The Voice Fall 2011 Highlights
Slogans and Self-Talk for Recovering People
The dark past is the greatest
possession you have
by John MacDougall
Many recovering people have shame and guilt over the things we have done wrong in the past. The process of taking Steps Four through Nine provides a path to move from shame to guilt, from guilt to responsibility, from responsibility to amends, and from amends to freedom.
We often start on this path with shame. Shame is not a useful tool for recovery. It is just a negative, clingy feeling that tells us we are no good. The short version of the difference between shame and guilt is: "Guilt says I made a mistake, shame says I AM a mistake." Guilt is about what we have done. Shame is about who we are.
As we take our Fourth Step, we do a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We write down the exact facts about the wrongs we have done. This moves us from a general sense of shame to a specific sense of guilt about what we have done. As we take our inventory, we notice that one way to tell the difference between a character defect and a symptom of addiction is the question, "Would I do this when clean and sober?" If the answer is "no, I only do it when drunk and high," then it may be a symptom of my disease rather than a character defect. However, if I still do it when sober, then it is a character defect, and I need God's help in removing it.
At Step Five, we admit to God, ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were the wrongs caused by drunkenness? Or were our wrongs really our own desires, and we just got drunk to get up the nerve to do what we always wanted to do? Either way, we are responsible for what we have done, and we need
to accept responsibility for our part in whatever happened.
At this point, many people think that the process is done. We have admitted our wrongs. Now it is time to "put them behind us." No, the process is not done. There are more Steps.
If we admit our wrongs and put them behind us, they are well placed to bite us in the butt. We need Steps Six through Nine. At Step Six we become entirely ready to have God remove our character defects. At Step Seven we ask God to do this. In Steps Eight and Nine we plan and make amends wherever possible.
Time does not heal all wounds. However, our wrongs can be transformed into a source of healing for ourselves and others. On page 124 of the AA Big Book, we read:
"Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have--the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them."
We are called not to forget our wrongs, but to offer them to God for transformation into our greatest possession. It is precisely the shame we have felt, it is the pain we have caused, it is the failure we have experienced, it is the wrongs we have done that make us uniquely qualified to receive our fellow alcoholics and addicts and hear them without turning away.
On page 84 we read:
"No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear."
By embracing our dark past, taking responsibility for it, making amends, and seeing how our experience can benefit others, we heal--and we are a source of healing for others. The dark past becomes the turning point in our lives, and the greatest possession we have.
John A. MacDougall, DMin, is the director of Spiritual Guidance at Hazelden in Center City, Minn.
Published in The Voice, October 2009
