kittycat3

I'm wondering if anyone out there has suggestions on dealing with shame related to your past with alcohol. In certain social situations I struggle with this. Instead of coming out with it like "I don't drink" I just gloss over it ("I'll have water or diet coke, etc) and hope I am not asked about it. I feel like admitting I dont drink is a failure. And I also occasionally get a flashback of something I did when drinking (last year was off/on relapsing) and I am immediately filled with feeling ashamed. I want to forgive myself for all these old mistakes!
Some of this has to do with wanting to be "part of the crowd" and just to take part in the imbibing. Is this just inner turmoil around refusing to accept that I binge drink?
It seems there are so many folks keeping tabs on who is drinking and who is not- which I totally get, before I quit I did the same! But sometimes I'm tempted to come up with a real doozy when I get pressured to drink - like I quit drinking after I killed my best friend in a car accident (not true) just in response to the rude questions I get about it. Any advice?...

scrambled2012

Was thinking about this today; some bosses were in from out of town and I imagined how I would handle it if they invited me for a beer (they woudn't, I'm way low on the ol totem pole, but I like to think big haha).

For them anyway I thought a super-serious "it was causing me trouble so I stopped" wouldn't be all bad. Like if I make it no big thing, just a cold decision based on the facts, they would think to themselves "ah, future manager here, make note tell boss he very impressive. ah." Something like that.

I usually make a joke out of the whole thing; you know what they say: "humor is a funny way of saying something serious." When I state the obvious and do so in a way that gets a laugh, it seems to go over well with my peers.

I wouldn't invent things though kitty; lies can grow in complexity and are hard to keep track of; they aren't worth the work...and espec tragic things, those can hit close to home and you woudn't want that~~~~

Oh, shame with the memories thing; cut yourself some slack. You're human. Oh, that means you have to cut your fellow humans some slack too, btw :-)

tomsteve

i found the program of AA worked awesome at teaching me how to remove the wreckage of my past. i used to have great amounts of shame and guilt about past actions. through a lot of footwork, learning from others that went before me, i can look at every detail of my past and say, "yup, i did that. glad i aint like that today!"
i am part of the crowd. the crowd that saw they had a problem with alcohol and did something about it. if anyone has a problem with that, then they have a problem and it aint my problem. why should i care if anyone is keeping tabs on who's drinkin and who isnt?

kittycat3

Thanks scrambled. I was suggesting the lie only for the shock value as a snappy retort to someone pressuring me, but have never actually done such a thing and would likely not. I guess I am still feeling sorry for myself and a little exposed. Just divorced from a family of major drinkers where I was consistently the only one not drinking. My ex was drinking a lot when we split, and in fact I even let that feeling get the best of me and tried to return to drinking as a way to connect with my ex (guess how that turned out?!?) I guess when I have been constantly the odd woman out it starts to wear me down and that's where I am at today.....

kittycat3

Thanks tomsteve, I know I should NOT care! But sometimes I let it get to me. Maybe I just need that kind of reminder from you to get me pointed in the right direction.....

tomsteve

i must add that i was there at one time. i had quite a bit of fear of what others thought about me not drinking. funny though, when i was drinking, i didnt care who saw me fall off a bar stool. the longer i stayed away from alcohol and worked on me( gettin a god of my own conception was major in that) the low self esteem started slipping away. i can still have problem now and then with low self esteem( the reason i cared what others thought), but them times get less and less as time goes by.
we all need others to help us out and i'm no different. i hope you can thank God instead of me because without Him, i'd be a mumbling drunk today.
keep on trudgin! sobriety rocks!!!

Dee74

Hi Kitty

I found the more I stayed sober the less the past worried me. It's a closed book anyway - we can't change a second of it and wishing it was different is really wasted energy.

Use that energy on the present - make living right today a living amends for the mistakes of the past

As for not being able to drink being a failure?
Nah, not being able to stop was my failure.

It takes a lot of strength to do what you know is right - especially in a society where you're bombarded by alcohol and its associated media images and attitudes.

I hope one day you'll be as pleased as I am to say to whoever asks 'no thanks...I don't drink'

D

sunrise1

I too found that the longer I have been sober, the less I truly care about what others think. I remember being exactly like you when I was newly dry... ashamed and giving answers that I hoped meant I still fit in.

These days I'm probably bolder than many; to save people months of offering me drinks once we've met, the first time they offer- I usually come out with "I quit"... if they inquire further I usually mention something about a rocky relationship with Capt. Morgan that I had to leave.

TimeInABottle

Whats wrong with just saying "I don't drink, but I'll have a coke?". Whats wrong with honesty. You kind of almost sound embarrassed that you no longer drink, when in fact, you should be proud. Its something you have worked very hard for.

