Leshar

Tee hee! AO, you're quite the card!

BarrelRoll

For me, there's guilt because I know that drinking is a cowardly thing to do. Running away from life, not living up to my true potential, that kind of stuff.

Aarryckha

For me, it's about the way I treated people while I was blackout drunk, the broken promises, the shirking of my responsibilities, and the failure to live up to my potential.

yeahgr8

The guilt and shame was there long before I took my first drink. Drinking was the solution to get rid of those feelings...temporarily. Then gradually by simply staying alive and not growing I added to my guilt and shame list.

jdooner

I have been thinking about your post of late. I don't have any guilt or shame for what I have done. Without everyone happening in the exact sequence there is no way I would be where I am now.

That said, I do feel the "drive" you are referring to in keeping my sobriety date and not breaking it. I believe I would feel guilty should I relapse. While relapsing does not mean failing in my opinion, I believe the guilt would be that I have learned so much and with this knowledge to ignore everythgin and go back even for a night would cut across my grain and hurt.

I can't say this will not happen but my intentions are that it won't happen. I also fear that I would not return either. Then this would mean suicide.

readerbaby71

I think it's all of the things you listed. I also think it's chemical to a large degree. Those of us with a tendency toward depression tend to be perfectionistic and very hard on ourselves. Low self-esteem has always been a huge problem for me. I'm also sensitive and care about the people around me a great deal. Letting them down and hurting them really crushed me. The stupid, embarrassing things I did while drunk also didn't help me feel great the next day.

I also knew deep down that drinking was a total waste of my intelligence, abilities and talents. The world is very overwhelming. I still don't watch or read the news often as the horrible things people do to each other depress me.

I did it to kill pain but in the end it only created more.

Thanks for posting this. Great question!

stairs

Today my biggest shame is that I don't have my house in the order I feel it should be. Compared to the shame of neglecting myself and family while drinking mass quantities, this is nothing. I never want to go back to living the way I was. I can cope with life today and accept that I am only human and forgive the shameful behavior of my past.

adee

This is a good point. I think it's true for a lot of us that we knew shame well, long before we ever met alcohol. Brene Brown has some great stuff on shame. This TED talk doesn't really start talking about shame until around 10:00, but then some really good stuff about the difference between guilt and shame. "Guilt is 'I'm sorry I made a mistake'; Shame is: 'I'm sorry I AM a mistake.''" Moving past shame is a life long project for me, I think. Guilt I've gotten better about. But shame sometimes feels like an intrinsic part of me. Like if I disable shame, I will no longer function, it's so wrapped up in who I am... I know it's not true, but it's such a pervasive self myth.

angstfull

I suffer from "Mommyhood" guilt like many others. While drinking I wasn't giving my all to that task and retreated emotionally. My child deserves a Mom that isn't sneaking around with a wine bottle at night. The impact on my ability to give more to parenting is my biggest regret/source of guilt.

I also face a lot of issues with guilt because my Dad was an alcoholic and he was a mess and caused HUGE amounts of harm to our family. I NEVER EVER wanted to do the same things he did. Fortunately I was only a full blown alcoholic for a year and damage I did was very minimal compared to his (major financial issues, etc) but still... never wanted to have the same label he did. Accepting that I'm no better than a person I had so much bitterness and resentment towards causes me HUGE guilt. Dad passed away 30 years ago but memories never leave. That said this crap will be focused on in future therapy sessions but is a huge on my "Guiltometer."

Best,

A

joshlyman

I was ashamed that I hated myself so much that I chose to continue drinking despite all of the negativity and chaos that it caused. It was a deadly cycle.

The shame also came because of stuff I said and did while I was drunk. I embarrassed myself more times than I care to remember.

gaffo

Of course I did a few things while drunk that caused shame and embarrassment that I deserved but I felt guilty for wasting this tremendous bounty that is laid in front of me. I wanted to be the best that I could be and drinking was a barrier. It was keeping me down.

It was hard to get anything done in any kind of intelligent order when I was always drunk or hungover but I still kept drinking anyways. For years. Just about anything that happened after 10:00 was "did acted" from my memory due to blackouts. After years I sort of learned to not say anything of consequence after dark. I hated that.

I would push those thoughts of wasted time and blackout mysteries around my drunken brain like peas on a plate and they would pop up at any time causing low level dread, especially awake in bed in the early morning. It was a generic feeling of psychic illness that was a perfect complement to a hangover.

alphaomega

What a poignant and melodic way of stating this. Beautiful description.

Olive1

E. All of the above.

Those closest to me did not understand what I had become, as an alcoholic. They thought I should just be able to snap out of it. When I couldn’t just snap out of it, I felt remorseful and guilty that I could not just snap out of it. Why can I not just snap out of it? It there something fundamentally wrong with me, that I cannot just snap out of it?
Judgment and ignorance, a little low self esteem and most likely an inherited gene. Drink hypothetically would help with the guilt and the shame.
A vicious cycle.

alphaomega

For me, the guilt and shame stemmed primarily from my inability to love the self. While it was my right to chose to abuse myself in the manner I deemed acceptable, I could not seem to attach to the fact that I was severely causing my life to be shortened and affecting my family.

