Health / Wellness

Shame And Fear In Recovery

Fear is normal. Write about it. Talk about it. Plan for it. When these things are done, this too shall pass.

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depressed head in handsI remember moments of intense shame for me with regards to my recovery. As I stood in the parking lot of a local psychiatric hospital for the second time after my drug- and alcohol-induced blackout, I felt nothing but shame. It felt like a skintight suit that I would wear to my grave. The days lying to my psychiatrist and the day I got honest with him were major shame days for me. The day I walked into a 12-step program was brutal, shame wise. My drug and alcohol use played a part in all my failed long-term relationships. Each failed relationship brought major shame to the table. How did I overcome the shame? By eventually embracing it. Shame only had the power over me that I gave it. In 12-step, many in the room spoke of shame. When I heard them talk about it, I knew it was important for me to do so as well.  When I began to talk about it, slowly but surely shame began to lose its power over me as a barrier to long-term recovery.

It was not just the shame of the present. I also had to deal with the shame of a life time of feeling inadequate. The shame of a little boy who was severely bullied and felt like he would never be loved or accepted.  An insidious form of shame that stayed with me in my consciousness, quietly speaking to me for decades. I could not talk about this shame in 12-step; 12-step is for getting sober.  It is not an intensive therapy environment for other mental-health issues. In therapy, I began to explore the shame of that little boy who felt unloved and unwanted. I talked to that little boy about what he was ashamed of.  The answers often came out in gut wrenching sobs, but with each sob, a little bit of a lifetime of shame was released. It is a process that goes on today. The release of shame, at least for me, is very important in building a strong recovery.

Fear is also a very normal part of recovery. It is often intertwined with shame.  I was terrified of recovery. I was terrified of failure. I was afraid relapse. I was afraid of having to live life on life’s terms without self-medicating. I was afraid of so many things and each fear was a possible excuse to simply give up and revert back to living life the way I was used to living it.  Drinking, doing blow, and simply existing day to day.

As I began to string together sobriety and learned that these were very normal feelings, I realized how important it was to deal with my fears instead of letting them have power over me and control my choices.  In addition to therapy, here are some things I did to better understand my fears and deal with them.

  1. I wrote all my fears of recovery out. I discussed the list with my therapist. We talked about whether they were based in the real world or a world I had created to survive. More often than not, they were a byproduct of an addicted mind. For the ones that had a rational real-life basis, we discussed how my life would be any better from hiding from them with drugs and alcohol. The answer was always that the it would be worse.
  2. For the fears that had a real-life basis, I put together a plan for confronting each issue. For my fear of professional failure, I began to reassess what I was truly passionate about in life instead of medicating my feelings of underachieving. I put together a plane to re-define my career goals. Being a lawyer was not for me. For my fear of dealing with life’s hard knocks unmediated, I put together my support group with rigorous honesty. My family. My therapist. My connections who will be there to support me. I learned that knowledge and planning alleviates a lot of those fears and replaces them with resolve.

Shame and fear in one form or another are normal parts of active addiction and recovery.  I learned that the only way for me to deal with them was to embrace them, not avoid them. Like every adult on this this planet, I have fears. I still fear failure but think about it differently in sobriety. I use it to motivate me to work harder. I no longer fear relapse because I have a plan that I work daily to keep it from happening. Fear is no longer a motivator for my recovery. Happiness is.  Fear is normal. Write about it. Talk about it. Plan for it. When these things are done, this too shall pass.

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Brian Cuban (@bcuban) is The Addicted Lawyer. Brian is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer: Tales Of The Bar, Booze, Blow & Redemption (affiliate link). A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he somehow made it through as an alcoholic then added cocaine to his résumé as a practicing attorney. He went into recovery April 8, 2007. He left the practice of law and now writes and speaks on recovery topics, not only for the legal profession, but on recovery in general. He can be reached at brian@addictedlawyer.com.

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