Today the topic of "shame" came up at a meeting. It's not the first time someone has chosen that particular topic, so I figure there must be something to it. It's always an interesting and enlightening meeting when people start talking about stuff like that, and I always seem to walk away a little better off than I was when I got there.

I always find it interesting the variety of subjects a random one word term like that will bring up. Some people are ashamed of what they did when drinking, some were and aren't anymore, some have bigger fish to fry than to hang onto those feelings too long.

I personally had to really think about it the first time someone asked me my feelings on shame. I was told once that it's not just a matter of semantics- that there's a difference between being shameful and feeling shame- kind of similar to the old adage that guilt is the worry about what you'll be caught at and shame is the worry about what you are (something like that anyhow.)

As a kid I ran with a tough crowd and we did a lot of bad things- sometimes drugs and alcohol were involved, sometimes things just went to sh!t- teenagers raising themselves, dealing with situations on our own, learning how to handle things through a twisted paradigm that includes both addiction and inexperience. It's been a rare day that I've ever had the luxury of being ashamed of my alcoholic actions as an adult- I've always felt I had enough irons in the fire with all the shame and guilt I had naturally, from my upbringing, and from the things we did in our teens and early twenties. I've practically made a lifetime of apologies and have tried to be a good person and never be caught on the wrong side ever since then. But getting banned from bars and getting in fistfights with willing opponents, running from the cops and having to lay low for a while until things cooled off- that kind of stuff? Shoot- I think back then it was all part and parcel for the course (of course at some meetings downtown I say something like that and pretty much every person in the room looks like they know a little about what I'm saying- some meetings out in the suburbs people seem to not get that so much- and believe me, I envy the people who don't get that so much. It takes a certain kind of experience to end up with skewed thinking like that. I used to think I'd take the red pill, but sometimes the blue pill makes a certain kind of sense.)

Me- I think in a lot of ways I've been a little shameful of what I am (or what I feel I am or am not) a long time- probably as long if not longer than my career as an alcoholic. That kind of thinking brings up the old chicken and the egg question: am I an alcoholic because I'm ashamed or am I ashamed because I'm an alcoholic. Either way, there's some baggage to deal with one way or another. But I personally have been blessed with the ability to compartmentalize stuff and process it over time- a gift that has probably kept me from going crazy with anxiety, depression, guilt and shame. It's not that I don't feel bad about some of my actions- just that when I have so many things to be concerned with- inside and outside of me- I need to choose my battles wisely. In the end, things are what they are, and there's no changing the past. Today is the first day of the rest of your life- the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. No time like today. First things first. One day at a time.

A lot of introspection, a lot of meditation practice and plenty of related reading has gotten me a long way towards being OK with who I am. And of course the program and a lot of the people in it- but for me these days that kind of goes without saying- I can't separate anything anymore- it's all one thing, each part connected to another- emotional well being, addiction, spirituality, my own feelings of self worth- none of those seem to be mutually exclusive in any way, and work on any one part seems to affect the others.

Aloha- Toby