Guilt And Negative Thoughts

[gizzy32]

For many of us addicts, we struggle with guilt, some well after we are clean. I think guilt is one of the worst human emotions cause so many other feelings come with it. Self hate, anger, denial, self pitty and blame. When i used, i was a walking guilt trap and the reason i hated waking up in the morning. I knew what i was doing was wrong yet the only way i knew how to make that feeling go away was to get high and numb. Once i finally got clean i still struggled with the guilt and what i had done to myself and others. I am past that now, i have forgiven myself for what i did and it no longer eats at me cause i have made a lot of ammends, but the guilt issue took the longest for me to heal. I just wanted to hear your take on this. Have you gotten over the guilt or are you still trying to get through that part. What has helped you get past those negative thoughts?

[gizzy32]

Damn this ended up being a sad post. I do think by making ammends to those you may have hurt and forgiving others helps with our own guilt and something that also takes time to heal. Ty for sharing these stories, sad, but also happy to see how far we have come since those horrible days of active use.

[KALICHARAN]

.Its been since months since i left taking to codeine after almost a decade of chronic abuse, iam not still clear in my head and each day is a  struggle,always thinking and wondering when will i ever feel normal again.The worst part these days has been guilt.I look back and see my younger brother fight brain tumour and his words to me to take care of our parents cause only few months were left for him and later how i stood numb next to his bead as he stopped breathing, the nurse was doing cpr and i told her to stop  it and then how i went to my mom in the next room and broke the news without shedding a single tear and then went straight to my drawer and drank a bottle of codeine.I remember getting married and breaking it all up in months,the effort put in by my parents and hers to get us toghether and the pain and anguish in her eyes on my total lack of emotion.
  Today it all kills me,i live in days of pain that i shuld have lived then,i remember what my brother said and the mistake i made in being so numb at his death bed and not letting my emotions out when it shuld have come naturally.Today after 4 years i live of remorse as if death occured yesterday.
Though i feel terrible these days compounded with depression and withdrawl that seems to be never ending ,i believe i have to accept my faults and try to live again,try to find joy,,,to all of you who feel guilty let me say that we are all humans and we will feel guilty for our actions done intended or unintended but let us not drown ourself in it,let us try to make ammends,, life is all about tryeing,a better day will surely come and u will smile again.

[bobby139]

Yes the guilt is aweful and no i havnt gotten over a lot of it..I was stoned the whole time my mother was dying and i was taking care of her and also taking her pills because i knew i could get as many as i wanted for her with termanal cancer, so i took advantage of that can u believe that ****. then my baby was just born my little girl i was so stoned my mom had to carry her in the house and told me to go lay down, there is so much of her life i cant remember and it pisses me off, i see pics and i dont remember that day at all. Its a miricle i didnt hurt her she was so tiny a premie and i was always so stoned, god was watching over us. I have problems remember friends and what we did for so many yrs. ppl will still come up to me and talk about different things we all did and i have to fake remembering. But my kids have forgiven me and i guess thats all that matters. Great post giz it makes u think

[worried878]

i guess.feeling guilty is good to a certain extent..but u know it doesnt change anything..so swelling on it is probably not good and we are all trying to move forward...cant change the past..only the future..i guess reflecting on it so as not to repeat it is one thing..but dwelling on it can be damaging..and even cause some to use again out of depression...so anyway...today is friday and not guilt for me today!  today is a good day and hope everone has a wonderful weekend!

[iloveny630]

I still feel extremely guilty...b/c of the lying, stealing money, etc.  I try to tell myself that I was a different person, a person with a disease, and now I ok... I'm well.  (Although I know that I will always be an addict).  I try very hard to find reasons to be proud of myself and that seems to help a lot.  My biggest guilty feeling (or regret) was not spending more time with my child.  Some days I was too high and falling asleep or my time was consumed with trying to find more pills.  I even took my child to several dealer's houses...

[cynicalslave]

I think that a lot of the guilt we feel can be attributed to lessons taught during our childhood. I was raised in a pretty strict religious family. I'm 22 and I still feel guilty about having sex and wonder about burning in hell sometimes. This is what I was raised to believe since birth. So in my mind, not all guilt is righteous and fair. I guess we have to learn to tell the difference and try our best to right the wrongs in our lives. I still struggle with this, but all in good time, all in good time.....  

[HelpinUtah]

WOW!  Sweetie - you are amazing!  I admire you so much for all you've done here and for the success you have in your life and that you can share so much of yourself through experience!  

I'm so sorry that you are hurting again - but remember, things are different now and you have done AWESOME!  The past can hurt us so much when we remember things we've done - but all it can do is bring us back down again.  Guilt is an ugly creature and it tears people down, isn't it?  Anyway, you are incredible and I appreciate all you do here!!!

Lots of love to you,
Janet

[Jacqui805]

Wow, I've been holding off on posting on this thread because this is a heavy one for me.  I thought to myself, okay, I know I have plenty of guilt and I know what the issues are, no need to bring up the past and rub it in your own face...and upset the he!! outta yourself in the process.  THEN, about 15 minutes ago, I check my email and my Mom sent me some pictures that she found on my Dad's computer.  She told me it made her sad and happy at the same time, to look at them and remember.  I opened them.  I looked at the birthday candles on my youngest's cake in one of them and counted the candles.  Then I calculated back when all the cr@p started for me, for us.  It was about a year later.  She was a damned baby in that picture and I'm crushed all over again.  

Tears flow down my face as I write this.  I'm so angry at myself that I let that damned mind-numbing substance into my life and take it all away for those years.  I know in my heart, that it is over and there's nothing I can do to take it back or to make it all go away, and that my kids don't hold a damned thing against me, but still......it hurts.  

