Last week at our support group we discussed facing the harm that we caused during our addiction. When we stop numbing ourselves, the realization that we have caused harm in our community can be excruciating.
People who have addictions are not evil, uncaring, or selfish. We cause harm, no doubt, but it’s not because there is something inherently wrong with us. All humans cause harm to some extent or another, and how we respond to this harm is how we reveal our character. Personally, in my addiction, the wreckage was severe. When I woke up to find that many of the most important people in my life were no longer speaking to me because of my actions, I felt beyond awful. The pain was agonizing. I wanted to do whatever I could to instantly make people forgive me and get everything back to normal.
The truth is that we can’t make people forgive us. We can’t control what people think of us — not at all.
It makes sense to want to fix the harm. Humans evolved as a social species, requiring us to live in groups in order to support each other and survive. A threat to our social structure is registered in the nervous system as a life threat. It’s why social rejection feels incredibly painful. The urge to repair this threat is normal, healthy, and something we can be grateful to have. It can also fucking suck and be really hard. Often times the people who we hurt don’t want to speak to us, or are still physically near us at times and remind us that we have acted badly and caused harm. There’s no way to know if apologizing will make it worse or better, and often it causes a mix of emotions for the person who was harmed. Letting go of the idea that we can control how other people view us frees up that energy for us to put back into ourselves and our growth.
In early recovery I invite people to focus on their own behavior and healing instead of spending a lot of energy on trying to make people forgive them. This extra load of emotional stress can easily cause people to go back to numbing with substances again. The truth is that focusing on our own healing and survival is not a selfish act, in fact it’s the opposite. We are all connected, and when we focus on our own recovery and behaving in a way that is in alignment with our morals, it will cause a ripple affect throughout our community. Just as we harmed people in the toxicity of our addictions, we can heal the same people by simply acting right. People will see, over time, that we are creating an atmosphere of restoration in our lives.
Perhaps down the road when our heads are more clear, we can confront the harms that we have caused individually. Guilt-fueled or forced apologies are dangerous ground to walk upon. Avoiding the conversation in the long term will have its own detrimental affects, and it is important to find the middle way. I invite people to wait to have tough conversations until they are not emotionally charged, but also to not play “ostrich” by sticking one’s head in the sand.
People in our communities benefit most when they see us consistently taking actions that align with our morals, which creates a safe and welcoming environment for all of us to heal together.
May you be happy and free, dear reader.
Announcements and such:
Support groups ares still every Monday at 6pm at The Library Vintage in Fayetteville.
Want to support this work? You can subscribe to this Substack for $8/month, or donate in any amount to our PayPal or Venmo (a)recoverydemystified
This week on the podcast Early discusses the plant medicines that have helped them most in their recovery. To listen click here.
Want to be interviewed about your story with substances on our podcast? Send an email to info@recoverydemystified.com
