Newbie- dealing with shame
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 6
Newbie- dealing with shame
Hi everyone,
I'm new here so hi! My problem is binge drinking and I would say that recovery has been going up and down for the last 6 months. I am trying to moderate at the moment. I was wondering how you guys feel about shame? How do you deal with it if someone has seen you at your worst? Any thoughts much appreciated. I've been reading some of your threads and I have found them very helpful and really kind hearted. Xx
I'm new here so hi! My problem is binge drinking and I would say that recovery has been going up and down for the last 6 months. I am trying to moderate at the moment. I was wondering how you guys feel about shame? How do you deal with it if someone has seen you at your worst? Any thoughts much appreciated. I've been reading some of your threads and I have found them very helpful and really kind hearted. Xx
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
Posts: 2,693
Time was the only healer. And sobriety. People start to forget and move on once you are sober. If I was still drinking I would just be waiting for the next blackout circus horror movie.
I try not to remember too much but I did things in blackouts that still baffle me but I am able to move on now that I don't drink. People don't bring them up either. Forgiveness comes with sobriety, kinda automatically.
I try not to remember too much but I did things in blackouts that still baffle me but I am able to move on now that I don't drink. People don't bring them up either. Forgiveness comes with sobriety, kinda automatically.
Sober since 10th April 2012
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posts: 6,047
Hi kitten, how's moderation working for you? Most feedback concerning guilt and shame is similar to MF above. The best amends you can make for your unacceptable behaviour is sobriety. If you need to convince people you are sincerely sorry, you will have to live that, not just talk it.
That's why I asked how the moderation was going. Does it mean you slip up from time to time?
That's why I asked how the moderation was going. Does it mean you slip up from time to time?
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: The Sooner State
Posts: 1,725
Prayer and time. The prayer takes awhile to feel like you mean it. My prayers were foxhole before. GOD GET ME OUT OF THIS! Now its "forgive me, forgive them, PLEASE continue to keep me sober" I have to be honest in everything i say and do. Thats tough because I was used to lying so much to cover what I was doing. Stupid, because everyone could tell. Helping people really helps. A supportive post on here, opening the door, bringing breakfast to coworkers...kindness works wonders for you and the other person. Exercise (which I need to do more of) is a huge stress reliever. Just remember, its going to be OK...if you stop drinking 
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Ohio
Posts: 3,785
For me it came down to forgiveness.
In working the steps of AA there is the nine step, making amends. This is when I ask for forgiveness. I had to include myself in that list of people. I had to ask them to forgive me but I also had to ask myself to do the same.
It takes time to get there and I was told, first things first. First, get sober. Then worry about all that comes with learning to live a sober lifestyle later. I had to get better before I could do better.
In working the steps of AA there is the nine step, making amends. This is when I ask for forgiveness. I had to include myself in that list of people. I had to ask them to forgive me but I also had to ask myself to do the same.
It takes time to get there and I was told, first things first. First, get sober. Then worry about all that comes with learning to live a sober lifestyle later. I had to get better before I could do better.
Member
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 14,921
Working the steps of AA will help.
Making amends helps to deal with the shame but sometimes that's not realistic in my opinion. My point is, how do I make amends to my wife? We've been married almost 30 years, making amends for any specific incident is hard. Where do I start, 1986 and work my way forward?
What I do instead is a "living" amend. It's about how I live my life today, each day, that seems to work. The love and respect I try to show her everyday, and how I try to live my life says more about how I've changed, then any words I could possibly come up with. After almost 30 years of marriage, saying I'm sorry and thinking that the slate is clean would be very naive' of me. It's my actions that will speak louder than any words. Anyway, this seems to be working for me, our marriage is now strong, and I don't feel the overwhelming shame I felt when I first got sober.
The other key ingredient is time. I know that answer sucks because we want things to be fixed immediately. For me, it took several years to slide into alcoholism, and it took a few years to climb back out of that hole.
Making amends helps to deal with the shame but sometimes that's not realistic in my opinion. My point is, how do I make amends to my wife? We've been married almost 30 years, making amends for any specific incident is hard. Where do I start, 1986 and work my way forward?
What I do instead is a "living" amend. It's about how I live my life today, each day, that seems to work. The love and respect I try to show her everyday, and how I try to live my life says more about how I've changed, then any words I could possibly come up with. After almost 30 years of marriage, saying I'm sorry and thinking that the slate is clean would be very naive' of me. It's my actions that will speak louder than any words. Anyway, this seems to be working for me, our marriage is now strong, and I don't feel the overwhelming shame I felt when I first got sober.