I'm going to try to turn this into a positive.  I have turned my life around as much as possible and am making up for time lost and living life to the fullest.  If you are one who is reading this post, and you are one of those who has not yet quit your DOC, or are posting that you can't quit, look, I'm not saying it's easy, but I AM pointing out that you should stop now and stop yourself and your family of being robbed any further.  Someday you WILL be off of drugs completely.  It'll either be because you're dead, in jail, ran out, just can't get it anymore, or that you finally made the decision to give it up on your own.  If it's because you aren't dead, then you too will look back on the years you spent on drugs.  Don't make this more difficult on yourself than it needs to be.  Do it now instead of someday much further down the road when you will look back at the time past since THIS post TELLING you to give it up and when you actually did.  You will count that then robbed time as a damned shame.  You will say to yourself, if only I DID give it up then, I'd have had "X" more time with my family.  

I don't want to come off in a pious way here.  Please know that this is NOT my intention.  If you found the cure for cancer, you'd want to share it right?  Same thing here.  I'm mourning the time I lost with my family, but at the same time, I'm thankful that I STOPPED losing it.  Someday I'll look back and think about how much MORE time I might have lost had I not stopped Fentanyl when I did.  Please do yourself a favor and find a way to give it up.  The guilt I bear, and that of all the others here, is tremendous.  We are all trying to not let it hinder ourselves from living, but respectfully think of it to remind us of how easily things can go bad.  

[cathy5841]

i think we all have our share of guilt..for what we did to ourselves, but for me mostly how i hurt my family..but, i try to remember we cannot change the past, but we will impact the future....

[worried878]

I never felt alot of guilt..mine was perhaps better defined as regret..regret that i wasted so much time and money..regrets that when i have a surgery i am up the creek for pain control..fortunately i am single and never hurt anyone except myself with my addiction..if i had hurt someone else..i would feel very guilty

[gizzy32]

That is another good point. I think our self esteem grows as the guilt fades. This may sound dumb but when i used, i remember not being able to look people in the eye, i couldn't even look at myself in the mirror sometimes, but now i can look anyone straight in the eye and am more confident then when i used.

[HelpinUtah]

WOW! Great post!  I also believe that guilt played a huge roll in keeping me held down for so long.  I have forgiven myself and I have moved on past the insecurities and my self-esteem is soaring again!  I haven't felt this good emotionally in many years - even before the addiction.  Obviously, some of our past and things that have happened to us in our lives is what brought the addictions to the surface anyway.  But, it's a wonderful feeling to be where I am today - and that is because of so many wonderful friends here who helped me through those difficult days and still do help me!  

[gizzy32]

Yes that made sense, more sense then my post, lol.  I liked this line that you wrote

Guilt to me is a cord tied to your spirit if the cord is being tugged you are more then likely doing something that your inner self knows is wrong.. that is some deep ****:)

[j34]

Yes I was consumed by guilt and shame just a couple of days ago I wrote a letter of what I had done to myself I re read what I had wrote and was just dumbfounded in what I had done to me!. Then I wrote a letter of amends to myself and I feel free and now I will treat myself better.... always. Still working on letters of what I had done others, then I will write the amends and go forth to clearing the wreckage of my past. I live in the now and am truly loving sobriety as well as some emotional sobriety!

[10356]

You can not change the past in the concept of take it back.. You can make amends for past actions by your present and future actions.. You can amend the past for apologizing and taking responsibility for your actions.. It is up to the person you are apologizing to if that is acceptable.. If not you have to move on in the hopes your present will prove you out...

[shaffekl]

I cant stop feeling the guilt for my past.  I lost everything my job and my fiancee and the life I once had. This is all because of my addiction.  She left me because this is the second time I have relasped and I kept everything from her, untill she found out for herself.  I was kicked out of our apartment and now I am in a different city with my parents who are helping get my life back together.  I am only 37 days clean but now that I am feeling better physically the emotional mess is eating me alive.  The lives that I have interupted because of my addiction is making me feel so much guilt and anger towards myself.  I dont  really know what to do with myself at this point.  I do know one thing is that I want to keep my sobriety and that is taking all my power at this stage.  I cant grasp the concept of not being able to change the past.  

[10356]

This is a good post gizzy.. guilt is a vicious circle.. many of us carry guilt from our past some belongs to us some does not.. differentiating the two helps... addiction causes us to do things that lead to more guilt.. I have found through therapy and life itself that you can not change the past.. carrying past guilt is self defeating.. I have been forgiven for my thoughtless actions by those that love me.. In turn I have forgiven myself. Guilt to me is a cord tied to your spirit if the cord is being tugged you are more then likely doing something that your inner self knows is wrong.. My barometer no longer my tormentor... Hope this made sense.. I enjoy your exploration of what makes up a addict..warmly lesa

[merrymaria]

i felt very guilty when using....spending my cash on pills instead of bills, taking them from my husband when he needed them more then i did, even took some from my mom.  we were under a different state of mind..which addiction took over no matter what.   i feel horrible about meeting someone on the corner to buy pills...which i could have had my a$$ busted.  it has passed some... but i still think how stupid i was for letting pills run my life.   i was never in the right frame on mind for my kids....snapping at them and not really being me...that was the worse feeling of guilt but i know they have forgiven me.  what helped me was realizing i had a problem and getting rid of it but still i i feel bad at times.  life goes on and this was a wrong turn i made and now i m back on the right road.  i guess i will alway carry some guilt for the rest of my life but i know God will help me through this rough patch of life.  He will always forgive us...after all we are human...born to make mistakes......maria