Grits,
I am with Dee but I would take it even a bit further. I am glad for my bad experiences with alcohol and my perspective now. My drinking was like getting a vaccine. You know you get a bit of live or dead bad stuff and your body can recognize it when it sees it again and fight it? I got exposed to a little bit of death, enough to know I don't want any part of it earlier than necessary. Now I don't have to repeat it over and over again anymore like a scene from the movie Groundhog Day!
I gave myself the perfect present. I can't change the past, and regrets are like negative rehearsals.
Fear of the future works the same way in my head. I can only rehearse fear or rehearse good, or not worry about it because I took care of the present. Give yourself the prefect present too. A ticket, permission from yourself if you will, to live in the perfect present, not in regrets of the past, or fears of the future.
I think you have it right because we can't love, or forgive another, until we love and forgive ourselves.
Welcome Tesla! I love the creeks and mountains there, and the little towns and places that are just so refreshing like the drive into Cripple Creek or the glacier lake, Jefferson Lake just Northwest of Jefferson.