The other key ingredient is time. I know that answer sucks because we want things to be fixed immediately. For me, it took several years to slide into alcoholism, and it took a few years to climb back out of that hole.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: C.C. Ma.
Posts: 3,697
Hi.
Unfortunately we cannot un ring the bell.
Fortunately we can learn how not to repeat the reasons the bell the bell rang.
With attendance at AA meetingS we learn how to live without alcohol in our systems.
I needed to learn how to be honest with myself about my drinking and accept the fact I cannot drink in safety one day at a time in a row. I started that routine a lot of years ago and it still works.
BE WELL
Unfortunately we cannot un ring the bell.
Fortunately we can learn how not to repeat the reasons the bell the bell rang.
With attendance at AA meetingS we learn how to live without alcohol in our systems.
I needed to learn how to be honest with myself about my drinking and accept the fact I cannot drink in safety one day at a time in a row. I started that routine a lot of years ago and it still works.
BE WELL
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 819
We have all been the shame route. You make amends where you can, hope for forgiveness and move on.
What concerns me more is the moderation aspect of your post. If you quit altogether, you don't have to worry about the shame that comes with episodes while drinking. In time, people will see the real you and you won't have this worry anymore.
Welcome to SR! Hope to hear more from you.
What concerns me more is the moderation aspect of your post. If you quit altogether, you don't have to worry about the shame that comes with episodes while drinking. In time, people will see the real you and you won't have this worry anymore.
Welcome to SR! Hope to hear more from you.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: milwaukee wi
Posts: 3,574
I think this says it very well... hugs and remember laughter will heal all. ardy
Originally Posted by IOAA2 
Hi.
Unfortunately we cannot un ring the bell.
Fortunately we can learn how not to repeat the reasons the bell the bell rang.
With attendance at AA meetingS we learn how to live without alcohol in our systems.
I needed to learn how to be honest with myself about my drinking and accept the fact I cannot drink in safety one day at a time in a row. I started that routine a lot of years ago and it still works.
BE WELL
Unfortunately we cannot un ring the bell.
Fortunately we can learn how not to repeat the reasons the bell the bell rang.
With attendance at AA meetingS we learn how to live without alcohol in our systems.
I needed to learn how to be honest with myself about my drinking and accept the fact I cannot drink in safety one day at a time in a row. I started that routine a lot of years ago and it still works.
BE WELL
Member
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Christchurch
Posts: 451
I found the longer I stayed completely sober the less my shame consumed me. I am a year sober and no longer dwell on all the stupid stuff I did drunk - and there was plenty of that. People do forget and being sober means very little chance of embarrassing myself so the new memories I have over the past year are happy. Moderating never worked for me, it was always the precursor to a huge binge.
Trudgin
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 6,348
Originally Posted by kitten29
Hi everyone,
I'm new here so hi! My problem is binge drinking and I would say that recovery has been going up and down for the last 6 months. I am trying to moderate at the moment. I was wondering how you guys feel about shame? How do you deal with it if someone has seen you at your worst? Any thoughts much appreciated. I've been reading some of your threads and I have found them very helpful and really kind hearted. Xx
I'm new here so hi! My problem is binge drinking and I would say that recovery has been going up and down for the last 6 months. I am trying to moderate at the moment. I was wondering how you guys feel about shame? How do you deal with it if someone has seen you at your worst? Any thoughts much appreciated. I've been reading some of your threads and I have found them very helpful and really kind hearted. Xx
Welcome, glad you're here!!!
I found, for me to deal with shame which was caused as a result of me doing things I would not normally do - because of alcohol - I needed to eliminate the alcohol.
When I attempted to moderate, I moderated by shame.............guess I only binge humiliated myself
Sounds kind of silly now
Keep posting, and Welcome!
Member
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Parkman OH
Posts: 114
Shame is something I deal with everyday right now. Though if I am to stay sober I cannot hide from those I have the most shame from due to my actions while drinking. The reason for this is the most shame i feel is from actions taken to those that were and are close to me.
Shame in regards to actions taken against myself, well that is most difficult as forgiving myself is a hard thing to do today. The best I can do today is Give it to my higher power daily, and try and not dwell on it throughout the day. If i catch myself dwelling, I try and make a conscious decision to give it to God. It's not easy but does help me through the day.
