Drinking guilt and its big brother shame
When I used to drink the drinking threw in a free gift of a helping of guilt and shame on the side – how kind! Guilt is the emotion that we feel when we have behaved in a way that we perceive to be hurtful to others or as a moral lapse. Guilt serves a purpose when we recognise, acknowledge and rectify the behaviour, such as apologising if necessary. The thing is, when I was drinking, sometimes I didn’t remember the behaviour so what I got left with was guilt’s big brother, shame. Shame is the emotion that we feel when ‘we’ as a person are at fault, not our behaviour. It is the way we feel if we have fallen short of our own internalised ideals or if there is a public disclosure of a perceived weakness or defect. For me shame was the fast track path to self-loathing, failing self-esteem and crushed self-confidence and it was hard not to feel shame as I felt like I couldn’t control my drinking and therefore my behaviour. Erik Erikson argued tha...