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Speaker 3The day I stopped trying to forgive myself was the day I actually started. This is another one of those great dichotomies in addiction recovery where the less I try to control the outcomes, the less I try to manipulate the circumstances around me and do God's job instead of God's work or the universe's job instead of God's work. Instead of the universe's work, the better my life gets. The more I'm able to experience that sense of ease and comfort that I used to experience with drinking and drugs, the more I start to be okay in my own skin. It is the great irony of recovery. The less I do, the less I try to put my fingerprints on everything, the better my life ends up getting. The more peace I experience. The more quiet I experience. At the end of the day, human beings, myself for sure, but I will argue that all human beings, especially addicts and alcoholics, all we want is peace. Just peace of mind. Peace. Just quiet. Because the most beautiful experience to feel in addiction recovery is that ease and comfort, that peace with no strings attached. When I drank, there was ease and comfort for a minute and then it went away. And then if I had one problem, now I had two. I had three problems and many more problems sub in sequence, one after another. I spent the first year of my sobriety, the second time around, convinced that if I just felt bad enough about what I did, if I beat myself up enough, I would never do it again. If I just made myself really realize how much of a piece of crap I really was in active addiction, I would change and I would feel better and I would accept who I was. And I would, I would move on from my past, but that doesn't work. Spoiler alert here. Shame is not a recovery program. Today, the difference between regret that heals you and regret that buries you and why most of us in recovery are doing it backwards. Forgiveness is a tough one. It's, it's one of those things where resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. If I don't forgive somebody, I'm the only one suffering. Nobody else is thinking about it, but me. I'm the only one that's drinking that poison and hoping that person dies. I'm going to get, I'm planning and prodding. I'm going to get that mother effer. I'm going to turn the tables and I'm going to serve justice as if I'm the one that is capable of serving justice and making sure that things go right. When at the end of the day, it's just me trying to control the outcomes and be in control of the universe, sheriff of the universe. If I, if you will, forgiveness is not for me. Forgiveness is not for you. Forgiveness is for the other person. When we forgive people, ourselves included, when we forgive the, the, the power experienced after that true forgiveness, and I don't mean going up to somebody and saying, Hey, I forgive you, but just letting it go, surrendering the resentment, asking for help, talking about it, getting through it, working through it, journaling therapy, whatever it looks like for you. When we accept the fact that I can let this person off the hook. I can, it's not even about letting off the hook. That's the wrong terminology. It's it's the problem with forgiveness. I find a lot of the time is that it ego takes over. And when ego takes over, it's me versus you and, or it's me versus me. I need to win here. I need to beat myself up because I deserve it. I need to come out ahead. It's not about that. When we involve ego, there's nothing good that comes with that because now it's us versus them. It's becomes a competition. And I want to be right. And I want to win. I want to make that person suffer because they need to pay the consequences. As if, again, I am some sort of sheriff of the universe. I'm the police of society. I'm the policeman of good and bad justice. Welcome back or welcome to recovering out loud podcast. I'm your host, Anthony. I'm an addict and an alcoholic been in recovery since 2015, had a relapse at about seven and a half years sober came back in, in January of 25, I'm now almost a year and a half sober again today by the grace of God and the grace of my recovery community. I shouldn't be here. Let's be honest. I should be dead. I should be in jail. Uh, but I am, and I'm grateful for that. And I thank God every single day when I wake up and when I go to bed, because this is all bonus time for me, man. I didn't think I'd make it this far. I didn't think I'd make it out of a lot of the scrapes that I put myself into, but I'm here today to tell the story and offer my experience I'm not talking down from a spiritual hill. Top again, I'm not better or worse than any of you, but I am here to share my experience with the hopes that one person gets something out of it, because that's what was done to me when somebody else shares their experience, I benefit from it. And so that is my hope with all of these episodes and today's on self forgiveness, because let's face it. Shame is a huge part of addiction. It keeps a lot of people stuck, guilt and shame, mainly shame. Forgiveness is that powerful tool that a lot of us don't want to