We all spent our addicted lives training our minds to accept our behaviors and rationalize our sick decisions. Now in recovery we have to learn to train our minds to accept the recovery we are striving for. When I say I give it to God, at this point, I'm not truly giving it at all. It is still there, but by catching myself in my thinking and doing the conscious act is training my mind to accept my powerlessness over my disease. It will take time to forgive myself, and be able to let it go but in training our minds to be ready for when it does happen is a recovery in itself.
Shame in regards to actions taken against myself, well that is most difficult as forgiving myself is a hard thing to do today. The best I can do today is Give it to my higher power daily, and try and not dwell on it throughout the day. If i catch myself dwelling, I try and make a conscious decision to give it to God. It's not easy but does help me through the day.
We all spent our addicted lives training our minds to accept our behaviors and rationalize our sick decisions. Now in recovery we have to learn to train our minds to accept the recovery we are striving for. When I say I give it to God, at this point, I'm not truly giving it at all. It is still there, but by catching myself in my thinking and doing the conscious act is training my mind to accept my powerlessness over my disease. It will take time to forgive myself, and be able to let it go but in training our minds to be ready for when it does happen is a recovery in itself.
Journey of Sobriety
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 195
Shame has been consuming me - My weekend was rough. What helped me, which I know sounds a bit corny.. but when I walked into AA I knew I was taking steps to never allow another blackout. Just knowing I was fixing the core problem has helped me cope with some of those shame filled emotions. I'm still dealing with it, but AA and choosing a sober life helps exponentially.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Making Amends
We seem to be naturally disinclined to make amends for the often horrible things we do to other people, conveniently putting aside the reality that without us in their lives, they would have avoided our version of abuse. Being drunk when we hurt people is no excuse for bad behavior; nor does this erase or decrease the suffering for those we've harmed.
When I attended my first AA meeting, I wasn't put off by the mention of God in the AA Big Book Twelve Steps, at least in part because I knew that I could easily "fake" this part of the "AA way" in the event that this became necessary. Rather, it was the requirement to make "a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves" that set me off. And, of course, later making amends to those I'd harmed. Less than five minutes into my first meeting, and I'm already scheming about how I can sidestep some of the steps. I suppose this meant that I was where I needed to be.
What's often lost in all this is that the very act of making amends produces a fundamental change in who we are as people. It is an act of forgiving ourselves that purges the soul (or, for those who are averse to "soul-speak," the ego or the self) and which allows for healing. I don't know in what universe it is that making amends is either a "waste of time" or, worse, harmful under the right conditions.
I was a vocal expert at demanding reparations from others when things didn't go my way -- people, institutions, events, circumstances -- but I never rushed to the front of the line for attention and redress when I'd hurt someone else. And, after all, hadn't they played some part in my unhappiness? Isn't justice about redressing harm? My version of justice being served was decidedly one-sided and wholly self-serving.
Harmful behaviors are time- and place- limited. They occur at certain moments in time and in specific circumstances. "What good is it to dredge up the past?" "It happened so long ago. They should be over it by now." "It's just a (stupid) formality. They should just be happy that I'm sober." "My new behavior is enough of an amends." But harm, hurt feelings, pain and suffering are timeless. How many of us continue to suffer from the consequences of hurts that were perpetrated against us years, even decades ago? You can't read more than one or two posts here without reading about how one of us suffered from harm or abuse at a distant time in our lives that still haunts us, that forever changed the course of our lives, and not in a good way.
Is it truly such a simple thing to "get over" heartbreak, abuse, loss, betrayal? What kind of life do I imagine I'd have if I didn't make amends to those I've harmed? And what does it say about me as a person that I'm content to either assume that the people I've harmed have gotten "over it," or that it's their problem that they continue to suffer due to my behavior? It is a particularly gratuitous assumption that other people no long suffer as a result of my past behaviors by virtue of my "getting better." One has nothing to do with the other.
Making amends for me was not about going over each and every incident (though it was important that I didn't completely leave these out), but about my behaviors and my motivations for doing what I did, about how what I did hurt someone else; the things I did to bring pain, suffering and disappointment into someone else's life, which were more often continuous harms rather than one-offs. And yes, it's very clear to me that my doing so made a meaningful difference in my recovery and in how I've gone about living my life since I put down the drink.
