Hi Wildflower. I'm glad you're back.
I think I learned about grace in sobriety. The forgiveness and love that I experienced although I didn't 'deserve' it. But just as a gift cant be earned (it stops being a guft then , and is a reward or wage) love and forgiveness cannot be earned. They are given. We give them freely, but the recipient needs willingness to truly accept them, and that takes humility - which means getting rid of any pride and defensiveness keeping them seperate, which can be challenging. Anyway. We'll do the love and forgiveness, and hope you can work on accepting them. Worthy or not is irrelevant. None of us were 'worthy'.
Sounds like you've dodged a bullet with your last boyfriend. Perhaps in time you can be grateful to him for showing you his true colours so clearly so you could make the decision to move on. Ive heard it said "if someone shows you what they're like - believe them."
In AA it's commonly suggested not to get involved in any new relationships for a year into sobriety and recovery. Perhaps this would be something worth considering Wildflower. We can tend to see our worth in relation to others perception of us and how the value they do (or do not) put on us while we're actively drinking and this can continue into sobriety while we're getting a handle on recovery (and rear it's ugly head if we step working on our recovery later on as well if we aren't careful).
As we recover we start to value our own integrity more and so aren't attracted to the same types of people. We're also more likely to feel enough love for ourselves to respond to our needs and seek out help we find we still need outside of recovery issues after a while as we start to peel back the layers and understand what fears drive us, so we can start to make the decision to lean into them.
Anyway. Like I said, I'm glad you're back. I look forward to following your recovery through your posts.
BB