well yes, that is mad thinking. equally mad(as in 'irrational') is the idea that you better keep drinking because if you can quit now, then how to explain that you didn't quit then???
sainos, i'm okay with saying i couldn't quit then. i don't care what others think about that. i couldn't. i tried a gazillion times. i was in desperation about my returns to drinking. blahblah tedious repeats, boring boring nightmare.
i had a turn-around moment, something some of us call acceptance.
drinking again as an option to be entertained hasn't occurred to me again. since.
I think I am looking for the impossible, to just wipe away all those years for them. But I realise there are consequences for my actions, and this guilt I will have to somehow let go of is a big consequence.
no, you can't wipe those years away for them.
those years are theirs.
and for me, the guilt wasn't something i "somehow let go of". guilt is about having wronged.
the way i dealt with guilt was by entering into a rather precise process of addressing it by making amends wherever possible to those i had harmed, except if it were to result in further harm.
shame was/is a different matter. that was something which gradually "fell away" as i "let go"....slipped out of me.