It’s amazing how we can get down on ourselves about our unskillful behavior,  even though life and our experiences in our addiction have shown us that we are only fallible humans.   Our expectations of ourselves,  and perhaps those of others, may even have been part of the stress and pressure that drove our addictions.  We need to remember that no one else has the right to determine our personal standards,  and to move those standards into the range of reality and human possibilities instead of aiming for some target that existed in someone else’s mind.

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves how much better we are really doing.  There are usually others in our lives who are ready and willing to point our our remaining shortcomings (as if we didn’t know them better than anyone else).  But we’ve come so far!   We need to appreciate our new skillful ways of dealing with life “on life’s terms,” and concentrate on building those skills,  not on beating ourselves up for our inevitable mistakes.   We’re nowhere near perfect,  and because we are human beings, we never will be.

Self-flagellation is not part of healthy recovery.