Shame is rarely discussed openly. It feels like an unspoken suffocating weight, a heavy burden of the alcohol stigma. Alcohol is enmeshed throughout our society, we celebrate with it, we toast with it, we mourn with it and we socialise with it. It the only drug that is legally and liberally available yet beyond its social lubrication, behind closed doors, some people fall prey to its false promises and lies. They struggle with dependent drinking, alcohol stigma and shame, wrestling with their own sense of self-worth and identity. From subtle glances of judgment to outright condemnation in some cases, the shame surrounding the addictive claws of alcohol usage casts a shadow over many people’s lives.
In my work as a sobriety mentor and educator, this is a conversation full of challenge. Shame is something we don’t talk about because it feels shaming to do so. Logically this makes sense. Why on earth would we want to unearth feelings that can feel so viscerally sickening, that bring on a sense of shrinking and a desire to curl up in the dark?
But it is important to learn not only how to move to acceptance of past behaviour you may be ashamed about from your drinking days, but also how to navigate the judgment and assumptions you will face when people learn that you are now sober.
I didn’t realise until I quit drinking seven years ago, how shaming sobriety can feel. Instead of feeling supported and applauded by others, I felt stigmatised, I discovered that there are so many assumptions made about people who choose a sober life, so many questions and judgements. Assumptions about sober people previously being alcoholics, addicts, having no will power, that there must be something wrong with us because we have made the sober choice. On top of that there is the goading, the encouragement to have “just one drink”, the comments that if we can’t have “just one” then we must have a problem. It is so easy in these circumstances to find ourselves justifying our choice, which can result in us asking if it is all worth it and maybe it is just easier to have a drink. This felt shocking and unsettling.
At the beginning of changing your relationship with alcohol, it is very common to feel guilty and ashamed of the things that you did while you were drinking. It is hard to push these feelings away and they can quickly multiply and become overwhelming, particularly without the prop of a drink, the previous go-to “coping mechanism”. Becoming sober brings with it the breeding ground of all types of emotions, which having been numbed and diluted for so long, can amplify and feel confusing, even paralysing. Sitting in those feelings for too long with no tools or resources is a good way to spiral down into doubt about your sober decision or even set yourself up for a relapse.
To protect your sobriety, it is imperative to reflect on shame and make peace with the past so you can build some resilience to your own critical thoughts and to the stigmatising assumptions that others will make – mainly unintentionally. Of course, people may applaud and support you, however there is a fine line between their curiosity and you feeling triggered.
Shame can appear from nowhere. In your drinking days, you may have done or said things that you regret but you may not yet have done the work to acknowledge and accept your actions. These memories can sneak up on you without a moment’s notice. The brain seems to have an insistence on surprising you with stuff that you’d rather forget, yet if you are invested in the act of forgetting then you are adding energy to it, so it festers, never to be forgotten.
I use the metaphor that shame, guilt and regrets about past drinking behaviours are like the mould on the walls of a house as a result of years of damp. When you initially see the damp, you may perform a quick fix and cover it up with a few coats of paint. It is so easy to avoid the real investment of looking inside the wall, taking the time to do the work and fix the real problem. Initially the mould is covered so at least it’s not visible, but you know deep down that you’ve just done a quick surface job. The mould will return and next time it will be worse. It will spread and once again appear on the walls and the paint job will chip away and bubble up. Of course you have the option of repeating the painting, but that will just layer on more temporary fixes and take more and more paint each time.
Bad memories and shameful thoughts are like the mould in your home and the best way to deal with them is to open up your walls, slowly and gently assess the damage and do the hard work necessary to make your home liveable. The paint in this story acts like a band-aid plaster and is a metaphor for just sticking up a few affirmations saying “I forgive you for drinking”, “I accept what I did and am a new person now” then immediately thinking forgiveness and acceptance will arrive and shame will never appear again. I do not disrespect the power of affirmations here, but they can’t help at a surface level if the work behind the walls hasn’t been taken care of. It takes more than a few post-it notes to progress to a life liberated from the heavy weights from your past. The mould builds up a tolerance to the paint, just as humans build up a tolerance to their drink of choice. Unless the walls are opened up, that tolerance increases, joined by its big sister shame and the house becomes miserable to live in.
