Addiction: Why can’t I forgive myself?

Answers from Sam Harris, Dave Ramsey, and the Bible.

“Things are starting to improve with my family, but I just can’t forgive myself.” — An addict in Recovery

Many recovering addicts are haunted by certain memories. They find it hard to forgive themselves for the past.

These memories can surface out of nowhere and cause intense shame and guilt. Many addicts tell me they won’t be fully recovered until they can forgive themselves. I presume this means that the memories will fade, or the memories will no longer produce feelings of shame and worthlessness.

How can I forgive myself?

This post will consider three solutions to the problem of painful memories.

Sam Harris’s Answer.

In a recent podcast, celebrity atheist Sam Harris provided advice to a young man who asked how to manage embarrassing and regrettable memories. Although not specifically about addiction, his advice could easily be applied to the thousands of recovering addicts who struggle with forgiving themselves.

After acknowledging that memories can help a person to spot unhelpful patterns, this is what Sam Harris suggested:

The fact that a painful memory—or an embarrassing one—surfaces and that it is painful or embarrassing in the present . . . that doesn’t really suggest to me that there is something unresolved. . .How does [a memory] impose its weight on you in this moment. Not why does it, right? That’s a sort of resolution. But how does it. What is the mechanism? How is it possible for something as gossamer as a thought to make you miserable in this moment. . . There is a failure to notice thought as thought. (Click here and start on 13:50 of the podcast to hear the whole explanation).

Sam Harris says mindfulness meditation is the solution to painful memories. Specifically, Sam Harris suggests that a person should notice the mechanics of memories in his or her mind. He urges his listener to observe how something as light and insignificant as “thought” is causing him to feel psychological weight and misery.

Later, he suggests that mindfulness meditation will teach you that “you, as the conscious witness in this moment, are truly unimplicated [by the past].”

My response to Sam Harris

Mindfulness meditation can be an effective way to reduce feelings of guilt and shame. With effort, a person can begin to experience a memory without the psychological baggage of shame, regret, and worry.

As Sam points out, there is something helpful about understanding the mechanics of memories. It demystifies the experience and can give us a sense of control when uninvited memories appear.

If you are interested in how mindfulness meditation can teach you such lessons, Sam Harris has an app that can teach it to you. Most therapists can also help you learn to detach from painful memories so you can experience them without harsh self-evaluation.

But to see a benefit, mindfulness requires patience and a fair amount of practice.

Also, mindfulness by itself is missing something important.

Painful and embarrassing memories stick with us because we know that our actions and decisions have real-world consequences. Our actions can lower our status and likeability with people we care about. Our actions can also cause real hurt and harm to people we love.

Because Sam’s solution does nothing to fix the real-world consequences of our actions, it is cold comfort to the person who struggles with painful, shameful, and embarrassing memories of their past.

It’s not enough to listen to a mindfulness meditation that tells you in a calming tone: “You must. . . see the thought. . . as merely. . . a thought.”

Ultimately, Harris’s advice can only lessen the mental anguish of the one having the memory. It provides nothing of practical value to correct the past, or give hope for the future.

See Paul VanderKlay for an expert rebuttal to Sam’s worldview.

Dave Ramsey’s Advice

Dave Ramsey is an author and radio show host who provides financial advice. Although he is not an addiction expert, he does know a lot about debt and bankruptcy, which are real-world consequences of our poor choices.

So, Dave Ramesy’s ideas about how to handle debt and bankruptcy are metaphors for handling guilt and shame caused by addiction.

The caller with a concern.

In a short YouTube video, Dave Ramsey addresses a woman who feels guilt and shame over her poor financial decisions. She reports feeling physically ill about the thousands of dollars she lost through financial mismanagement.

Now she is expecting a lump sum of money from an unrelated legal settlement. She asks Dave how to avoid mismanaging the money from the settlement. She is fearful that she will again make poor decisions just as she did in the past with previous windfalls.