use because again, we're going to look foolish. We're going to lose the fight. They're going to win. I'm going to let them off the hook. It's all bullshit. I'm going to let myself off the hook. Let's talk about it. So I want to do a quick check in. Where are you today? What's been on your mind all week? For me, I would say my biggest struggle, my unmanageability today in this past week has been patience. The lack of patience, the inability to accept life on life's terms, the current circumstances, it can't be this way. I should be getting more money. I should be doing this. I should be doing more, but I should and would and could have, should, should, you should remove should from your vocabulary. Expectations are nothing but premeditated resentments and resentments, as we know, like I said, are poison and no one else is thinking about it except for me and you. Let that shit go. I'm in the middle of it right now. So I'm going through something where, again, I'm not getting the results I think I should be getting, should, again, I'm not getting the results that I think I deserve. Things are moving very slow. I thought that I would be better off at this point in sobriety and recovery. And when I say better off, I mean from a financial standpoint, from an emotional standpoint. When I struggle, sometimes I think to myself, man, I, you know, I should be, I should know better than this. This is, I have the tools to deal with this. Why am I not dealing with it? Why does it keep coming back? These thoughts? Listen, it's out of my control. What I do know for without a shadow of a doubt is this too shall pass. Everything is temporary. Everything comes and everything goes in life, everything, just not in my time. And that's the big realization here is I need to accept the current nature of the situation. Doesn't mean I need to be a doormat and do nothing about it. I need to accept what is going on in life and then look for solutions. I don't sit in the problem. I do sit in the problem, but I try not to sit in the problem. I focus on solutions. The only way I can come up with the solutions is if my mind is clear. If my mind is quiet, if I'm at ease, if I am undisturbed. So how do I do that? I pray, I ask for help. I ask God to remove the fear, to remove the financial insecurity, to remove the resentment, because when I am quiet, the creativity comes and I'm able to solve any problem. Maybe not right in this instant. Maybe a lot of the time is do nothing. A lot of the time is just be patient, do the next right thing. You need to stop worrying and just let it happen. Trust the process. That's the answer a lot of the time. I find every person in recovery that you talk to is carrying something they haven't put down. Self-forgiveness is the work nobody markets because nobody wants to buy it, but it's the work. It's the small moments. I always talk about this. It's the moments you don't see on social media, the in-between, the going to the recovery meetings, the journaling, the praying, the helping other people. Those aren't flashy, sexy moments. So we don't romanticize them on social media. We don't post that stuff because it's boring and it's unfun. And maybe we should be posting it more. That is how recovery is built. Not in the winds. It's built in the tough moments where I am trudging the road to happy destiny. I am just in the trench, getting after it, doing the do things that I don't feel like doing. Why self-forgiveness is the hardest step. The hierarchy of forgiveness most people don't see. Forgiving others is hard, but it's socially encouraged. Being forgiven by others is humbling, but available through amends, and listen, not is going to forgive you by the way you could go make amends and live a better life and tell those people that you're doing better and people don't want to hear it you've hurt them too too much and that's okay it's not my job again to serve justice in the world it's not my job to get people to forgive me because then i'm controlling again and i'm acting like the the actor that shakespeare talks about i'm trying to control i'm trying i'm the actor i'm trying to control the lights i'm trying to control the camera i'm trying to control the stage everybody on the stage if everyone would just stay put the world would be happy if everyone just followed my script the world would be a better place alcoholism right alcoholic thinking i need to feel okay by controlling the future controlling the outcomes so we have forgiving others being forgiven by others and then the third one which is forgiving yourself almost nobody tells you how and most of us are terrified of it how do i even do that it sounds very woo-woo to me the fear underneath it if i forgive myself i'll do it again i'll let myself off the hook i'm going to repeat the behavior we treat self-punishment like an insurance policy the trap shame doesn't keep you sober shame is actually one of the strongest predictors of relapse june 10 kent tangany and colleagues have spent decades showing that shame proneness versus guilt proneness is linked to substance misuse not protection from it shame is a powerful