When folks ask me If I'd like a drink, I usually respond with "no thanks. Alcohol tends to make me drunk". I get a little shuckle.....but I think they get the jist.

Best wishes,
T.I.A.B

dotherightthing

I don't tell anyone I don't drink either, but not because I'm ashamed to admit it. It simply doesn't come up all that often. I've been in places that served alcohol, but simply not had any and no one noticed. In my experience, it's only the alcoholics who keep tabs on who is and isn't drinking in the room.

On your second point, it makes sense that you would be ashamed about doing shameful things. Nobody's ever done growing, though, and who you were in the past doesn't have to be who you are today. Your past is always going to be there, and there is nothing that you can do about it. Rather than dwelling on something you can't ever change, why not pay some attention to the things you can change?

liv1ce

I was just having a long overdue discussion with my wife tonight as she did not know of my addiction until the end when she confronted me and saved my life - again. She was amazed at how adept I was at getting what I needed and staying out of trouble. I detailed all of my stupid lying, cheating, hiding and acquiring habits and told her how it was done. What a maze of effort and planning and scrounging and ducking and hiding and just being a turd. I am now 19 days out and was feeling really good. I was feeling that I had left this behind but it was a reckoning that had to be done. There is NOTHING I can do to change any of it but I can change the behavior that existed and never do it again. That is my goal and I feel really good about it. I just need to put this crap away again and move on.

Zakynthos

It's only been four weeks for me and no one has actually asked why I am not imbibing (I've been drinking seltzer or bottled water). Both events I attended required driving home so maybe people just assumed that's why I wasn't drinking. But it also occurred to me that maybe no one really notices? Meaning maybe it is more in my own head, feeling self-conscious because I know that I am making this change in my life.

The only time I did discuss it was at a work thing on Monday...with two very good friends from work...we used to go out together all the time, wine at lunch, happy hour after work, stuff like that. It turns out that they made almost the same choice! Concerned about just slamming back wine at home night after night and unhappy with their lack of ability to moderate. One of them stopped completely, as have I, and the other has stopped at home and is reserving his drinking for "special occasions". So we had a very nice talk about all that, what led up to it, how we are handling things now, etc.

Anyways, the point being (a) no one may be expecting an explanation and you don't "owe" anyone any explanations and (b) no reason to feel more shame in getting/being sober than you did in getting/being drunk.

DaveVelasco

Make humor out of what you are ashamed of - yeah that the best way you can deal with it at least you are able to get your point or what you want say out loud to them.

Nevertheless

This might sound blunt,but it's to the point. If your hanging out with a crowd that you feel ashamed about not drinking with. You might want to find another crowd. When I drank,I thought most people did also.
Now that I have been sober a while,I have realized there are a LOT that never ever touch the stuff. I don't think I have met any new people (outside of AA)that drinks as much as I did. When you first quit those that do drink stand out like a sore thumb.
I still have a lot of old friends that still drink,and they respect the fact that I have quit. I think most actually envy it. If they can't respect that,then they aren't really friends.
Fred

gaffo

Nobody seems to care except my loved ones who are glad that I quit. Saying "no thanks" is always enough. I found this to be surprising, like many many things in sobriety. It's like the flipside to "no one is going to give you a medal for doing what you should have been all along..."

DayTrader

Agreed. Same deal for me.

Kitty--
A therapist helped me FIND a lot of that stuff....and helped me to get to where I could even admit those feelings were there. (Like most of us, I was rather proficient as convincing myself that something "bad" like shame just wasn't there - that it didn't exist in my life).

Talking about it helped a lot. Doing AA's 4th step helped a lot too - gave me a completely new way to view myself, my past, others and that whole me/world dynamic. The 5th steep upped the ante again......as did steps 6 and 7.

I may be exaggerating here but issues like shame, guilt, anger, selfishness, and so forth - they're not to be trifled with. Months and years into sobriety each one of those has whipped me so badly that I'd venture the suggestion that the depression was as bad or worse than anything I experienced "when drinking." Drinking is not the problem for an alcoholic.....alcoholism is. Alcoholism doesn't need booze in your system to kick you around and those issues above, those are some of it's tools of the trade.

Trying to deal with those things - recovering from them......that's what really motivated me to step up my game with AA. It became all to clear that unless those things were dealt with...and dealt with proficiently...my days of sobriety were probably numbered.

