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How Addiction Leaves Us Vulnerable
It’s not just who we hurt, but also who hurt us.
This essay originally appeared in the Exploring Sobriety newsletter.
I hate how I used to treat other people when I was drunk.
I was an angry alcoholic. The type of guy who would blow up over everything and nothing. The kind of person who made others anxious — as if they were walking on eggshells.
Since getting sober, I’ve spent a lot of time working on these anger issues. I’ve reflected on how I’ve treated others, done my best to make amends, seen a therapist, and developed anger-coping mechanisms so that I don’t keep acting so awfully for the rest of my life. [I’ve previously written about this in more detail: Alcoholism and Rage.]
After getting sober, it’s important to put in this work — to think about how our alcoholism hurt others and to improve our behavior moving forward. I’m proud that I’ve taken responsibility for how I treat others.
However, lately, I’ve realized that this is just half the story. I’ve poured a lot of energy into understanding how my addiction hurt others but this focus caused me to miss the fact that the harm often went both ways.
As an active alcoholic, I was a deeply vulnerable person. At the same time that I was mistreating others, I was allowing myself to be mistreated.
When I think back on the friendships and romantic relationships that I had during my years of heavy drinking, I’m shocked to realize how terrible many of them were.
It’s not as if every single relationship was dysfunctional, but there were certainly far more problems than I realized at the time.
When it came to friendships, I often ended up in situations where it felt like we didn’t even really like each other. There was a lot of one-upping, a lot of little rude comments tearing each other down, and a lot of feeling used.
My romantic relationships were even worse. I frequently fell into the pattern of letting myself be controlled and changing tons of things about myself — from my clothing, to the way I smiled, to what I did for fun — just to please someone else. I had one ex who said mean things about me constantly, ruining my…
