I just read a post from someone early in addiction recovery berating their past and telling themselves they have not tried hard enough. That is not what I saw as I read the post, I actually saw a person doing a great job of working to be honest in sobriety but at the same time beating themselves up for past mistakes that come out of unconsciousness. It’s the same as being berated for a lack of will power if you have an addiction. There is an AA pamphlet called Why Willpower Wont Work there is an element of choice once we understand we are under the grip of a compulsion but not until then and addicts don’t have weak will but a very strong one just focused in an unhelpful direction.
I hate seeing addicts beaten up emotionally, admittedly some will choose not to sacrifice their addictions if there is something they don’t want to face but over time my experience in sobriety is that in time we do find the courage to face weaknesses, flaws or wounds in ourselves that arose out of past difficult experiences. The most powerful words in the AA Big Book for me are ‘many of us do suffer from grave emotional defects but we do recover if we have the capacity to be honest’. But honesty means being able to see ourselves clearly to reflect on the true motivations of our actions and it can be tough at times to pull us back from past patterns. Only we are responsible now if we choose to do so, but as for our past, well we did the best we could with what we knew at the time, anything else just fosters an insane mindset that can never really find true surrender, wholeness or peace, nor the courage so needed to change the things we can while surrendering those we cannot, which includes our entire past!
Emerging From The Dark Night 