Progression into joyful, sustainable sobriety can be a messy business. Of course, there are ups and downs in the process but you are likely to experience more downs if you don’t look behind the paint job and tackle those bad feelings and memories. Many people need professional help to do this.
There are however some reflections that may help to gently start to consider for yourself. While the facts of the past don’t change, your response to them can through awareness and self-compassion. The starting point to any acceptance or forgiveness work is to be a friend to the person you already are with all your strengths, gifts, faults and quirks – and your past. Being your own best friend allows you to take a third person view and ask for advice as you slowly move through any challenge. As humans we tend to forgive others much more quickly than forgiving ourselves, so a place to start is to allow your best friend (you) to help you to be open to receiving compassion and forgiveness.
If you can cultivate some gentle compassion for yourself and work on forgiveness then you are taking the first steps onto a path to be able to accept your past.
Acceptance of your past allows you to put it in context. To put it where it belongs – in the past. A phrase I often use is: “that was then, this is now”. True acceptance comes from forgiving yourself and finding those behaviours to show up every day as the alcohol-free person you are now, not the person you were in the past. That was then, this is now.
One of my favourite authors Dr Brene Brown spent over 7 years researching shame over hundreds of interviews in various contexts (it wasn’t specifically about drinking) and she introduced the concept of shame resilience in her book “I Thought It Was Just Me – But It Isn’t”. Her research found that four elements were shared by all the participants who showed high levels of shame resilience:
1: The ability to recognise what triggers them into shame
2: High awareness of what their shame is about
3: The willingness to reach out to others and ask for help
4: The ability to speak about shame
Self-compassion allows you to build some shame resilience to be able to navigate any potentially triggering sober shaming and stigmatising. People will hold perceptions and beliefs about what sort of person you would have been when you were drinking and it is essential to build a resilience to that and feel really grounded in who you are now.
Psychologists tell us that shame is a universal emotion, part of the human condition. It isn’t the exclusive realm of drinkers or past drinkers. And at its core, what shame does is unravel our connection to other people. Humans are biologically emotionally, socially and cognitively wired for connection. Shame is the fear of disconnection, the fear of being seen as faulty, flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. And the most important thing is to compassionately accept ourselves as we are now. Shame keeps us from telling our own stories and allowing ourselves to be heard because of that fear of disconnection. As a result, we feel alone and isolated, burying our own stories behind the mouldy walls and even deny them to ourselves. So let’s stop painting over the cracks, the fractures, the rot, the mould. Let’s expose the walls, start sharing our stories and open up the topic of shame. Self-compassion will help you to reframe the narrative of your past, peel back the shameful layers, take responsibility and make any amends you feel are needed. It helps you to practise being you and deny the relentless assaults of your inner critic. When you cultivate your own pure, non-judgemental friendship then it frees you up to be honest with yourself and forge a sanctuary of mindfulness and self-care. Self-compassion means you can tell your story, voice it, say it out loud without criticism or evaluation and know it won’t cost you your own friendship. Building the muscle of self-compassion will help you towards self-acceptance, leave the past in the past and give you permission to live the future you deserve.
Bio
Gill McKay runs Inquisitive Coaching helping professional, successful mid-life women to break free from the hold of alcohol and start living a life on their own terms – a life they don’t want to escape from. She also works with teams and organisations to open up the conversation around alcohol and stop the stigma around sobriety and sober curiosity.
Her 3-month “Sober Joy” programme gives clients the tools to replenish their nervous system so they can make different choices without endless willpower, cravings or doubts. Through a mixture of coaching and somatic work, alcohol becomes less important and eventually irrelevant in their lives.
With a background in neuroscience and seven years sober herself, Gill is also a Mental Health First Aider, TEDx speaker and a best-selling author of “STUCK: Brain Smart Insights for Coaches”. She is currently writing her second book “Goodbye Hangover, Hello Life, Busting the Myths around Sobriety” which shares her own journey to happily ditching the booze for good and provides a framework for readers to use when they are ready to do the same.
Contacts/links
Web: gillmckay.com
Email: hello@gillmckay.com
TEDX: The surprising stigma of sobriety