Regret in sobriety has been an interesting topic for me. I’ve always had within me a deep well of shame. So, when I was a practicing alcoholic, my threshold for pain of any kind was incredibly low. Every little slight or indignity was unbearable, and for that I rarely faced my regret. I felt it constantly so I drank about it. It was pain on mute. Now that I am passed my six month mark of sobriety, regret is something that I can see more clearly. That’s both a negative and a positive. It’s a negative because it’s painful, so painful that I ran from it my entire life. However, the positive is that I can now see that the pain is not unbearable, and to bear it and to learn from it is a beauty I could not have fathomed six months ago.
In May of 2022, my high school mentor and teacher died. I didn’t know she was sick so her death hit me incredibly hard. Of course, I was still drinking at the time. The most painful aspect of her passing was that I had not seen her nor kept in contact for well over twenty years. I lost contact with her not because I didn’t care, but because I was ashamed of not living up to the promise she saw in me. Other students taken under her wing flourished, but I felt like a failure, so I stayed away, but I always loved her for what she did for me. She believed in my talents when I felt no one else did. I never got to tell her how much she meant to me nor thank her for her kindness.
I always had this plan to get my shit together and then finally go see her as if her love was transactional. Like, I could only pay her back for her kindness with my success so that she’ll continue to have an affection for me. My thinking was not so sophisticated to see that at the time, but that was my thinking. I didn’t believe I was deserving of her respect so I hid from her. I could not bear to see her disappointment in me. It would have devastated me because I was that fragile.
This was incredibly unfair to her, to believe that she needed me to be a success under my terms. She would reach out to me and I would run away. I realize now that all she wanted was to be closer to me because I was her student – because we shared a beautiful past and a bond that meant more than something as trivial as my narrow view of success. It wasn’t her disappointment I was afraid of, it was my own and I projected that upon her. Now I can’t tell her any of this, at least not to her face.
In that same year I lost three other people that I loved dearly. So I fell down a hole of booze, depression and self-loathing. It was a battle to not drink every day. This may not sound odd since this is a blog about my recovery from alcoholism, but as a binge drinker this meant I would lose every day to drinking. I was going to school and had a job so I couldn’t fall into oblivion every day running from my pain. My drinking sessions had become marathon events. Sometimes I would go through stretches where I did drink every day, though. Eventually I’d get my shit together just enough to drink every other day so I could go about my life as a zombie.
That was the lesson I got from alcoholism though: you can’t drink away your pain. You can only blind and deafen yourself to it. Regret was always too heavy a burden so I drank, but alcohol had lied to me. It told me I could not bear it, but that’s not true. The pain of regret is not fun, but it needs to be felt. It is not a pain that is going to kill me, that’s for sure. So, as I sit here and think about my mentor, teacher and friend, I cry. I cry because of the time I wasted. I could have gone to her and sought her sage advice, but instead I hid. There is nothing I can do about that and I have to live with it. I have to come to terms with it and accept that in life, these things happen.
I cannot go to see my beloved mentor and teacher. She is gone. If she were here I would tell her all the things I should have. That she was the first person to encourage my talent as a performance artist. She listened to me and she challenged me to find that talent within me that I had never previously known. I would have told her she gave me hope. That she introduced me to myself in many ways. I will never be able to thank her enough.
Regret in sobriety is something I have to face every day. The good news is that regret in sobriety is not the same as it was when I was a mess. I have the ability to not make the same mistake with the loved ones that are still here with me on this plane of existence. I can be a better son and a better brother; a better friend; a better student. No, I know I will never be perfect at it, but I can show up and look them in the eyes. I am still afraid of being seen as a failure, but I know it is only me who worries about that, and my belief is all that really matters. Drinking and regret is a death sentence. Regret in sobriety/recovery is a gift.
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