“I would pick fights with my girlfriend so I could have an excuse to leave the house and get drunk and smoke meth.” — Anonymous Man in Recovery

What is self-pity?

The OED defines self-pity as excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one's own troubles. Examples of what a person might think while pitying themselves are:

• Why does this always happen to me?

• I work harder than everyone else, and I have nothing to show for it.

• Women/men just ignore me. They always go for [some trait you think is worthless].

• No one cares about people like me.

• They treat a [fill in the blank] better than me.

• Why can’t he/she just get off my back?

• The cop/judge/boss didn’t like me. I got way worse punishment than people who know how to work the system!

How does self-pity fuel addiction?

When we feel self-pity, we convince ourselves that we are innocent victims and that someone else is our cruel tormentor.

At the same time, we gloss over our own negative behavior and take no accountability for our actions.

The bottom line is this: self-pity exaggerates our sense of victimhood, leading us to believe we deserve to drink.

When we drink, we do so out of spite— “She’s the one making me drink!”

In addition to exaggerating our sense of victimhood, self-pity fuels addiction in these important ways

• Self-pity isolates us from other people, leaving us vulnerable to other forms of twisted thinking that can result in relapse.

• Self-pity prevents us from taking responsibility for our actions, which means things may keep getting worse. This increases the likelihood that we will simply conclude “to heck with it all, I am going to use”

• Self-pity is a negative state of mind, and negative states of mind can be a trigger us.

What can be done about self-pity?

Self-pity is difficult to snap out of. We do it so often and so skillfully that we may not even be aware that we are doing it sometimes. But, if we are vigilant and make a decision to stop self-pity in its tracks, we can begin to improve. Below is a list of 8 things (Plus one bonus technique) you can do to overcome self-pity.

1. Set a time limit.

To get out of self-pity, try giving yourself a time limit for self-pity. Ask yourself, how much time you are willing to lose in self-pity, and stick to your limit. For example, you might indulge in some silent whining for 10 minutes before closing the door on self-pity. This technique prevents you from stuffing your feelings while still curbing the unhealthy desire to wallow in self-pity.

2. Take action.

Almost by definition, self-pity involves ruminating instead of taking action. Ruminating refers to mulling over our thoughts for an extended period of time. It is sometimes called, “getting stuck in our heads”. When we engage in self-pity, we are taking a pause from fixing the issue and marinating in our thoughts and feelings. If you take some form of action, you are breaking the spell of self-pity and reentering the world of action and productivity. So rather than mope around, take even a small action.

3. Communicate.

A remarkable amount of self-pity takes place in the privacy of our own minds. Inside our own heads, we fantasize about getting validated for a list of injuries to our egos. Talking to another person about our situation can shake us out of the hypnotic trance of self-pity. By speaking our thoughts out loud, we are able to literally hear what we sound like. Often, what had seemed perfectly reasonable in the privacy of our own thoughts, no longer sounds so reasonable when we say it out loud.

Who should we communicate with? We may want to talk to the person we believe has offended us. Or we may want to talk to a trusted friend or mentor. Either way, we break out of our mental prison and start to interact with the real world when we communicate our concerns.

4. Compare your situation to a worse situation.

Much of the time, a person who is pitying themselves is making a comparison between themselves and someone else in a more favorable position. “He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; meanwhile, I can’t catch a break, and no one sees all my hard work”. That kind of comparison almost assures that you will pity yourself. But, you can switch things up by comparing yourself and your situation to someone who has a worse time of things. This kind of comparison often helps you exit the self-pity train.

A similar technique—one that involves self-comparison—also works. Try comparing your current troubles with past troubles that were worse. I know one man who attends Resilient Recovery Groups who would remind himself of some of his worst days while using substances.

For example, when he struggled with low confidence and social anxiety at college, he reminded himself of times when he didn’t have enough to eat. One time, in particular, was helpful to put his current troubles in perspective. That was the time he found unopened cans of food to eat. He was so hungry that he popped them open with a knife he found on the ground and he began to eat. Remembering this event and others like it, helped him feel thankful for the much less severe problems he encountered while sober.

5. Practice gratitude.

I am tempted to leave it at that. Gratitude is the opposite of self-pity. But, I’ll at least mention that both self-pity and gratitude are choices. And the person who chooses one or the other will find reasons to support whichever they choose. So be deliberate about what you choose to focus on. Will you choose injuries and offenses, or blessings and mercies?

6. Concern for the other.

When feeling self-pity, it can be helpful to focus on someone else. Viktor Frankl, a psychologist who lived through imprisonment in a German concentration camp, gave powerful examples of this in his books. He described a number of concentration camp prisoners who made it their life’s work to tend to and care for weaker, sicker inmates. The individuals who showed concern for others tended to live longer and experience genuine happiness—even in the impossibly cruel conditions in a Nazi concentration camp.

The life of Corrie Ten Boom provides a similar insight. She also was imprisoned in concentration camps. She was dealt with tragically and she lost many family members to the Nazis. She and her sister Betsy’s concern for other prisoners was a powerful testimony to the power of God and good sense in caring for others.

7. Pray through it.

Rather than obsess over the reasons you believe you deserve pity, try telling God what you are feeling. The Psalms offer a number of examples of the psalmist praying through his difficult days. Interestingly, the psalmist didn’t refrain from expressing thoughts and feelings that came from a deep reservoir of anger and sadness. Instead, he describes his woes in excruciating detail. The fact that God chose to include these complaints in the Bible, means that he will accept hearing complaints from us, as well.

The trick is not to stay in the complaint forever. Many of the psalms end with an expression of faith in God’s goodness. The psalms often conclude by praising God for his faithfulness and goodness. See if the same pattern holds true for you. Try sharing in detail the reasons for your sadness and self-pity and see if you find yourself ending in praise and expressions of faith like the psalmist does.

8. Ask yourself a question.

Another helpful way to shake off self-pity is to ask yourself some questions.

• Have I done everything I can, or is there something else I can try?

• What can I do to make this situation better?

• Is this something that I need to accept because I can't change it or is it something I need to find the courage to change?

9. BONUS method for believers: Trust God like Jesus did.

When Jesus faced tough situations he trusted in God. His trust in God allowed him to push forward without getting weighed down by self-pity.

Even though Jesus felt real pain and experienced true injustice, he never engaged in self-pity. And that is good news for us. Why? Because if Jesus had stooped to self-pity, he never would have died for our sins.

Peter says this about Jesus.

23 People shouted at him and made fun of him. But he didn’t do the same thing back to them. When he suffered, he didn’t say he would make them suffer. Instead, he trusted in the God who judges fairly.

When Jesus trusted in God, he was able to face rejection, humiliation, and public failure without resorting to sinful self-pity or bitterness. His perfect trust in God allowed him to go through with the crucifixion, knowing that no matter what happened here on earth, God would judge fairly. A mere human could never have trusted God enough to endure the pain and injustice of the crucifixion. A mere human would have shouted back in anger and made fun of his “haters”. A mere human would make others suffer for what they had done.

But not Jesus. Because of his trust in God and his divine compassion for us, we who are not trusting or compassionate can be saved. Because of his quickness to forgive and love, we who are bitter and unloving will be accepted into heaven.