Forgetting about these false assumptions that people might have allows for you to focus all of your mental power on your addiction treatment and self-improvement. It also makes reaching out to people from your past to make amends much easier. Social hygiene is an essential part of addressing guilt and shame related to addiction. To begin this step and start developing social hygiene it’s important to evaluate what areas you want to change.

• We don’t feel self-esteem because we got out of bed in the morning.
• It is a problem that some people fight for the rest of their lives.
• (And incidentally, unless you admit what you did to harm the person or people you have harmed, they may not be willing to forgive you).

We don’t feel self-esteem because we got out of bed in the morning. We feel it because we made it to work on time for an important meeting when traffic was difficult, perhaps by getting up early or taking the back roads, all while making sure the kids got to school on time. Only by allowing someone to work through their difficulties themselves do we give them a chance to grow. Research suggests that shame-prone individuals are more likely to engage in addictive behaviors as a way to cope with their negative emotions. Shame can also hinder the recovery process by making individuals feel unworthy of help, leading to poor self-esteem and feelings of hopelessness.

Q: How can I learn to forgive myself during addiction recovery?

Often, the only way we can find compassion for ourselves or self-forgiveness is to reach out to something bigger than our individual selves. If you were abused as a child and then repeated the cycle of abuse with your own children, it is vital that you gain some self-understanding. Understanding that the trauma(s) you experienced created problems within you that were out of your guilt and shame in recovery control can go a long way toward forgiving yourself for the ways that you have hurt others. There are many damaging and negative stereotypes out there about people recovering with addiction, but I won’t mention any of them here. These can increase or perpetuate the feelings of shame during rehab. It is important to recognise and understand that these stereotypes are untrue.

Mistakes are a natural part of life, and it’s normal to experience guilt when you have or feel that you have done something wrong. In fact, guilt can be a constructive emotion because it helps you learn and grow in your personal life. If you hurt someone and feel guilty about it, you won’t want to do it again. Peer support also plays an important role in addiction recovery by providing individuals with a sense of community, connection, and empathy. Peer support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous provide participants with regular meetings where they can share their experiences openly without fear of judgement. As someone who has gone through addiction recovery or knows someone who has, you may recognize the overwhelming and often consuming emotions of shame and guilt.

Treatment Programs

To continue to live a life that is free of the feelings of guilt and shame, acknowledge your value system. Review what you believe is right and wrong to solidify your value system. When situations arise and you are unsure what the correct https://ecosoberhouse.com/ thing to do is, consult your value system and act within these guidelines. If you do not have a guideline for certain situations, think the situation through thoroughly weighing the pros and cons of different courses of action.

All of these strategies have been thoroughly researched and have proven to be successful in helping individuals cope with shame and guilt during addiction recovery. So, let’s get started on how to implement these practices in your recovery journey. When we ignore our feelings of guilt and continue to do what we believe is wrong, we feel shame. Shame is when we internalize guilt and begin to believe we are a bad person because we did something wrong and ignored our feelings of guilt.

Joining a 12-Step Program for Continued Support

One promising study, however, found that a self-directed workbook could help people forgive themselves (Griffin et al., 2015). This means that even shame-prone people who are less likely to self-forgive can take steps to reach self-forgiveness. Although shame and guilt are experienced in different ways psychologically, they are also expressed in different ways behaviorally. The first step to recovery from drug or alcohol addiction is getting sober. Forgiveness is a large component of the process too, both in terms of seeking forgiveness from the people you’ve hurt and forgiving yourself for the things you have done and said when you were using. It eats away at your self-worth and causes depression — and as you probably know already, feeling depressed and bad about yourself is a common trigger for using.