We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
This is one of the AA promises which has come true for me and millions of others.
In order to stay sober I had to find a Power greater then myself that I understood, I call that Power God. He is more powerful then me or alcohol. My God loves me and like a parent he forgives me. I lived in shame and guilt for many things I had done in my past, I drowned in self hatred and shame for what I had done to my family, others, and to myself!
God gave me the Power to stay sober, but I had to take actions also, part of those actions was to forgive myself for my past, you see God had forgiven me, I had to humble myself and accept the fact that if I could not forgive myself then I was basically saying I was a Higher Power then God who did forgive me, I had to forgive myself for my past in order to live in today. You see as long as I did not forgive myself for my past I lived in the past and in the past I drank to rid myself of my past.... but for a short time.
In order to begin the process of forgiving myself I had to learn what I needed to forgive myself of, this was part of step #4:
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
I sat down with pen and pad and wrote down my resentments, my fears, those I had harmed, etc. Simply putting it all on paper helped a lot, you see when the guilt and the shame of who I was existed only in my head it went into spin cycle, around and around it went, like a snowball rolling down a hill, becoming larger and larger! Once I wrote it down on paper, it quit spinning, it quit growing!
Once I had it all written down the spinning cycle of guilt and shame, hatred and fear, my past was in front of me and it had an actual size, it stopped growing!! I looked at my past and realized that what I had seen as mountains were but mole hills. DO not get me wrong, I was far from a saint, but I was no where near as bad a person as I thought I was. Writing this list allowed me to realize the things I needed to change about me to become a better person and to not feel a need to drink in order to escape who I was.
Once I had this all on paper in order to live and stay sober I needed to take further action... Step #5:
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
In prayer I admitted to God the exact nature of my wrongs and asked and was given his forgiveness, then I took that list and sat down with a person I trusted with my deepest darkest secrets and discuss our inventory with him, this happened to be my sponsor (which in my opinion is the best person to do this with), it could have been a priest, rabbi, close trusted confidant, or simply someone who is very understanding. Understanding that this is done in utmost confidence and trust I discussed my inventory with him, the details of my 5th are not needed there, but my sponsor shared some of his past with me showing me that I was far from being alone in the things I had done, he shared with me how he had dealt with these problems and how I may deal with mine. This was the most freeing thing I have ever done, I was free of my past guilt and shame, I still had actions to take, but the promises below came true:
We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.
Today I am forgiven of my past, I continue to make amends where I can to set right what I can of my past, but I no longer am consumed by my past, I have forgiven myself for it just as God has. My past today is a gift which I share with other alcoholics who are still slaves to thier past and to alcohol to where they can be aware that they to can be free of alcohol and the guilt and shame of thier past.
Today I live in today, free of my past, you see until I was able to really see and understand my past and forgive myself of it, I lived in the past, the only way I ever escaped my past was by drinking. Being free of my past I live in today understandiing that I can not undo my past, but I can make amends to those who love me by doing the right thing today.