How to overcome shame in recovery or relapse.

So you’ve done a lot of hard work, you’ve cut down your drinking. You’ve repaired relationships, you’re attending meetings, you’re doing better at work and school. You’ve apologized to people. Yet the memories and shame from drinking too much still haunt you. You are still experiencing shame in recovery.

By the end of this post, you’ll know four strategies that I’ve shared with clients that they find really helpful to deal with shame in recovery.

Shame serves a purpose.

Like all emotions, shame serves a purpose in human beings, and one of shame’s roles is to let you know when you’re doing something not approved by the people around you.

Shame helps keep groups of humans together. We are social creatures and we need each other to survive! Realizing that your shame has a purpose can help you step away from it so it has less power over you.

You’re doing everything you can NOW.

Shame has given you valuable information, and once you’ve acted on that information by changing your behavior, revisiting shame may no longer be helpful. If you’re doing everything you can in recovery, if you’ve changed your behavior, then maybe shame in recovery has served its purpose and it may be time to let it go.

See this fun video about how our thoughts and feelings outstay their welcome long after they are useful!

Every day is a new day.

Every day is a new day. Consider this quote from Emerson: “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Try reading that to yourself every night. It can help give you peace at the end of the day.

Try a little self-compassion.

Many of my clients who struggle with alcohol or other addictions beat themselves up all the time, and some part of them feels they deserve it, or that it will help motivate them to be better people. As Dr Kristin Neff has shown, treating yourself as you would a dear friend is a more effective motivator than self-criticism.

Dr. Neff has many great ways to practice self-compassion on her website.

If you’d like to learn more about how to manage shame in recovery and the other challenges of recovery and would like to chat with me, please don’t hesitate to reach out for a short consultation.