AmericanSpirit -
That's exactly it.
I know a way out of the hell of that remorse.
It *is* true: we can not 'undo' anything in our past.
But we *CAN* do something.
We can learn from it.
The beginning of self- forgiveness lies in the capacity to understand that we could NOT do anything else 'at the time'. We were in the depth of addiction, we were NOT in control of our lives, or our lives.
There is always a way to come to peace with the understanding that we did all we could at the time.
The twelve Steps - is the most effective way I've found so far.
The way out -
Learn from it. And make that learning ... matter.
Make it ... change you.
(I learned this little piece of brilliance from that movie 'Ghandi" ...)
a man went to Ghandi and said he was going to hell because he had killed a Muselm child. Ghandi said he knew a way out of hell. To go find a Muslem child, and raise it as his own child, and raise it to be a good Muslem.
To this day - I find that unspeakably profound.
We 'lost' time with those we loved.
God watches out for them, just as we ... are watched out for.
The way out of that hell -
we treat EVERYONE ... as we wish we had been able to treat that person when we were lost in our addiction.
Because we are NOT lost in our addictions any more.
We couldn't ... then. We CAN ... now.
We've found a solution.
This is how we PROVE it.
We've found each other.
The woman sitting across from you in the meeting -
is someone's daughter.
The man reading 'How it works'
is someone's son.
Love them ...
as you would have your own child when you couldn't.
*shrug*
makes sense to me.