Lovely thread, filled with love and compassion. I do not care what I am called. Junky, dopefiend, addict, drunk. I used to, but since I came to make peace with my past, and made amends ( and keep making them) I love myself (without toooo much ego) too much to care. Recovery has restored my humanity. I live and love again.
I was a real shitbag once, but that is no longer who I am.
I do not get angry when people still judge me as that. I have learnt that how they see me is there problem. If they resent me for being an addict, the rersentment lies with them. I am no longer in effect, no longer the victim I was when using (Oooh Boy was I the victim, everyone elses fault all of the time - task of insanity!!)
Me and HP know that that today I am okay. Today, and everyday that I stay sober, I can bring light into the world.
I am also not a doormat. I have feelings, and have a right to articulate them. Just because I suffer from the disease of addiction, it does not give anyone the right to negate my feelings and emotions. I earn that right by staying clean, because it is only when I am clean, that I really know what my feelings truly are.
That is why we say in NA " If you have used today, we ask that you just listen. Otherwise we find it is the drugs that are talking, not you...."