While I was drinking, I got into a nasty habit of drunk texting people. I would tell them things that were buried deep in my subconscious. Things that I wouldn’t otherwise say. Things that probably didn’t make a ton of sense. I would message close friends, old friends, my mom, even strangers. It didn’t matter, as long as someone was there to ease my pangs of loneliness.
The worst part is, when I woke up from a blackout around 4am, I would delete those conversations before I could read them. It was too painful and too shameful to reread the words that frantically spewed out of me. The people I messaged didn’t receive an apology or an explanation. It was way easier to pretend like it never happened. Avoidance was my go-to morning after coping mechanism.
Years ago, while attempting to get sober within AA’s framework, I was advised to start making amends for those drunk text messages. I was told to start apologizing to everyone else for my actions, which confused me. Can an apology be authentic if I haven’t forgiven myself first?
On episode 5 of Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things podcast, she talks about her experience with AA and the amends process. In her early 20s, after having an abortion and still in the throes of her addiction, her parents desperately sent her to see a priest. To her surprise, the priest told her she better start apologizing to everyone around her for her actions if she wanted to be “saved.”
Glennon then shares this analogy:
“I was raised in a country in which there is a factory that gives off toxic smoke on every single corner. Some people are okay with this smoke, but there is a certain group in the population that has a gene that reacts negatively to this toxic smoke. Those people get sick.
Over time, the smoke makes them so sick that they start showing symptoms and because of those symptoms, they become a huge pain in the ass to their family, their friends, their community. They become a burden because of these symptoms.
Eventually the symptoms get bad enough that the people go to the hospital. And instead of getting help, the doctors say: you better start freaking apologizing. Because that's the only way you’re going to get healthy. Get on your knees and ask for forgiveness for getting sick.”
This is why I have always had such a negatively strong reaction to the amends process. I was born into a culture that says alcohol is not only normal, but also the ultimate celebratory tool. I was born into a misogynistic world where women are expected to be beautiful and small and quiet. Like Glennon, I breathed in this toxic smoke for decades and it made my highly sensitive self incredibly sick.
The smoke was everywhere.
I was just breathing.
And now I need to apologize?
Most nights as I attempt to drift off into a sweet slumber, I am haunted by memories of those drunken messages. I feel awful and humiliated. It was unfair of me to worry people with my incoherency. At the same time, it feels inauthentic to apologize for trying to connect with people while in the pits of drinking, to apologize for “breathing.”
For me, the only way to truly heal is to start with self-forgiveness. Drinking in isolation is the loneliest address on planet Earth. Those texts were just my way of searching for connection. They were my way of reaching out and speaking my truth. Maybe in some twisted way it felt therapeutic to unload on people.
When I look at my drunk text messages through a more compassionate lens, it is much easier to forgive myself. It makes sense that I did desperate things after a lifetime of breathing in toxic smoke. The last thing I need to do is apologize.
To heal, first, I forgive myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment