You Are Allowed to Become Better Than the Worst Thing You've Ever Done

One of the strangest things about recovery is how easily I can forgive somebody else and how incredibly difficult it can be to extend that same courtesy to myself.

A newcomer tells me something they are ashamed of and my first reaction is usually:

You're human.

You screwed up.

Own it.

Learn from it.

Make it right where you can.

Keep going.

Very reasonable.

Very compassionate.

Then I look at something from my own past and apparently a completely different legal system applies. 😂

My brain goes:

Nope.

Your case is different.

You should probably continue feeling terrible about this indefinitely.

It's amazing how that works.

We talk a lot in recovery about making amends.

Taking responsibility.

Cleaning up the wreckage of the past.

And all of that matters.

But there is another part that I think can be much harder.

At some point, I have to allow myself to move forward.

That doesn't mean pretending something never happened.

It doesn't mean what I did was okay.

It doesn't mean the people I hurt have to forgive me.

It means I have honestly looked at what I did, taken responsibility for it, made amends where appropriate, changed my behavior and stopped doing the thing.

What exactly does continuing to beat the shit out of myself accomplish after that?

That's the question.

Because guilt can be useful.

Guilt can tell me:

You did something wrong.

Fix it.

Shame says:

You ARE something wrong.

Stay miserable.

Those are two very different messages.

I spent enough years believing there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

Recovery taught me to look at my behavior instead of turning every mistake into a definition of who I am.

I did bad things.

That does not mean I am permanently a bad person.

I hurt people.

That does not mean I am only the person who hurt them.

I made mistakes.

Some pretty big ones.

I also changed.

That's supposed to count for something.

Sometimes I think holding onto guilt can even become a strange form of ego.

That sounds backwards, but hear me out.

If somebody has accepted my apology...

If I've made the amends...

If I've changed my behavior...

If God has supposedly forgiven me...

And I still insist:

“No. Mine is too terrible. I don't deserve forgiveness.”

What am I saying?

That everybody else's judgment is wrong and mine is the only one that counts?

Apparently even my guilt needs to be in charge. 😂

That's impressive.

There is also this idea that if I punish myself long enough, eventually I will have paid the bill.

How long is long enough?

Five years?

Ten?

Thirty-eight?

Do I get a receipt when we're done?

😂

At some point, continuing to suffer doesn't repair anything.

It just keeps me stuck.

And being stuck in shame doesn't make me more useful to anybody.

It doesn't make me a better father.

A better partner.

A better friend.

A better member of AA.

It just keeps me staring backward.

That doesn't mean I forget where I came from.

I don't want to forget.

My past reminds me why I stay sober.

It reminds me what alcohol did to me and what I was capable of doing when I was drinking.

But remembering is different from living there.

I don't have to move back into every old mistake just because I occasionally drive past it.

That house has been condemned. 😂

Recovery gave me the chance to become somebody different.

Not perfect.

Different.

Better in some ways.

Still working on plenty of others.

That's the deal.

And sometimes I need to treat myself the way I would treat another alcoholic sitting across from me.

If they told me:

“I did something terrible years ago. I admitted it. I made amends. I've changed. But I still hate myself for it.”

I wouldn't tell them:

“Good. Keep doing that forever.”

I'd probably tell them they have suffered enough.

That they are allowed to live.

That maybe one of the greatest amends they can make is becoming the kind of person who doesn't do those things anymore.

Maybe I need to listen to my own advice occasionally.

There's a terrifying concept. 😂

Self-forgiveness isn't letting myself off the hook.

It's recognizing that the purpose of the hook was to make me change.

If I've changed, maybe I don't need to stay hanging there forever.

Today, I can remember what I did without becoming what I did.

I can regret something without letting it define the rest of my life.

I can make amends without spending the next thirty years making myself miserable.

And I can accept something I have told countless other people over the years:

You are allowed to become better than the worst thing you've ever done.