emotion it's a powerful feeling you know what makes that go away just keep drinking i'll just drink i don't want to think about this i don't want to think about how i've screwed my life up i don't want to think about all the people i've hurt i need to drink because it works until it doesn't the reframe we're building toward here forgiving yourself is not letting yourself off the hook it's getting off the hook so you can actually forgive yourself it's not letting yourself do the work i'm going to get myself off the hook so that i can change i can repair i can recover i can amend i can grow i can evolve i can do the work one step at a time story block one the things i couldn't forgive myself for okay so one for me one specific moment where i really had a hard time forgiving myself was blowing all that money i'm going to talk about money again because this is a prevalent issue in my life it's a huge cause of disturbance for me and i want to work through it hopefully you can get something out of this but essentially i for a long time i'm still working through it clearly could not forgive myself for blowing all that money on hotels airbnbs drugs partying i look back now and i'm still paying the price for it it's painful and i just go away but it wouldn't i have to pay the consequences of my action i need to also let myself get off the hook forgive myself give myself permission to heal to move on from it because it already happened and i can't control what already happened i can control how i react to that circumstance it's done it happened i can't change it how am i going to respond am i going to sit in my shit and worry about it all day and cry and complain on the podcast or am i going to work through it am i going to ask for help am i going to put pen to paper and budget and change my life do the hard things the unsexy actions and routines and those small moments every day and it's not about being perfect it's about progress not perfection i'm better than i was yesterday that's it so if i walk through that moment in present tense what was i telling myself what was the lie what was the chaser to that lie what was the limiting belief here the lie what story am i spinning myself with this one is i'll never get out of it that's a good one i'm going to lose my house i'm going to get i'm going to be broke this is never going to end that's another lie and belief those coupled together are dangerous because if i keep repeating that to myself i am now creating a new belief a new identity for myself that i don't deserve good things that's another lie too there it is i don't deserve to be out of debt i don't deserve good things i don't deserve a good life because i beat myself up and i did this all to myself and it's my fault and poor me i don't deserve to be out of debt i don't deserve a good self-pity another lie another thing i could not forgive myself for for a long time was relapsing after seven and a half years i really beat myself up to the point where i was so embarrassed so ashamed to come back and that's what kept me sick kept me sick for a long time the inability to accept the nature of reality ties in here again this happened i relapsed and i was in denial i couldn't admit it because don't you know this can't be happening i can't fathom the fact that i made a mistake big enough to change my entire life where i knew better i knew better and i still did it anyways i have to work through that i've worked through it a lot the past is the past it's happened how do i forgive myself and move on well it takes time and time takes time and work and no one likes to hear that but it's true i have to continue to do the recovery work and what i find is with a connection with my power higher power the universe sun the water whatever you want to call it my connection with a greater purpose will get me out of that but i still need to do the work and in therapy and journaling what is the belief here again what is the negative belief what is the limiting belief in all of this that i don't deserve healing i don't deserve good things i don't deserve to be forgiven teaching block one guilt versus shame the distinction that changes everything the single most useful distinction i've ever heard in recovery emotions guilt is about behavior shame is about identity so guilt is i did something bad shame is i'm a bad person for doing that thing i'm bad this isn't my line this is bernays brown's work but built on decades of research and brain brown frames it simply guilt equals i did something bad shame equals i am bad why this matters in recovery guilt is a working signal it points at behavior i made a mistake i'm human it motivates repair and dissolves when you make it right when you make amends when you own up to it when you take responsibility shame is a closed loop it tells you the problem is you you can't make amends for being yourself so it's tied closely to your identity so two different versions here i'll give you an example guilt version i lied to someone this is just hypothetical i lied to someone who loved me i owe them honesty and a different version of me amends change peace the shame