Where Healing Begins: The Power of Self-Compassion in Sobriety
Addiction lives in the subtlety of silence and shame. It creates this triangulation effect where each component feeds off each other. You end up finding yourself suffocating with shame and overwhelmed with fear of asking for help when you are at your worst.
The thought of showing yourself compassion doesn’t even cross your mind because the “addict brain” has convinced you that you shouldn’t burden others with your issues. It ends up breeding a sense of unworthiness and a distorted lens of how you show up with others or in this world in general.
The good news is that every human being is deserving and capable of practicing self-compassion. Even when we may struggle with addiction including alcohol or substance abuse, behavioral addictions (i.e. gambling, shopping, porn, etc.), or “healthy” addictions for work, exercising, or relationships.
If you read my previous blog about practicing self-compassion with an anxious mind, I highlighted the three elements of self-compassion according to the expert in this arena, Dr. Kristin Neff. For a quick refresher, those three components are Self-Kindness, Common Humanity, and Mindfulness. When we combine all of these, we build a strong sense of understanding and acceptance for ourselves. Along with developing a belief system that we are worthy of showing ourselves love.
I wanted to highlight that addiction is typically a symptom of our mental health issues or past experiences. For example, when we struggle with social anxiety sometimes we cope by overdrinking to feel like we can enjoy the moment with friends or that our anxious thoughts will quiet down. This becomes a way of temporarily coping, but we never truly face the social anxiety if we are always choosing to drink excessively in those situations. We end up training our brains to associate that “just one drink will help calm the nerves” so that it becomes automatic to have a drink with any social interaction.
These patterns lead us to feeling disconnected from others and ourselves in the end, and may even lead to worse drinking episodes or needing to consume more to feel the same effects. Following those episodes, we experience shameful thoughts, worse anxiety the next day, and still feeling inadequate with our coping abilities. We may even realize the drinking is not truly helping the social anxiety, but it now becomes a challenge to stop.
How would you help a friend who came to you with the issue I just laid out? Would you tell them how their personality lights up a room? Or how much you enjoy their company regardless if they are drinking or not? Typically, you’d offer an ample amount of kindness and support towards a friend who was struggling with addiction or mental health issues.
So why is it so challenging to talk to ourselves the way we would talk to our friends?
It is challenging because we have an inner critic who is extremely hard on us mentally. Our inner critic may show up in the voice of a difficult parent, abusive partner, or our own bullying self. This inner voice can be hard to argue with because they have years of negative thoughts or shameful emotions that have convinced us we can’t ask for help.
This is where the healing begins for practicing self-compassion while also trying to maintain a healthy life in sobriety. You start to work with your inner critic and build trust back in your decision making abilities. Eventually, that self-compassion leads to forgiving yourself over and over and over again. Because you will make mistakes and relapse on behaviors again in your lifetime, you are not perfect. Nobody is and that’s what makes life beautiful.
How to Work With Your Inner Critic: 4 Phases
Be curious. We can stay in this phase of curiosity for several months and always come back to this place of observation. With this first part of working with your inner critic, the main goal is to just notice and observe that you have an inner critic. Ask yourself, “What voice am I hearing when I am self-critical?” and “How do I feel about my inner critic?”
Appreciate your inner critic. You may have a strong inner critic, so this phase is about playing to that strength. Even if your inner critic is giving off negative vibes right now, that doesn’t mean it always will be that strong. Show yourself kindness and understanding that you’ve been so hard on yourself lately and try to shift towards a positive reframe of current situations. This may look like saying to yourself, “How am I being challenged right now?” or “What am I struggling to accept in this moment?”
Practice self-compassion. Allow yourself to open up to a sense of softness and acceptance. You are a flawed human being; we all are. During this phase, it’s essential to do things that help you to feel connected to yourself in order to heal and grieve your old shame-based self healthily. Try one of the exercises I listed in my previous blog for practicing self-compassion.
Build a healthy dialogue. How you speak to yourself matters. Learning to set boundaries for your inner dialogue is what helps protect you from the criticism when it tries to creep back in later down the road. Hold yourself accountable and stop allowing judgment to overtake your behaviors. Say positive affirmations to yourself in the mirror, practice self-care daily, and build back trust in yourself.
Practicing self-compassion in sobriety doesn’t have to be an anxiety-provoking task. It also doesn’t have to be something you eventually work on with your therapist or on your own. You can start implementing self-compassion practices at any point in your recovery journey, the most important thing is that you just start.
You are deserving of forgiveness.
You are worthy of a healthy life and mind.
You are capable of giving yourself understanding and compassion, without feeling the weight of guilt on your shoulders.
Healing is possible and self-compassion can be another tool in your tool box, not an unattainable goal in your life. Schedule your consultation with me today if you’re ready to start your healing journey towards a better life for yourself!
