At the beginning of the recovery journey from addiction, an overwhelming feeling sometimes arises that can be stronger than the physical pain itself: guilt.
Guilt is one of the hardest emotions that anyone who has struggled with addiction may face… the feeling of having let their family down, wasted their time, harmed themselves, and lost control.
Many people at the start of the journey say:
“I am the reason for everything that happened. Even if I recover, do I really deserve a second chance?”
And here lies the real challenge… not only resisting addiction, but also resisting self-punishment.
The truth we try to convey at Relife is that guilt is not a sign of failure… on the contrary, it is a sign that a person has started to regain awareness of themselves and has begun reviewing their mistakes. But what matters most is that we stop at the stage of reviewing… without slipping into the stage of self-flagellation.
There is a big difference between admitting your mistake, and living your whole life as if you are “a mistake walking on earth.” And this is what we work on with people in recovery: turning guilt into energy for change, not an obstacle to progress.
Many who begin treatment with us carry within them the guilt of years, and some are even afraid to talk about it. But when they find a safe space, they hear for the first time the words:
“You are not alone, and you are not the worst thing you have ever done in your life.”
That’s when the transformation begins.
Freedom from guilt does not mean forgetting the past, but rather understanding it… and learning from it.