version of that i'm a liar i'm a piece of garbage i always have been leads to drinking again because what's the point anyways i'm inherently bad there's no coming back from this i am inherently bad might as well drink i'm a mess up i'm a screw up what's the point the cruel joke most of us were raised on shame as a discipline tool we confuse it with conscience we think it's keeping us honest we think it's keeping us honest it's not it's keeping us sick so here's how you can test it for yourself am i telling myself i did something wrong or am i telling myself i am something wrong the second sentence is a relapse risk full stop so this is more than just philosophy it's science so the work of tanganyi shows guilt prone people tend toward repair behavior shame prone people tend toward avoidance denial externalizing blame so victim mentality and substance use same harm two different emotional responses two completely different recovery outcomes story block two the relapse reckoning as you know i had seven and a half years and i went back out i remember exactly the day it happened it was a long process it didn't happen overnight relapse never does it happened in the weeks months leading up to that day the aftermath wasn't the drinking of that the aftermath was the math i just threw away seven and a half years that story i told myself in my head and i was in denial for a long time too i told myself i wasn't in a relapse when fully was abusing adhd medication and buying it online the shame voice is you of all people you were the one telling other people how to do this you were in recovery a member of recovery and now you go and do this way to go pal the thing i had to learn the hard way was if i couldn't forgive myself for the relapse i was going to stay relapsed and i did for a long time shame is the fuel for the next drink period teaching block two what self-forgiveness actually is and isn't what it isn't so self-forgiveness is not letting yourself off the hook you stay on the hook of repair you get off the hook of identity it's not forgetting you remember exactly that's how you don't repeat it it's not a feeling that arrives one morning it's a practice you do over and over and over until one day you notice you're not flinching anymore it's not saying i was sick it wasn't me it was you a version of you owning that is the door self-forgiveness is a decision repeated not a destination separating the act from the identity i did harm does not equal i am harm making amends including the amends you owe yourself step-based recovery traditions have long hold held the amends process is incomplete if you skip yourself you can't from an empty container and you can't keep drinking from a poisoned one. Self-compassion is these three things working together. Ready? Self-kindness instead of self-judgment. Two, common humanity. Recognizing suffering and failure are part of being human, not proof you're uniquely broken. And three, mindfulness. Holding painful feelings without exaggerating or suppressing them. Why does this matter for us? Addiction culture and a lot of recovery culture can run on self-flagellation. So I'm beating myself over the head with a two by four. Self-compassion sounds soft. The research says it's actually the strongest predictor of follow-through on hard change. Self-punishment is not accountability. Self-punishment is the avoidance of accountability. Because while you're hating yourself, you're not actually doing the repair. Forgiving yourself is not the reward for doing the work. It's the reward for doing the work. It's the reward for doing the work. It's the prerequisite. Self-forgiveness practice. So not a worksheet, a way of living. Take what you need, leave what you don't like. Name. So one, I'm going to name these out. There's five of them. Name the specific behavior, not the identity. Out loud or on paper. I like to do it on paper. I did blank, not I am blank. Watch the language, police it gently. Words are important. Look at how you're talking to yourself. The most important conversation you have every day is the one you have with yourself. Two, make the most important conversation you have with yourself. Make the amends you can make. Direct where possible. Living amends where not possible. The harm you did to yourself counts. Write yourself a letter you owe yourself. Forgive yourself in a letter. We did that in treatment. Very powerful stuff. Three, find one other human being who knows the worst thing. So your biggest secret. Shame dies in the light. It does not die in your head. The reason we stay stuck is because we keep the story private. I always talk about this. Secrets. You're only as sick as your secrets. Go and tell somebody you trust. Tell them what you're going through. Number four, notice the relapse of the mind. The emotional relapse. Your emotional sobriety. How was your emotional sobriety today? Every time you catch yourself running the highlight reel of your worst memories. That's not accountability. That's a craving. Or I wouldn't even say a craving. That's a obsession of the mind. Treat it like one. Call someone. Move your body. Don't sit in