The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Todays reading is about how many of us who have lived with alcoholism have experienced shame and guilt. Shame being more about our inner selves (thoughts and feelings) and guilt having to do with our outer selves (words and actions). This page not only acknowledges how common it is to be burdened with guilt and shame, but also offers a healthy way to heal through the steps.
For me, guilt was just a foundation for daily life. I never question feeling guilty, because I always did! Like many other things that became clearer to me after having been in the program, I have started to understand that it is not necessarily normal to always feel guilty. Being able to identify when I have actually said or done something that needs remedying has made a positive difference for me. Being accountable is a trait that is attractive to me in others, and I pay attention to the times that I am not holding myself accountable for any situation. I also know the difference between holding myself accountable and accepting the blame for any and all given situations. In this way, the thought for the day resonated with me:
Have I considered that normal feelings of shame and guilt might help my recovery instead of hinder it? This also reminds me of a time when my sponsor asked me to think of my character defects as tools that I needed at one time, but no longer serve me.
Good Morning Mary Thank you for posting g this inspiring message. Before program Guilt and shame could have been my middle name. as I always felt responsible when things went wrong. Entering program, leaning to focus on myself in a realistic manner, I became able to define my part, learn about my assets and developed new tools to live by. Goodby guilt and shame .
Great topic
Good morning MIP! Thank you Mary for your service and the daily. Thank you both for your shares and ESH. I too arrived with an abundance of shame and guilt that were ever-present. It was part of my upbringing, and I considered it as normal as brushing my teeth. I also had a 'glass half empty' view of life, events, etc. so called myself a realist but today, looking back, feel I was much more of a pessimist.
I so agree that working the steps was my path to freedom. Freedom from my past, my obsessions, my outlook, attitude, etc. Each step brought me closer to the God of my understanding and a better awareness of me and what makes me tick.
Today, I own my 'stuff' and correct my 'stuff' so I don't carry any baggage from one day to the next. I love keeping my life simple, living one day at a time and using the many tools of this program to grow, heal and deal with life as it happens. Being present and authentic through practicing healthier ways is a lovely way to experience life! I am grateful!
Happy Sunday all - make it a great day! I sent momma to church with her sister so I can go to my meeting....life is great, one day at a time!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Thank you Mary for your service, and to Betty and Iamhere for their ESH. Invaluable as always.
When married to my SO, I did not carry much guilt. I knew it was his problem, I KNEW I didn't do anything to cause it. Shame however, was always present even though I did not always admit it. I was ashamed to ask friends over for a cup of whatever, normal adult BBQ get-togethers became non-existent, and I was always so careful to hide the chaos that was my life! When my kid was younger & I worked only part-time, I so wanted our house to be that fun "hang-out" place for he and his friends... well, I bet you all could understand why that never materialized. So I carried around SHAME like a huge lead weight.
Fast-forward 10 years, two rehabs and a separation and I had developed huge amounts of GUILT! I was reading the three C's, and the three A's, but I could not shake the overwhelming feeling that I HAD FAILED MY MARRIAGE! That I failed my spouse, my child and myself. The first 6 months of life after moving out were joyous for my kid... but true hell for me! It took daily check-ins here and positive words from my family, friends, and then my sponsor for me to continue to hang on with some semblance of happiness/peace for my decision. I bawled every. damn. day. It wasn't until I thoroughly worked through Step 4 that I released my Guilt. I also began to have an idea that I DID have a role to play in my spouse's disease(although honestly, a small one by the second rehab). I have even begun to understand what that role was and why I played that part. I have forgiven myself for trying to survive.
Like Iamhere, I too, use the tools of this program to grow, heal and deal as life happens.
Today is a rest day for me... I have been dying to get to the beach, and finally cleared way to do so... but the weather had other plans! LOL! Instead of being our usual triple digit weekend, we have fog/overcast. Here in the valley it will burn off, but it is supposed to hang around at the beach... so I have decided to stay home. I worked in the yard yesterday (taking advantage of that fog!), but now I am sore.
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-- Edited by PosiesandPuppies on Sunday 18th of August 2019 12:50:38 PM
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"The wolf that thrives, is the one you feed." - Cherokee legend
"Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields... Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness." Mary Oliver
Tough to live, but so important. I'm here today just to get some encouragement from all of you, at work. (I'm writing at work, that is.) My AH is waiting to hear from lawyer about developments re his DUI. Jail time or no, trial or no. I'm not even sure. He's very stressed about it. On top of that we are in the middle of deep financial mess, and AH found out that his current place of work is about to start doing background checks. Since his job does involve children (although not driving them anywhere), this is clearly not going to go well.
For so long I have been trying to "clean up" the mess that AH has made of his life. Between that and being angry and wanting to hurt him, it has made for a very wearying existence. That said, recently I decided that I need to just accept that this is the way things are and not try to clean up his mess. No matter what I do, it will never be the end of the mess. I realized that by being the enabler, I've only worked myself into this spiderweb of a mess deeper; that all the efforts I made to fix and hide just made things take longer to get to Really Bad than they would have if I had done the right thing from the get go. Right now I accept that we have now landed at Really Bad and the only way to get to the other side is to stay alive all the hours of the day until we are on the other side.
So, while things are Really Bad at my house, I'm sort of proud of myself that right now I'm saying "his disaster is his problem. I can only manage my part." And I feel ok. Not great, but calmer than I might have been before.
The truth of it is that my AH has been on a train headed for Disaster land since he first took the extra sip of booze. I've only recently accepted this (I'm not exactly a quick study at certain things...) I'm finding that I'm not even as angry at him as I used to me. I see him as disabled now. He has memory issues and is less and less able to function in society. Every day someone else manages to annoy him to the point that he thinks the world is against him. Now I just nod and try not to engage.
The main difficulty for me is that I don't yet have the guts to tell my friends that I see my spouse as disabled. So I am still hiding a lot of things.
Today he got mad at me for not answering my phone at work even though I told him repeatedly that when I'm at my job I cannot answer the phone. He just wanted to vent about his life. There was no way to point out the irony that his inability to be a professional is why he has never been able to retain any job.
Right now I have to go home and check on my kids. The littlest one (9 yrs old) has taken it upon himself to try and help his dad feel better. Yesterday he tried to find the aspirin. He was proud to tell me that he didn't know what that was, but he knew where the medicine cabinet was, and he read all the labels, and he figured it out. Then he offered to watch dad's favorite tv show with him even though he himself doesn't care or understand the show (it's an adult show). Dad was so pleased that son was "trying to take such good care of him".
I just said to myself, "well here's another long term disaster in the making". But I couldn't do anything about it right then. My heart is just very heavy; at some point I have to figure out how to educate him that it's not his job to fix his dad. (Good lord, look where that kind of thinking got me!)
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