Rationalizing my behavior doesn't work for me; it never did. So why would I expect that my rationalizations for not making amends would be any different? Making a living amends is a tool that I can use when making direct amends is potentially harmful or otherwise impossible to do to those I've harmed but, for me, is not a "safe" or a particularly useful or meaningful alternative to making a direct amends when doing so is possible. I could hardly remain sober, or at least not comfortable in my sobriety, knowing that I did nothing besides feature the "new me" to set things right.
When I attended my first AA meeting, I wasn't put off by the mention of God in the AA Big Book Twelve Steps, at least in part because I knew that I could easily "fake" this part of the "AA way" in the event that this became necessary. Rather, it was the requirement to make "a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves" that set me off. And, of course, later making amends to those I'd harmed. Less than five minutes into my first meeting, and I'm already scheming about how I can sidestep some of the steps. I suppose this meant that I was where I needed to be.
What's often lost in all this is that the very act of making amends produces a fundamental change in who we are as people. It is an act of forgiving ourselves that purges the soul (or, for those who are averse to "soul-speak," the ego or the self) and which allows for healing. I don't know in what universe it is that making amends is either a "waste of time" or, worse, harmful under the right conditions.
I was a vocal expert at demanding reparations from others when things didn't go my way -- people, institutions, events, circumstances -- but I never rushed to the front of the line for attention and redress when I'd hurt someone else. And, after all, hadn't they played some part in my unhappiness? Isn't justice about redressing harm? My version of justice being served was decidedly one-sided and wholly self-serving.
Harmful behaviors are time- and place- limited. They occur at certain moments in time and in specific circumstances. "What good is it to dredge up the past?" "It happened so long ago. They should be over it by now." "It's just a (stupid) formality. They should just be happy that I'm sober." "My new behavior is enough of an amends." But harm, hurt feelings, pain and suffering are timeless. How many of us continue to suffer from the consequences of hurts that were perpetrated against us years, even decades ago? You can't read more than one or two posts here without reading about how one of us suffered from harm or abuse at a distant time in our lives that still haunts us, that forever changed the course of our lives, and not in a good way.
Is it truly such a simple thing to "get over" heartbreak, abuse, loss, betrayal? What kind of life do I imagine I'd have if I didn't make amends to those I've harmed? And what does it say about me as a person that I'm content to either assume that the people I've harmed have gotten "over it," or that it's their problem that they continue to suffer due to my behavior? It is a particularly gratuitous assumption that other people no long suffer as a result of my past behaviors by virtue of my "getting better." One has nothing to do with the other.
Making amends for me was not about going over each and every incident (though it was important that I didn't completely leave these out), but about my behaviors and my motivations for doing what I did, about how what I did hurt someone else; the things I did to bring pain, suffering and disappointment into someone else's life, which were more often continuous harms rather than one-offs. And yes, it's very clear to me that my doing so made a meaningful difference in my recovery and in how I've gone about living my life since I put down the drink.
Rationalizing my behavior doesn't work for me; it never did. So why would I expect that my rationalizations for not making amends would be any different? Making a living amends is a tool that I can use when making direct amends is potentially harmful or otherwise impossible to do to those I've harmed but, for me, is not a "safe" or a particularly useful or meaningful alternative to making a direct amends when doing so is possible. I could hardly remain sober, or at least not comfortable in my sobriety, knowing that I did nothing besides feature the "new me" to set things right.
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,502
Kitten, the only thing you do is to stop drinking and then you will know that there will be no more shame involved. The negative feelings will go away gradually and people will see the changes in you. Your self-esteem will improve. You can do this.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
What EndGameNYC said. I personally have not done the formal AA process but my own thinking and way is very similar regarding introspection, moral inventories, amends, and making these things a constructive, meaningful lifestyle of my own creation that involves connection with others.
Other than that:
Depends who is it. If it's someone at work, or people I don't have significant personal relationships with, it's uncomfortable but it happened so no way to erase it.
If it's someone you still have a close (especially personal) connection with, I think it can be a great enhancement to an authentic relationship and intimacy. It's all based on the feature that they have seen you at your most vulnerable... I think in a good relationship, if this can be combined with forgiveness and acceptance, it can take it to a whole new level. Would not be a bad thing for me
Other than that:
Originally Posted by kitten29
How do you deal with it if someone has seen you at your worst?
If it's someone you still have a close (especially personal) connection with, I think it can be a great enhancement to an authentic relationship and intimacy. It's all based on the feature that they have seen you at your most vulnerable... I think in a good relationship, if this can be combined with forgiveness and acceptance, it can take it to a whole new level. Would not be a bad thing for me
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
