Guilt

[MajestyJo]

Character is how we act when we think no one is watching.

Walk Softly and Carry A Big Book

When I saw this, I thought of the phrase "Monkey see, Monkey do." How about that other phrase, "Children have big ears."

When I hear about my son's actions in addiction, I generally, or now I can say occasionally, I take them back to me. I think of the slogan "Let It Begin With Me." I keep thinking it all began with me, when in fact, my son has his own choices.

I don't have to pay for my actions for the rest of my life. I did the best I could for where I was at in that time. That doesn't make them right. It doesn't justify them. It just is, and I had to pray and turn all those feeling over to my Higher Power.

Not only my feelings but my son. His recovery could not come from me. The best amend I can make to him is stay clean and sober myself and show him by my walk not my talk.

I need to take responsibility for my part. I had to learn not to take on his anger and projections.

A good example is the liquor I hid in a tall gold tupperware glass to drink when my dad and my ex-husband passed out. I either forgot it or figured I would save it for later, but my son found my stash and drank it. I didn't know that until many years AFTER I got into recovery. He made the decision to drink it. I certainly didn't want him to drink it or did I tell him to. He could have a beer but not my rye!

It took a long time for me to look at myself and take responsibility for my own actions. I was too busy looking at my dad, husband and son. They had the problem, they were drunks. I could handle my booze. In today I know I was the functioning alcoholic whose addiction to pills (dried up alcohol) escalated, until they stopped working for me, and I needed more. More no longer worked, and I even had guilt about my guilt.

Posted on another site in 2013

A long-timer shared with me once that guilt took people back out just as often as resentments.

Both are killers, and it isn't something we can just fluff off, we need to deal with the feelings. Talk them out with our sponsor, journal about them, pray and ask our Higher Power for help with letting go of the feelings.

Just for today, I will not let my past, interfere with my today. I will let it go and tell myself, that was then, this is now, and I don't have to use people, places and things to jeopardize my sobriety and take away my serenity.