The AA program was custom built to process and handle those things. At first, I thought it was basically a "no drinking club." When you really use it the way it was designed to be used though, you find out it's really a "here's a better way to live life club." Through those goofy steps, I've finally started to get some traction in those areas. I'm still working on it, of course...but at least now I've got a time-tested and proven manual that can tell me what and how to get through it.

jsch

Yeah I understand being ashamed for being alcoholic. Nobody wants to be different. I think we feel shamed because of the ignorance surrounding alcoholism. Many people still think it is a character flaw or weakness we drank so much. They don't understand it is a disease and once we put alcohol in our system we had no control. We can't convince people of this. NOr should we try. We don't have to tell them our whole story we just have to let them know we are not drinking tonight or today. It is one day at a time. I think the shame of being an alcoholic and the shame of our past lessons as we gain more knowledge and as time goes by. One day we will not be ashamed of our past and our situation as it will help us help others. Only we can help others like us. Good luck

NYCDoglvr

I thought as you do in early recovery. Thing is, after 20 years I can say no one has every inquired about me ordering non-alcoholic beverages. Not one. The shame and anger also pass if you've got a solid recovery program.

Pedro123

I have spent a LOT of time worrying about similar disclosures and how people would react in my work environment. I’m in a fairly visible position at my company and I have a bit of a reputation as one of the people who tend to make the party fun. I’ve never really had any bad drunk experiences at work events, but I’m usually in the crowd that hits the bar pretty hard.

I know several people will say and have said that their experience shows that people rarely challenge or ask you about why you aren’t drinking. I wish I could say the same thing, but I can’t. I’ve been questioned, re-questioned, challenged, called out, and in one or two extreme cases I’ve been made fun of publicly. I should point out that these are mostly experiences from my work, so I can't really 'choose' a different crowd to hang out with per se.

I have taken a fairly inconsistent approach to my responses to people, which in hindsight was probably a mistake. I’ve conjured up stories of why I’m not drinking, have cited different reasons to different people, etc. I wish in retrospect I could go back and re-communicate to everyone in a more consistent manner. A previous poster aptly pointed out that lies can sometimes build and are hard to sustain.

A trusted advisor once gave me a sound piece of advice: People tend to react appropriately to your demeanor. So if you make a big deal of it, they will tend to make a big deal of it. If you confidently stride into the room, make your point and then move off the subject, people tend to have less of a reaction. I’ve found that advice to hold well in these situations.

I tend to group people’s responses into categories, and I wish I had put together a good escalation plan for what to say when dealing with people in each category. Here’s been my general experience:

Category 1 : people who don’t seem to react or care or even ask you why you are not drinking. No real description necessary with this group. I’ve found about 20-30% of the people in this group

Category 2: People who are very intuitive and wise, and they immediately understand what you are saying without having to tell them. I really like this group. I tell them I basically stopped drinking x number of months ago, and there is a flash of understanding in their eyes, and they never ask you again or question you on it. Sometimes people in this group will tell you that they are really impressed/proud of you for making this decision. Thank them for their thoughts, and move off the subject is what I advise here. I’ve found about 20-30% of people fit into this group.

Category 3: People who are just plain curious about your decision. I used to get very aggravated with this group. I would wish that they would just stop asking questions, but they don’t. I finally realized that they mean no harm. They tend to be worried about what you CAN drink since everyone else at the table is drinking wine/beer/whatever. I wish I would just have consistently told this group ‘I stopped drinking x months ago because it really wasn’t agreeing with me and I’ll just have water/soda, but thanks for asking.” I see this as another 20-30% group.

Category 4: Freaking idiots who lack the decency or intelligence to accept what you tell them without making a big deal about it. This is usually that guy who is obnoxious, full of himself, competitive, and thinks he is the king in the room (and yes, they tend to be men in my experience!). I’ve been called a ‘candy-ass’ by these types. I’ve been told ‘just one night with me and I’d have you hanging out the window without a shirt on and a bottle of tequila in your hand.’ Etc. This group really annoys and pisses me off. My new response after telling them first ‘I stopped drinking x months ago’ then saying politely, ‘no, I really mean it, I am not drinking anymore,’. I have started ending the issue by saying to them, ‘You know, I made a decision to stop drinking because I was tired of making an ass of myself. Maybe you should think about doing the same.’ Look them in the eye, and don’t laugh it off. Let it hang out there for all to see. My experience is that this type will try to make some lame come-back because they don’t like being bested or embarrassed. If they try to say something, just respond with, ‘Thanks for reminding me why I quit drinking’ and leave the situation. Fortunately, I’ve found this group to be few and far between, but it has happened to me on more than one occasion in the 6 months since I’ve stopped.

Not sure if any of this will help you, but I hope some of it might. Make a plan, stick to it, and be confident in how you portray it. That would be my quick advice.

kittycat3

Isn't that the truth!?!?! Ha!!!!