Dee74

I think almost everyone has regrets - regrets for how they've acted, or things they've lost by their actions, or even just wasted years...

The thing is - we can't undo those things and we can't change whatever happened....they're a part of us and we need to accept them to move on.

Increasingly, I think of myself as a battered old piece of furniture or china or something...every dent, every scratch, every lick of paint, every bit of greeny patina tells my story.

My history.
My struggle.

My journey.

Everything, good or bad, has bought me to this point - and this point is pretty darn good.

I'm not saying forget about the past, but ..put it in perspective... todays a day to do wonderful things with - a blank page, a new start.

I'm happy, I'm secure, I'm at peace....and I'm sober.

It's a great place to be,



D

Jeni26

Great post Dee.

I find if I'm chained to the past, I can't move forward. I wasn't the best Mum in the world when my kids were little. I fooled myself that as I went through the motions I wasnt too bad, but there is so much more to parenting than reading a bedtime story and dropping them off at football practice. I was an absent Mum, locked in my own little world where I would count down the hours until they were in bed and I could uncork the wine. I was resentful of the amount of my time and energy that they took.

As much as I wish now that I could rewind the clock, I try and focus on today. I've a great relationship with them now they are young adults. I listen, I support, I focus on them and give them more of me than I ever did before.

It's never too late to turn things around in our lives.

CaseyW

My favorite part of the AA 9th step promises that are read out loud at many meetings has always been the two lines in the middle that go: We will not regret the past now wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

Your post reminds me of that part of the promises. If I don't drink, if I work on my recovery, I can get to that point where my past doesn't haunt me anymore, where I fully accept that it took whatever it took for me to get where I'm at today and that's exactly where I need to be right now. I can find that peace in active recovery. I truly believe that today and I look forward to getting to the place you're describing in my own life, Dee.

mecanix

The things i did !

As i was tought once :-

although it is the same me who was born from my mum i am no longer 8lbs in weight,
I am no longer the bulimic teenager,
I am no longer the needy and isolated gay 20 something,
I am no longer the alcoholic 30 something always running if things looked painful.

I was all those people and more, they bought me to here , i am not them but in another way i am .
I am a very different man today , all those other me's made some stinking decisions .
At the time i didn't know any better , can i forgive the 30 something runner and the parental disappointment as they realised they weren't going to be grandparents, yes

the 20 something needy and hurt guy, sure

the bulimic teenager trying to do his best to make things work and seem normal , yupp

The child who went through a divorce and felt he hurt and let down his parents , yes

Most of us like to believe in a continuity of ourselves , i don't have much of a fixed idea of myself .
Certainly i was those people but quite often now i feel that i am in the eye of the beholder.

This is me now , not then , we grow we change .. i am no longer 8lbs or struggle to say my ABC's ..

m

venuscat

Awesome post Casey....I completely concur, and thank you. ♥

And thank you Dee. ♥

letitgo

Well said Dee

48heath

For me the promises have come true.

"We will not regret the past now wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace."

Soberwolf

Excellent post & thread D

Aellyce

Great post, thanks Dee. Well, I do regret my recent relapse and behavior, very much so. It's hard for me to move beyond it but I guess there is no other way but forward. These are exactly the times when it's so important to have faith in the possibility of change.

kinix

I don't dwell in the past anymore. I once got a strange feeling that there are 2 events I don't control my birth and my death, and that I am an eyewitness to the events in my own life and that nothing really matters. Life is too short. I committed an act of physical violence against my father and was sent to a rehab. Now i never lose a chance to give him a hug. I have changed the world is never going to changed.

kinix

Denial the first word I learnt. Honesty Openmindedness and willingness and the most important thing I learnt was nothing is possible without acceptance. Surrender is a big word but it's not possible withgout acceptance. Everything has to transalate into a benefit in my life otherwise I am just talking the talk of the program. One of the biggest lessons I learnt.

Opivotal

Dee, I love your post.

MIRecovery

Our past is our greatest assert when helping others. Only an alcoholic knows of the pain, shame, and guilt associated with the wreckage of our past.

I remember so clearly talking to a newcomer about me being released from the hospital after my near fatal alcohol withdrawal and immediately going out and buying a fifth of vodka.

It turns out he had done more or less the same thing. You could see the light go on in his head. Standing before him was someone just like him except he had been sober for a while. The happy ending to the story is this individual has been sober for 4 years

Without the wreckage of my past how can i tell or advise other alcoholics what has worked for me?

least

I regret a lot of things I've done but don't let the past control me. I live in today and that's all that matters.

Delilah1

Dee, as always your post has inspired me. Thank you.

❤️ Delilah

thomas11

Your steady-handed approach to everyone here is invaluable in my opinion.

Wastinglife

Thanks for that Dee. I am struggling to escape my past and get some peace of mind. I've lost a whole decade, my entire 30's actually. I'm ten years behind all my friends and peers but as I turn 40, I hope to catch up.

