Addiction Recovery And Shame, Can You Recognize The Tie-In?

Unfortunately, addiction recovery and shame often go together hand-in-hand. But what exactly,  is shame?

Well I guess a good place to start is the fact that in order for shame to occur two parties have to be involved: yourself, and another entity. This “other entity” could be your parents, family, other people, or even society in general. We believe that we must live up to their expectations. Shame is the idea that we’re constantly judged, we are exposed and naked, and in light of this examination, we are found to be ‘less than’ or lacking

One way of looking at shame is simply in not living up to our image of ourselves. But where did this image of ourselves come from? People were brought up in families for addiction or emotional problems existed often do not get their emotional for physical needs met. Shame is often fostered when children and teenagers are abandoned or neglected and cannot develop their own sense of self-worth. Also, that we were not given a clear idea of what ‘normal’ is, by which to measure ourselves.

This leads to a primary mindset of someone who is shame ridden. That is that I’m a failure; not that I made a mistake, but  that I am a mistake. Overwhelming shame can produce a sense of isolation in that we begin to feel unique in the aspect that we alone are unworthy of love. Everyone in the world will find love and happiness except us (maybe we don’t deserve it).It is kind of like life is a movie and your sitting in the audience unable to participate. There’s a sense that life is happening all around us and we are helpless in our inability to participate in it.

Shame generates tremendous emotional pain. The solution that many shame based people attempt is to become more perfect, more attractive, or more lovable. Remember that other entity which spoke about earlier? Well, and shame based person may continually try to live up to those standards of the other entity. But in their view, there will always fall short.

Shame is a natural emotion to have surface in addiction recovery. It may occur to us in recovery, or in reflection on our active using behavior that we fail to live off to who we want to be, the image we would like to portray of ourselves.

The growth in addiction recovery is to recognize shame for what it is, as distinguished from guilt and not leave it unresolved ready to sprout up and grow strong. Is excepting ourselves for who we are, being human, and therefore having the ability to make mistakes. It is also of the human ability to forgive ourselves that can be a powerful tool for ridding ourselves of our shame as we get healthier in addiction recovery.

Tagged as: Addiction, Addiction Recovery, emotions, feelings, Shame