Humility

I found a nice piece on humility at spiritualriver.com.  As a group, addicts and alcoholics are an arrogant lot, that is when they're not feeling worthless.  Gaining some measure of humility, we begin to feel (and be) a part of humanity . . . just a-part-of, instead of constantly switching between better-than or less-than.

A sign on the wall at my last rehab reminded us that "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less."  Many (most, all?) addicts and alcoholics can be aptly described as "an ego-maniac with an inferiority complex."  Neither mode is conducive to recovery.  So, we work on humility . . .

Anyway, the article . .

Why Humility is Important for Recovery from Addiction

Humility is important for a successful recovery.

Many of us nod our heads and say “yes, of course it is,” but deep down do we really believe it? Almost any recovering addict or alcoholic runs the risk of overconfidence after they get some initial clean time under their belt, and it can become easy to secretly believe that we have all the answers.

Long term experience in recovery has shown us that this is a recipe for failure. But why is this case? Can’t recovery from addiction be mastered? Must we forever remain students in the field of recovery?

The answer is an unequivocal yes. We are doomed (blessed, actually) with the need to keep pushing ourselves to learn and grow. Humility is the foundation for this continual learning.

“We’re either working on our recovery, or we’re working on a relapse.” For us, there is no in between. Those who stagnate often pick the drugs or the booze back up. How to deal with this? Push ourselves to grow–spiritually, mentally, socially, and so on. Personal growth is our goal here.

In recovery, we start holding ourselves to a higher standard. This happens naturally as we stay clean and sober. (Or rather if we stay clean and sober). In active addiction, we all compromised our principles in order to keep up the denial and illusion in our wretched lives. Living clean and sober forces us to re-evaluate those principles and adopt new standards of living. And this is a learning process, in which we will inevitably make some errors. Hence the need to stay humble as we learn a new moral code.

Spiritual growth occurs as a result of our failures, not our successes. Recovery can be a real balancing act. We have to put ourselves out there and take some chances; make some mistakes. Obviously, we don’t want to screw up so badly that we relapse, but we still want to get involved enough and passionate enough about learning that we are never “perfect.” When we struggle with something, we can often look back and see how making it through a tough time was an opportunity for us to grow.

If recovery was a bed of roses, we would no longer be challenged on a personal level and our growth would stagnate. Instead, we need the challenges and the adversity to keep us moving forward and always looking to learn how to deal with new things in our lives. We are learning how to live again. Without this, our recovery loses momentum.

Action items – What you can do:
1) Embrace the lesson in everything. Don’t accept a bitter defeat of any sort without taking away some sort of lesson in it for yourself. See the positive in everything. In any situation, ask yourself: “how can I grow from this?”

2) Always be learning about yourself. “Observe” yourself and your reactions to things. Raise your awareness about yourself without passing judgment.

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CATUF
2026

[laurel453]

thank you, Catuf

[FassFeat]

Wow, that puts things into perspective. Thanks for sharing.

[avisg]

I have learned as life has gone on that there is a lesson in everything .It just depends whether you choose to see and learn. I don't regret things in life as long as I have learned and grown from it . It's not my job to judge others lifes and there choices hopefully they will learn something from there choices as well .I have been blessed with many wonderful things in life .Many have come threw and thrived from  far harder  .
positions then many of us could dream of . Finding the positive out of the most you can can make a major difference in your life and the lives of everyone around u

wonderful post Catfu

[lifewithoutcoke]

Wow, fantastic post Catfu. Thank you:)

[Jaybay]

What a great post!  I'm going to re-read it again tomorrow when the Christmas "buzz" is over and I can digest it properly.  We're all works in progress during the entirety of our lifetimes.  Success in life depends on learning from our mistakes so that we don't repeat them.  That's the hard part.  Change is always challenging and difficult - particularly when we have to admit that we aren't perfect and don't have all the answers.  That's true for addicts and non-addicts alike.  Thanks again for posting!

[gnarly_1]

Great post CATFU some of my biggest trials in life have become my greatest achievements
like wise some of my bigest failures have been my best learning experiences.....Gnarly