When was the last time…
you saw a person who is proud to be addicted? Heard them boast about how they lose control while drunk, or tell their kids with pride that they just blew the family vacation money in a casino?
Most likely you have a hard time remembering something like that. It’s because shame runs deep in addiction. It lies in every aspect of it: the way you hide being addicted from other people and even yourself, how you see the damage it does to your life and continue anyway, the subtle anxiety of being “found out,” the lack of self-trust.
These are just a few examples in which shame hides and guides a person with addiction.
This brings us to a deeper question: why is the shame there in the first place? It’s not an accident that you feel shameful about your addiction. What do you think it is trying to tell you?
This is not a rhetorical question. Before reading on, try to honestly answer it. If the answer would be one sentence, what would it be?
Keeping that answer in mind, let’s move on to exploring how shame affects us and what its usual aim is.
What shame is telling us
When we wrong someone, betray our own values, or simply loudly fart in a quiet room, we feel shame. It’s a painful signal that we did something wrong, and that pain motivates us to either mend the damage we have done or learn to not repeat the mistake. In this sense, shame is nothing bad. It’s your mind’s way of trying to correct your actions through pain, the same way people once tried to discipline children (and unfortunately, some still do).
It’s a crude form of teaching, but it does work to a certain degree. A lot of the time, after being really embarrassed, you no longer repeat the mistake.
For example, maybe you went on a date and forgot to brush your teeth. Later you find out your date told their friends your breath was awful. You feel shame, it stings, and next time you make sure to brush your teeth or eat a mint.
This is how shame is intended to work. But there is a huge downside to learning things through pain. It often leaves scars, demotivates, causes an irrational fear of repeating the mistake, increases depression, and so on.
You might never go on another date because of the shame, instead of simply eating the mint. Or you might go, but spend the whole time thinking about your breath, afraid to kiss your date and lose the moment. That anxiety can easily turn into another shameful experience, leading to what I call a “negative loop” in my guidebook.
In this way, what our brain uses to help us correct our actions can become something hindering us from living our lives.
The same is true about shame in addiction. It tells us that what we are doing is wrong and that we should stop it. But it does it through pain. And what does a person with addiction do when they feel pain? Is their natural response to learn from it and not repeat the mistake? Or is it to escape the pain into the very same addiction that caused it in the first place?
Of course, most likely you were feeling pain and maybe even strong feelings of shame before the addiction. But the addiction still increases and adds new reasons for you to feel shame regardless of your original problems. Can you see the loop here?
So What to Do About Shame?
My advice would be quite simple. It takes a bit of practice, but once you learn how to do it, you can massively decrease the negative effects of shame in your life.
Here is a simple three-step formula to use the next time you find yourself experiencing shame:
1. Ask yourself why you are feeling the shame.
What is it trying to tell you? Take note if it is something you really should change or do something about. Also notice negative judgments about yourself, e.g. “I’m a piece of shit for drinking again,” “I will never get out of this cycle,” “I’m a weak person.”
2. Feel the emotion and then separate it (and the negative judgments) from the core message of what you should do or change.
3. Commit to doing one thing that you are capable of to either mend the damage or avoid being in this situation again.
Example
Let’s take a difficult but realistic example.
You wake up hungover and remember you drove your car drunk.
You feel immense shame. You are bombarded with thoughts such as “I’m a piece of shit, I could have killed someone,” or “I can’t believe I drank again, I’m such a fucking loser.”
Using these three steps you can:
1. Ask what is the message and what are the judgments?
The message is clear: don’t drink. Or when you are unable to stop drinking right away, at least don’t drive. The judgments are also clear: calling yourself a piece of shit, a loser, etc.
2. Feel the emotion of shame and accept it.
Understand what it is saying to you and why: don’t drink because it is ruining your life. If you cannot stop drinking, then at least don’t drink and drive because you will either kill yourself, someone else, or land in jail. Separate the message that is important from the judgments which are not (“I’m a piece of shit,” etc.).
3. Commit to doing something about your drinking.
Most likely you won’t just quit drinking from this single experience, otherwise you already would have. But you can commit to doing something about it in an active way, e.g. get help with your addiction, research ways to quit, promise yourself that you will always take a cab when going out drinking, or when you drink at home and know that you will not be able to control yourself while drunk, give the keys to someone you trust while still sober.
If that option is not available, get a box that will open only after a set amount of time. You might resist this idea and say to yourself that you will be able to control yourself, but be honest here, will you?
Putting the keys in a safety box will expose your inability to control yourself, and you might feel extra shame because of it. Still, it is a step forward, because it makes you confront what is true: you are addicted and unable to control yourself while drunk. Otherwise, you would not have to be locking your car keys up or giving them to someone.
This example might sound extreme, but moments like this are often what wake people up to the truth of their situation.
Responding to Shame in This Way Helps You in Three Key Ways
- You learn to understand the message that shame is telling you without turning it into a renewed negative motivation for continuing your addiction.
- When you follow through on the actions you decide to take, you lead your life in a better direction. By doing that, you also increase trust in yourself, starting what I call a “positive loop”.
- Step by step, you begin to see yourself as someone capable of change instead of someone trapped by addiction.
It might be hard the first few times you try to do it, as shame is a strong emotion. But the good news is that you don’t have to be perfect at it. The important thing is that you try and keep going. Keep at it until it becomes natural to listen to what shame is trying to tell you instead of trying to escape it.
Each time you meet shame with honesty instead of escape, you’re rebuilding trust in yourself. This kind of development is a major boost on your journey to freedom from addiction and in life overall, because shame affects much more than addiction.
I hope you found this post valuable. Knowledge means little without action, so if something here resonated with you, it’s best to apply it.
— Taavi