Anna

Thank you, Dee. It's so good to remember this.

EndGameNYC

This is a tough one. Integrating that which I regret has seemed, in part, a process over which I have little control, though not altogether without awareness. As with everything else in nature, it doesn't proceed in a straight line, and it never seems to be as complete as it might be. My responsibility is to be who I am, who I can become, but there’s no reliable formula for doing so. So I’ll indulge in what many might take as the “dark side.”

When we see ourselves, other people, and things generally for who and what we/they are, we experience both freedom and dread. This is the way of a world in which a subject is confronted with objects that are external and therefore alienated from the self. This could easily be an epitaph written for the living, for those of us who put down the drink, particularly early on in our sobriety. There is what I consider to be a very good book on this subject, Eric Fromm's Escape from Freedom.

It’s been said that Western civilization finally went up in smoke in the chimneys at Dachau. I would add that its remnants have left us feeling entitled to live a good life, with every expectation that if we do everything “right,” we will avoid major suffering and enjoy near-unlimited success. Early on in life, I took on the job to discover the meaning of existence, and then let my friends know what it was. That didn’t work out very well. So I found myself in despair and continued to drink myself to death. Then I stopped, for twenty five years. And then I drank again for three.

I think that there are (at least) explanations around why we become attached to people and things, our decisions, and our missed opportunities. One explanation is that we needed to be attached to these people and things in the first place in order to suffer when things do not work out the way we would have liked them to. The heart may be a lonely hunter, but it also fights to the often bitter end in terms of letting people and things go. Passion drives love and perseverance, whereas heartbreak is the price we pay for our passions. Indifference is an absence of passion (temporary and otherwise), and despair is where we land when our indifference becomes our way of being. Procrastination is a way of staving off failure, even heartbreak, but it takes our lives as its hostage.

Though sustained happiness is likely not a universal experience, suffering most certainly is. There hasn’t been a person in the world who hasn't wanted what he or she could never have. Regrets, loss, heartbreak...Each offers something that the sun, the moon and the stars do not. Suffering. There are times when we seem drawn to it, and then it makes us feel crazy. I've derived idiosyncratic comfort from suffering during my life, wishing for a rebirth of the "better times" I had in the past, and hoping for a better future. Even in severe episodes of depression. (I'm aware that other people experience something similar, both in my personal and professional life.) A couple or more of my romantic relationships have ended badly, but at least my heart sang and, during those times, my trek through life was inspired, if not also inspiring. I've also had experiences that parallel this process in my work. If I’ve done it before, then I believe I can do it again.

That which does not kill us may only make us stronger, but not right away. Perhaps never. And the waiting can be brutal. I believe that people can die from a broken heart, from a dream unfulfilled, and from never having felt that they were ever truly loved. And from the decision not to act, which is a slower, more painful kind of death. Life is hard. And painful, sometimes unbearably so. I don’t know anyone who’s lived, to say, the age of thirty, who hasn’t experienced regret, loss and heartbreak. Why else do so many of us attempt to escape reality in such destructive ways? Adversity may not kill us, but we can die trying.

We are all born with “control issues.” Survival depends on it. We don’t want to get hurt, sick or injured, and we’re not born wanting to die. So we do what we can to avoid such things, but not always. Attempts at avoiding pain and increasing pleasure is part of the human condition. Risks must be taken, and consequences are neither rewards or punishments. We suffer from the very start from our own mortality, the gnawing and stampeding elephant in the room that moves us to keep one eye on the clock. I can’t think of a better reason to choose decisiveness over uncertainty, faith over doubt, or action over contemplation. Failure is not a luxury; nor is it a symptom for living life poorly. It is a right. The majority of my regrets do not reside in failed attempts, but in the decision not to act.

I’ve learned that I, that we, generally tend to be much more fragile than we’d like to think. The world is always impinging upon our well-being, and the Universe is indifferent to our suffering. Though it rarely is (beyond the manmade confines of the scientific method), we labor at making the world, and existence itself, rational. Science, sciencing and technological advancements are both worshipped and feared. They offer safety, while dangers lurk in the dark, and sometimes in the light of day. But progress only moves forwards, and not backwards, so we put our faith as a race in a better future, but only when we’re able to detach ourselves from dread. Which reminds me of an exchange I read in a book, when the world was beginning to destroy itself with war, in the late 1930’s in Europe: “It (the world) should, logically it should (work in a rational way). But the world doesn’t run on logic. It runs on the seven deadly sins and the weather.”

I don’t have any answers for anyone else, and I don’t need to tie all this up with a bow. Deception, pain and suffering are a part of life, as all older cultures have learned, sadder but wiser, to acknowledge.

At least we have music.

immri

Thanks. I needed to hear this today after all the mess I've just caused. Thank you.