I'm very All or Nothing. If I am actively using, I can not be even remotely living up to my potential in this lifetime. And time is our greatest gift, as it is finite and limited.

Every day that I had put off getting well, was another rung down into further despair.

Once I was sunk, I had no idea how to climb out. Which perpetuated the guilt, which fed the shame. The self loathing was abhorring. And then the cyclical nature of addiction would be driving the bus and I just became a paying passenger.

Wherever it wanted to take me, I had no choice to let it lead because I had no idea how to step off without being run over.

The shame and guilt start to subside almost immediately upon entering Soberland. That's why the first few weeks feel SO DAMN GOOD. Its literally equivalent to being freed from prison. The sky is bluer, the songs are more melodic, the happy is more joyful. Because finally, finally, you are living up to your potential.
It feels like a new lease on life when you are caring for yourself in the manner that brings health and well being.

All feels finally right in the world when you are no longer wallowing in the muck and mire that guilt and shame bring with it. Pink cloud euphoria.

As if "Life can really be this great ?"

It's what keeps me sober everyday. Never wanting to go back down there again.

jdooner

Well said Sister ^^

I found when I started to forgive myself, I started to get better. I spent 34 years trying to kill myself sometimes subtly, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a more obvious way but all the time it was the same direction, down.

Looking4Help123

It is/was very much tied into my self-esteem which has been at an all time low for last 5 years. Guilt and shame are a common occurence and alcohol just makes it even worse, even though I might of had a completely quiet night on the alcohol. Even after 2 weeks I can feel these old wounds closing, spend hardly any time on them these days, and avoid the "compound effect" of them rushing in while I'm hungover.

LBrain

prefaced with other gobbledygook... According to Dictionary.com, then, guilt involves the awareness of having done something wrong; it arises from our actions (even if it might be one that occurs in fantasy). Shame may result from the awareness of guilt but apparently is not the same thing as guilt. It's a painful feeling about how we appear to others (and to ourselves) and doesn't necessarily depend on our having done anything. <=== HUH?

So for me... I feel guilty for thinking about my neighbor's wife. But I'm not ashamed of it - for I know it was only a fleeting thought - even though I should be ashamed of myself. And even if I did feel shame I would get over it quickly. If I did something with my neighbor's wife I would be ashamed of it and all of the guilt that goes along with it. And I would carry that guilt with me forever.

I feel guilt for not being there for my family when I was needed because I was too drunk to drive. But I always came up with another excuse. How shameful is that? But since only I knew the reason, there was no real shame in it.

I am ashamed of you because you took advantage of me when I was drunk and could not protect myself from your devious behavior. I feel guilty for letting you take advantage of me. I am also ashamed of myself for letting it happen again.

I brought shame upon my wife for acting like a drunken fool. And that guilt still haunts me.

It's just a damned shame I feel guilty for all the stupid things I did when I was drinking. But if I didn't feel guilt I would have no morals. So having a conscience and having morals (my belief of what is right or wrong), to stray from such beliefs would be shameful for me. To cause others harm from my actions would cause guilt in my moral conscience.

Until I am able to clearly understand my guilt and shame I can never let it go. To be able to accept what I have done and move on - that comes with making amends - I will carry that shame and guilt with me always. I suppose it is a part of the 12 step process. You can't fix what's broken if you don't know what you broke. And until you 'fix' it you will carry that shame and guilt with you forever. I think(?).

I just realized I am probably not making any sense. But I don't feel the least bit of shame or guilt for it.

silentrun

I just watched that. It was really good. She said the three things shame needs to grow is secrecy, silence and judgement. The two most powerful words when we are in struggle Me to.
I was actually singing that Enjoli song today.

PurpleKnight

Waking up every morning and having to scroll through my facebook activity log, deleting half of the actions . . . just about sums it up!!

bigsombrero

I posted on this subject a while ago also. I felt (and still feel) a great sense of shame, because I tried to do "what everyone else was doing" and I couldn't handle it.

Like the over-dramatic theater student who got waaay too excited about the school play and then fell on my face in front of the crowd. Or like the chubby kid who worked all summer to get in shape to make the football team and then got cut after the first round of tryouts. Or like a man who got down on one knee in front of hundreds of friends in an elaborate marriage proposal, only to be refused. That's how ashamed I've been about my alcoholism. I'm so embarrassed. It's just. The. Worst.

The funny thing is, I've done amazing things since getting sober. But instead of being proud of myself and thinking about those things, I still hang my head with my old friends because I've proven that I can't cut the mustard. I can't shake the feeling that I've been banished to the sidelines, because I'm not good enough to play in the big game.

Egads, I'm a head case!

EDIT: That TED Talk was quite good!