specific one that I still think about sometimes is that I get this pang in my stomach that I think used to be shame when I think about how my first two daughters were born into delivery rooms where I was absolutely hammered and trying to figure out how to get painkillers from the doctors as my wife gave birth. Oof.
But I’m at a place now where everything that I used to feel shame about is now guilt. I can live with guilt. Not so much with shame.
Here are a few things that came to mind.
* The 12 steps helped enormously. Working the steps with a sponsor helped me figure out resentments, my character defects and how to make amends to people. I can’t tell you how much that cleaned up some of the shame, but it was A LOT. With guidance, I was able to talk about 90 percent of the things that ate away at me, then try to make those situations right.
* More specifically, when I did my Fifth Step with a trusted sober friend, it was a game changer. He’d heard my first four steps, heard the worst parts of me from the past and the worst parts of me that were still feeding me resentments every day. And at the end, he said he identified with me and had worked through some of the same things, and that he loved me and supported me. WAIT, WHAT?!?! I felt so much air get let out of the shame in that moment. It was like a shame balloon deflating right in front of me. (Quick side note: I’ve told this story before, but it’s appropriate here. When I got done with my Fifth Step, my friend said, “Great job, I love you.” I felt very awkward and said, “Uh, ok, but if we’re going to love each other, I feel like we should know each others’ last names.” He died laughing and told me his, and I told him mine, and he promised me this was not a one-night stand.)
* Recovery taught me a new way to apologize. I’d said sorry over and over again my whole life for bad stuff, and nobody wanted to hear that from me any more. They wanted to know that I meant it and was doing everything I could to not do it again. And I mostly did that once I got sober for awhile. In sobriety, I spent a lot of time paying attention to the way our literature and sober people talk about the concept of owning bad deeds. We’re told to keep our side of the street clean, make amends when necessary and accept the consequences. We’re also told if somebody doesn’t want your apology, or says to lose their phone number and never call again, we accept that, too, without over-investing in their response. I’ve had circumstances where I own something and somebody says, “Yep, thanks, but leave me alone” and it stings… but it is what it is. Accepting that is hard but I’ve learned how to do it. I can own something without it owning me.
* Don’t freaking do the shameful thing again! It sounds so simple that I don’t need to say it out loud, but I need to hear it and be reminded of it. I’ll give you one specific example from my active addiction days that caused me and others lots of heartache even years later: I would sometimes lash out and say really mean stuff to people. Like, the kind of stuff that could end relationships or change them forever in a bad way. In sobriety, I had to reckon with stuff that was said—I couldn’t take it back! But I learned how to make amends the best I could, and then it’s critical TO NOT DO IT AGAIN. When I said sorry for lashing out that one time a year ago, the key part was often that it happened one time, not 26 times. I could then feel a little guilty that it was said in the first place… but move out of shame and focus on not doing it again.
* I titled this “The shame of shame” because I often am too hard on myself and spend way too much time looking back and wishing something was different. That’s such a waste of time! I can’t change it. I don’t have a time machine. I can’t wipe it from your brain. It happened. I need to own the past but not beat the living s**t out of myself about it or else I’m in danger of either drinking over it or being off the spiritual beam now. I had somebody say to me once, “Beat yourself up with a feather, not a baseball bat.” So what I mean by the shame of shame is that if I have shame, and feel shame about the shame, that’s like giving myself two life sentences when I probably don’t even deserve one. It’s unnecessary roughness that does no good.
* Last but not least… recovery doesn’t fix every problem. As hilarious and brilliant as I am, I’m not a doctor, dentist, attorney, psychiatrist, PTSD expert or anything else resembling an actual smart person. I can say, though, that I have seen individual therapists, pain management doctors regarding my chronic pain, and a marriage therapist, and grown quite a bit from that. I remember I had about 10 years sober, and my life was humming along pretty good. But my wife suggested marriage therapy to help us communicate better, and I initially was thinking, “Eh, I’m doing pretty great. If she feels like there are issues, it’s probably because she needs to see somebody.” I talked to some recovery friends about it, though, and they all basically said, “What could possibly be the harm? Even if you both don’t learn anything new and you stop going after two months, it will go a long way toward showing you care about your relationship that you both tried.” So we went, and it was great. A very good marriage got even better, and we did learn some stuff about productive ways to talk to somebody you love.
That’s all I got for today. If anybody else has suggestions, please hit me up. I’m practically out of good ideas so I need you guys!!!
In case you missed it, I put together a fun mini comedy special about my 10 favorite addiction/sobriety jokes. Check it out HERE! (It’s behind a paywall)
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A drunk and his wife were dining out at a pub. The husband kept glancing at a woman busy downing several drinks at the bar. As the evening wore on, she grew drunker and more boisterous.
The wife asked, "Do you know her?"
"Yes," sighed the alcoholic husband. "She's my ex-wife. She took to drinking right after we were divorced, seven years ago. I hear she hasn't been sober since."
"My goodness!" said the wife. "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?"
(Credit: AA Grapevine, September 2006, from Richard M. of Golden, Colorado)
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