it. Go outside for a walk. Five, do the next right thing. And if you can't do that, do the next thing right. Make your bed. Brush your teeth. Make dinner. Go to the gym. Go for a walk. This is the oldest line in recovery for a reason. Self-forgiveness is built in the present, not negotiated about the past. Once again, the day I stopped trying to forgive myself was the day I actually started. Because I stopped treating. Because I stopped treating it like a feeling I needed to earn. And started treating it like a feeling I needed to earn. Like a practice I needed to do. Action. Against my, contrary to my best thinking. That is sobriety, man. That is recovery. I am taking daily action contrary to my better, best thinking. My best beliefs. I don't really know why I'm doing this, but I'm going to do it anyways. Because that guy is doing it. And it's working for him. He's happy. He's sober. He's peaceful. I want that. So I'm going to do what he did to get that. Simple, not easy. If you've done something you don't think you can come back from, I promise you, the way back is not through more self-hatred or self-flagellance or beating yourself up or anger or resentment or punishment or discipline. Now, discipline is a good one, but you don't need to beat yourself up. You've tried that already. It didn't work. That's why you're here. We need help. I need help. Every day I need help. I still don't want to do the things that I need to do. The do things it's painful. It's uncomfortable. It's work. But I know I'm going to get the results at the end of the day if I just keep doing it one step at a time. You are not the worst thing you did. You are what you do next. Your motive. Just keep moving. Do the next right thing. Just keep going. The worst thing you can do is give up and say it's not going to work. And then sit in your house all day and think about yourself. Get moving. Do the action or suffer the consequences. Realistically, at the end of the day, that's really what I suffer the consequences all the time when I don't do the things I should, I ought to be doing. The recovery, do things that helped me in the beginning. They don't change today. They're the same things. It looks a lot different, but the principles are the same. The actions are the same. I just got to keep going. And so do you. And if you're going through it right now, this too shall pass. Have faith. Know that it's going to get better if I just stay on the course. Par for the course. On the path. Keep doing the next right thing. It's going to work out. I know that deep in my heart. And I have to keep reminding myself of that. Because a lot of the time, it doesn't feel like it's going to work out. And it feels like this pain is going to last forever. And it feels like I'm never going to overcome this and never get out of this. Trust me, I have many, many experiences where I got through it. And I'm sure you do too. Think about all the times you've gotten through hard things. Just because it doesn't look the way it looks now. Just because you're saying this is harder than that thing I went through before. No, it's not. The only reason you think that is because your perception, looking back on it, it looks easy now. I'll give you an example. Running three marathons. I never thought I could run a marathon. When I did it, I believed I could do it. But throughout that process, there was times where I did, I believed I could not do it. I believed that it was too hard, too far, too much work. And then I did it. I can translate that experience. And listen, you don't have to have run a marathon. I'm sure you know for a fact you have an experience in your life that you've gotten through that you didn't think you could get through. Use that experience. Put it in the cookie jar, as David Goggins says. Save all your hardest experiences, all your hardest trials and tribulations, all your hardest adversity. Put them in the cookie jar. You got through them because you're here today. Use that going forward. I can do anything if I put my mind to it, if I submit the outcome, if I just do the work in the beginning internally. I'm going to run over the results up to the universe. I'm going to get the results, not in my time and not the way I think I'm going to get them, but I will get them. And I will find that at the end of the day, what I needed and what I wanted were the exact same thing. I think I need the car. I think I need the bigger paycheck. I think I need the bigger house right now, but I don't. I just want those things because I want to believe that that's what will make me happy and comfortable. What I want are at the same level playing field. My life is good today. Try harder to bring those into conjunction with each other, into agreement with each other. What I need and what I want, those need to be the same for me today. It's simple, not easy. And if no one's told you this yet, I love you. Recovering Out Loud, follow, like, subscribe. Please rate the podcast. I love every single one of you. Thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 2Have you met my kids?
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