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Old 01-02-2017, 06:50 PM
  # 27 (permalink)  
bemyself
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia
Posts: 1,202
Brenda, I reckon you'll have seen already from the various responders that this business of personal accountability is not a straightforward thing. It certainly - just in my experience - can be a slippery slope towards the kind of self-blame / self-denigration that you spoke of earlier.....but only if one allows the entire sum of one's life actions that have harmed others or oneself to kind of 'gather steam' and roll towards one like an avenging mob, or as if you're facing an unsympathetic courtroom.

I know that I've done that many times - the results for my sober emotional health were often dire. I would occasionally allow such an inner storm - which just started out, I thought, as objective reflection! - to tip me into a seething frenzy.....and later drink 'on it'. Not at all suggesting that you would do the same, mind!

Untangling what is - and ISN'T - our blame / responsibility for actions taken when drunk (and / or those not-taken, which end up harming us or others too) is better undertaken with some more objective person together. That's why - although I'm not a huge fan of the Steps, for example - the underlying principle behind Step 5's 'AND another human being' is there.

The main prerequisites for such a 'listener' IMO, is to have lived a bit, to have a good understanding of human frailties and strengths, and to have come to an understanding themselves of self-compassion. It can a trusted rabbi, priest / parson , counsellor, psychologist, AA sponsor or mentor, or any other mentor-figure - whom you trust, or if no one exists currently, that you feel you can come to trust, and with whom you feel safe from judgement.

Anna's suggestion - which she regularly offers to many of us, not just you :-) - is that writing stuff out in a journal, is definitely a go-er. But if you're prone - as I am - to then stewing in it (Huxley's 'rolling in the muck ' - thanks Fly n Buy for that great reminder!), that's when it's quite helpful, indeed cathartic, to share and discuss this stuff with some person like I've suggested above.

Please also note: you're still quite young in years, and sobriety - and guess what? you, like everyone else on this planet, whether having been an addict, still an addict, never an addict, sober as a judge for the term of their natural lives, will continue to do yourself or others some degree of harm, unintentionally or not. It's part of being human. That's why all of us do better if we practice making amends as soon as we can, once aware of what we might have done, whether the other person accepts them or not, and practicing forgiveness of ourselves - and often, of them as well, as they too may well have played a part. So, no, it's not ALL 'your fault', not every time. This is a crucial but sometimes subtle distinction.
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