If there is one subject that, when it comes up, I know a whole lot about. That’s the word “guilt”. I had a whole lot of that, when I came in. I was buried under a garbage heap of guilt. In the morning, in those early years, I could hardly get out of bed, because I had to dig my way out from under this stuff. And the nights were worse. I would lay there and my mind would go back to my past actions and all this stuff would come down on me and I couldn’t let go. I spent a lot of sleepless nights. I still can, if I let myself.
It’s a wonder I stayed sober.
I went through the fourth and fifth steps and the eighth and ninth. Yet so many memories still would come back to haunt me. Guilt, guilt, and more guilt. I found that I often couldn’t shake loose of some of this stuff. One day, when I was relating some of this to my sponsor, he said, “God forgives you, man forgives you, why can’t you forgive yourself?” Why indeed.
Over the years I have learned a lot about this subject. One is that guilt is self imposed. The other is about our old ideas. Letting go of those old ideas absolutely has been a long journey. I often feared I would go to hell in a hand basket if I did. They had been my companions since childhood. Hard to let go of when they’re cemented to my insides.
I got help with this from an old timer, who one night said to me that faith was like going to the last light in the world and then stepping past it into the darkness beyond. And that’s part of the answer to the dilemma of guilt. The reason I now know I had such a difficult time forgiving myself, was my ego. My self centeredness. And my selfishness, in holding all this stuff to myself.
Guilt can be really hazardous to our spiritual health. It can lead to despair and depression. In other words, it can lead to a drink. When I think of that, it gets a lot easier to let go of the old ideas.
Anyway, an old friend of mine brought this to mind today. I’m glad he did.