Self Esteem in Recovery

It is perhaps one of the most overused excuses and misunderstood terms in recovery. As a Alcoholic I would use the excuse to manipulate others to try to make me feel good about myself. As I recovered I learned a very important fact. Low self esteem is a personal demon not caused by other rather by our own actions and thoughts. Let's face a reality in terms of human condition Addicts rank just above pedophiles, murderers and lawyers. Thankfully the way the world is going we will be more respected then politicians soon but that is a different theory. If we take the words self esteem it is hard to see where it gets so confusing unless your an alcoholic or addict then, well everything becomes confusing. Self Esteem is just what it says. It is how we feel about ourselves and our lives. If we are unhappy with the way things are in our lives we have low self esteem. So how do we raise our Self Esteem? There are several ways the most common is doing esteem-able acts. Selfless acts that make us feel good. In recovery working with others raises our self esteem. We feel good when someone else is able to ask us for help and we are able to help them. Looking good for some people raise there self esteem but does it really? Yes and no. In terms of feeling good about ourselves appearances can be deceiving. It is a unfortunate testimony to the human condition that we judge people on appearance rather then personality but it is what it is. I remember feeling good wearing a suit and tie everyday at Radio Shack. It was a appearance that made me approachable. On the other hand I was miserable and misery causes our self esteem to plummet. I found that acceptance was a helpful tool in learning to gain self esteem. Accepting that I was a alcoholic with a disease that was controllable through certain therapies made me feel less like a scumbag and more like a normal person whatever that may be. When dealing with Self Esteem we need to be wary about false alarms caused by ego. Yes the Ego the demon of all demons in the addiction field. When did our Ego's become so distorted that we were homeless, 135 lbs with a beard and a smell that could scare a bear and yet we thought we looked like Fabio or for the females without the beard Paris Hilton. Either way our self deception caused our self esteem to plummet. When we look at the hard pill that is our lives we find that we can feel good about ourselves by changing the way we think, act and react. Changing our self image comes from changing ourselves emotionally and spiritually. Emotionally we learn not to take things personal, we find that when we accept that not everyone is going to react the way we want them to then we can take responsibility for those thoughts. One of the biggest examples I remember was Male Parolees whose wives or girlfriends left them. Well what did you expect you've been in and out of prison, nonsupporting, and emotionally unavailable and you expect a rational woman to stick around? Of course it is ego there. Sometimes we find ourselves wondering after several months of recovery why all of a sudden we feel bad. Well that is because we changed to quickly got a few rewards and then the cloud burst. It is not the end of the world once again acceptance comes to our rescue. It took years to destroy ourselves and it may take a lifetime or more to fix ourselves. Remember that you can find self-esteem only through yourself. Gain acceptance that your the center of your own universe not the center of the entire universe. Understand that people react to you based on they're needs at the time and you may not fit those needs. Applaud yourself for trying. If you gave everything you had and was still shut out there is no reason to feel bad.