Watch how Dave handles her concern:

Dave first pushes her a little by suggesting that she sounds inconsistent. He says he can’t believe that the person on the phone—who has experienced a lot of financial pain—will actually repeat the poor behavior. Then he launches into a definition of conviction vs condemnation.

To put it simply, he says that condemnation is an insulting form of self-talk. Condemnation tells a person they cannot change.

In contrast, Ramsey says that conviction is a form of self-talk that produces change.

He encourages the woman to use self-talk to tell herself that the previous amount of misspent money was tuition to a financial school. He then suggests the school has taught her to live differently in the future.

Applied to the addict, Dave’s advice means that choices made in the throes of addiction can be thought of as “an education”.

I have heard pretty much the same idea from many recovering addicts. They say they wouldn’t give up their past because it has “made them who they are today”. In such a view, addiction builds character and gives wisdom to the man or woman who overcomes it.

My response to Dave’s answer 

Dave’s answer is much more practical than Sam Harris’ advice. Sam’s advice treats the past as an illusion that has no impact on today. Dave Ramsey’s advice acknowledges the real-world cost of poor decisions. He reframes that cost, suggesting that the cost of poor decisions is money well spent on financial education.

Sam’s advice is purely mental. Dave’s advice is directed at making changes in one’s behavior.

However, Dave Ramsey’s answer lacks some power. Viewing past errors as an “education” can be cold comfort to the mother who wrestles with guilt about having her children taken away by the state due to her drug use.

It doesn’t provide much help to the man whose actions hurt his boss’s business, or to the one who failed to live up to his obligations to his family.

If my past decisions are tuition to a school that teaches me to live differently, then my learning was bankrolled by those in my life that also paid a cost for my choices. My education shouldn’t inflict pain on innocent bystanders.

If character-building must hurt, it should only hurt the one whose character is being built.

Dave’s answer is a huge improvement over Sam Harris’s answer. But, it cannot provide a complete solution to the problem of painful memories

Some stronger medicine is needed.

The Bible’s Answer.

The Bible says that when we do something to harm another person, we become indebted to them.

How a poor decision leads to debt.

Imagine that someone steals your car. When that happens, they owe you. Specifically,

• They owe you for the car.

• They owe you for the inconvenience they caused.

• They owe you for any mental distress the theft might have caused.

• They owe you for any other costs that resulted from the theft of the car

They are in your debt.

It might be possible for a person to pay you back for all those debts.

But, there are debts that a person can’t repay. If you take a life, you can never repay that debt. If you were not there to raise your child because of your drug use, you can’t go back in time and fix things. The time is over. You can’t get it back. What happens to that debt?

Jesus pays the debts we can’t forgive ourselves for.

The Bible says that God’s own son pays back all of our debts on the cross. Having paid that debt in full, Jesus is raised from the dead and stands in victory. We can live in the joy of that victory now. Our debt, no matter how massive, is gone.

The payment has been settled.

What’s more, God promises to renew all that has been broken and harmed by our debt. He is already renewing us, making us holy. And that process will come to final fruition at the end of time when a new heaven and new earth will be established.

In heaven, every debt will be canceled, every tear wiped from our eyes.

Martin Luther says it this way,

“So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!”

What about embarrassment?

Christ’s sacrifice also removes our embarrassment. Christ knows what it is like to be rejected by others.

3He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Isaiah 53

In Christ, we have someone who understands what it means to be humiliated, rejected, and an outcast.

He cares about people who are despised and rejected. He removes their shame and His Father adopts them into His family. He lifts up the lowly. Those who were nothing in this world, become priests, prophets, and kings in God’s Kingdom.

A song to drive it home

As a final Christian tip, when you are plagued by painful and embarrassing memories try watching the video of this song. Listen to the lyrics. Check out the comments people have written below the video, as well.

Comment Below: How have you overcome feelings of guilt and shame?