I saw my role in his death. I had to accept my role, take responsibility, and stop playing the victim. My sobriety demanded it. Justice demanded it. I couldn’t blame anything anymore, not my anger, not my behavior, not my father’s alcoholism, not on our screwed-up society, not on police brutality, not on an untrustworthy government—not on any of the other targets I used to sing about on stage with my band. I realized how I had created all of the negativity I was wallowing in, and my own selfishness had created my own demons.
Not long into recovery Jack visited his father’s grave for the first time since the burial. He stood there alone, a stream of painful memories washing over him, and had the longest conversation of his life with his father. “I told him how sorry I was. I told him how I had hurt him and added to his stress and pain. I told him how I had changed. I was in recovery. I had a bright future ahead of me. I told him I hoped he could be proud of me now.”
With recovery, Jack was reborn into another way of thinking. He took responsibility for all parts of his life. He became a new kind of role model. He still plays music, but without any of the other lifestyle toxins and attachments from his previous life. He has become a clinical hypnotherapist and an inspirational speaker performing on a new stage—before hundreds of people at a time—extolling the life-changing miracles of recovery from addiction.
WHAT MAKING AMENDS DOES
When someone goes into recovery from an addiction, that person should take an inventory of who they really are. Everyone on the planet could benefit from doing this periodically, regardless of whether they are in recovery from an addiction or not, because that examination prepares you for a journey down the road of self-transformation toward becoming a more contented person.
This self-examination involves compiling a detailed checklist, much like what retail stores do in their annual inventory of merchandise, so you know what resources are available to you and what is missing. First, you must identify and understand the primary problem in your life, which could be just about anything, not just an addiction. Second, you need to develop an understanding of your responsibility in having created that problem. Third, accept that you’re responsible for changing the mind-set and behaviors that initiated or accompany the problems you experience.
Part of that process, the accepting personal responsibility piece, involves a realization that you’re responsible for virtually everything that happens in your life. You can’t legitimately claim victimhood. And you are the one who must fix the problems in your life—you can’t pawn off that responsibility. You must hold yourself accountable for your words and deeds.
Beginning in the 1970s, this theme struck a responsive chord with the more than one million people who participated in awareness training programs and workshops pioneered by groups such as est (Erhard Seminars Training), Landmark Forum, Lifespring, Temenos, and Pathways. These programs were designed to expand conscious awareness—bringing darkness into light—and improve the way people experience themselves and one another.
During these workshops, ground rules—stringently enforced—emphasized personal accountability, including something as simple as promising to be on time for each session. That might seem trivial, but punctuality (or lack of it) reveals a lot about people’s reliability. In many of these programs, if you were late to sessions or back from breaks, you were given the opportunity to stand up in front of everyone and confess that you had no one to blame but yourself. Excuses sound extremely lame when someone has to publicly confront an audience of faces staring back, like a giant mirror of self-reflection.
Early in my recovery, I blamed my upbringing for my having developed a drug dependency. I actually believed I was victimized on a variety of levels, and I felt totally justified in feeling and voicing that victimization. It’s true that I grew up in a family plagued by codependency, and I wasn’t taught very good interpersonal skills from my parents. They were both alcoholics, and my mother was devastated by the tragic events in her life, including losing two of her brothers to assassins. She became withdrawn and emotionally unavailable. People around me would get mad, and they couldn’t talk about it because they were afraid of their own anger. So they hid away all of this resentment and anger and plastered a smiley face on top of it. In our family, we would hide our feelings of victimization behind a mask of stoicism, which meant we couldn’t talk about any of it or deal with it on any level.
As with many people in recovery, I’ve struggled with an inability to get along with other people, whether it’s my kids, my family, or in my love life. I could be in a loving relationship, but then get suspicious, thinking the person was only in my life to get something. She didn’t really love me for me. She just loved where I had come from, the family I grew up with, or the possessions I had. She’s using me—that was my greatest fear.
Where did this message come from, and was it true? What was my responsibility insofar as dealing with it? I came to realize it wasn’t something being done to me. It was something I had created, and I had to take responsibility for it. Why did I create it? One reason has to do with self-worth. I did get a lot of attention for who I was in my life—the famous family I came from—and I became somewhat wedded to that image. In some ways, it was my only measure of my own self-worth.
During recovery, I slowly began to see my part in everything that happens to me. I no longer pretend to be a victim. So now when I’m in a good relationship and those whispers begin in my mind—“Maybe she’s not really here for you. Maybe she’s just really good at hiding her real intentions”—I recognize those inner voices as my fears resurfacing, as the feelings of insecurity that make me wonder whether or not I’m good enough for her and if she’s going to leave me.
Once I developed the understanding that I’m just manufacturing those fears, I had a choice and I could do something about it. When the inner voices try to sabotage me, I can call upon recovery skills and resources to counteract them and defuse their emotional impact.
Taking responsibility for thoughts and actions is a process. At every step you need to ask yourself what is real and what is merely your projection based on fear, habits, and upbringing. Most people don’t believe they have the time to work through this process. They’re running as fast as they can just to survive. Admittedly, it does take some time and energy to develop the capability and desire to do it. You need the willingness to engage yourself. It has to become important to you. That is true for everyone, but for addicts it’s absolutely crucial because for them it’s really a life and death issue.
LEVELS OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
During my recovery from drug addiction, I’ve gotten to know dozens of experts in the recovery field. One of them, a well-known addictions-recovery specialist in New York, began an entire branch of research in 1998 to study the various approaches people use to stay in recovery from drugs and alcohol. Many of her close friends are in drug and alcohol recovery, and she has interviewed countless others in recovery, giving her a unique, valuable point of view.
“I’ve grown as a human being by accepting and acknowledging personal responsibility, and that’s happened as a result of being in contact with people working on themselves,” she told me.
When I began in recovery research, I interviewed people and heard their recovery stories and saw what they were going through in working the Twelve Steps. That experience taught me an enormous amount of what it means to be a human being. I am a “normie” but have grown enormously from learning these lessons, which can benefit everyone.
In looking back on their lives, many people insist on blaming others; they have to feel like victims. This blaming tendency goes back to childhood. We don’t usually teach children that all actions have consequences. For some reason in this society, saying I’m sorry or I was wrong feels so horrible that many people would rather not. It’s easier to blame what happens on someone else than to say you were wrong. I know many
