Sep 29, 2015 | By Rachel Stephens

Enough with the Self-Blame Already – “I Used To Blame Myself”

Mental Health

Alcoholism is a complicated disease which requires complicated treatment. There’s much debate on whether it should be classified as a disease, which is another topic entirely. Taking a comprehensive approach to treatment includes viewing alcoholism as a disease. It’s a disease where self-blame runs rampant along with shame.

Let’s consider other diseases. What about heart disease? The initial reaction to a family member diagnosed with this is not “well, you should have laid off the fat cakes and bacon,” or “give up the junk food and you’ll suffer no more.” Usually, this person is pre disposed to heart disease and only half of it is behavioral. I have a freakishly high metabolism myself, so I’m lean and never struggled with weight but my cholesterol is higher than some people considered obese. I eat what I want because of my metabolism, but I’ve also got high cholesterol genes so to be fair, it is part genetic disease and part behavioral.

The thing with drug addiction or alcoholism is that some people (through ignorance) think it’s all behavioral. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you to control a biological dysfunction in your brain. Sounds ridiculous, and it doesn’t work.  I put that pressure on myself early in recovery and quickly learned it leads to a miserable place called self-blame. The problem of self-blame is the shaming associated with alcoholism. The gossip, the judgement, and the unrealistic expectations, these are factors that compound the issues of treatment. Self-blame compromised my first attempt at sobriety in many ways.

I unfortunately had a double life I thought I was in control of. My life on screen was all sunshine and roses, I was really living as Jekyll and Hyde though. Get a few drinks in me and you would see the inner angry, sometimes violent, alcoholic. I wasn’t fooling those who loved me, I wasn’t fooling myself. I stayed stagnant in sobriety because I wasn’t committed to truly admitting the person I was. There was an alcoholic part of me that was truly ugly and it scared me because I had no control of when that person came out. I kept blaming myself for letting this “person” come out when I drank, I kept thinking if I only had a certain amount of alcohol this person would not come out. The truth is that this person came out because my brain was rejecting and reacting poorly to the alcohol, to think I can control this reaction is ridiculous.

I was afraid to tell anyone in my inner circle I was an alcoholic for fear of judgement. I was the one who lost self-control when I had one beer that always led to 12 but for the most part I had my shit together. I was the one who would have to change their minds on the definition of an alcoholic and I didn’t want to have to explain myself. I stayed stagnant in sobriety because there’s nothing worse than having to explain yourself when you don’t have an explanation.

I’m quite the professional at unrealistic expectations. My strong will and stubbornness got me through military training in the top of my class, and I was the first to graduate college from my family. Perfectionism and performance can be my strength when harnessed in the right direction. Unfortunately recovery was nothing like anything I had experienced before. There is no black and white direction to go in, everything is grey and every day is a new navigation. This was the first thing I couldn’t excel at through self-will. I’ve been successful at a lot of things in life, so when I found myself in relapse with alcohol it was devastating to my ego and I decided to stay stuck there for quite a while in self-blame. When self-blame becomes shame, that’s when you’re in trouble with recovery.

My expectations were extremely high and my confidence low because of excessive blame. I eventually accepted the cold, hard truth. The only way to prevent this angry alcoholic from surfacing was to abstain from alcohol completely. In order to do this, I had to accept that I reacted the same way my father did to alcohol. I had to accept that this was something bigger than self-will, that it was inherited just like my cholesterol. I had to accept that prayer and recovery weren’t enough to keep me sober, that complete acceptance of self was the key. That complete acceptance of self-includes the fact that my brain is wired differently than others…..and you know what? That’s ok. I’ve never cared to “fit in” anyway.

Cut yourself enough slack to look at the comprehensive approach to treating the disease of alcoholism. I’ve learned that beating myself up over what is a portion of genetics and disease only leads to relapse. Don’t believe the hype of unrealistic expectations of self-sufficiency; these are set by the masses of those not struggling with the disease. Keep in touch with your higher power, I find it helps me stay grounded on how little control we really have. Don’t think you owe anyone an explanation, for those who truly love you need not understand the why, but the how.

I love the quote “Concern yourself more with accepting responsibility than with assigning blame. Let the possibilities inspire you more than the obstacles discourage you” by Ralph Marston. The possibilities of a sober life are limitless. So, enough with the self-blame already!