Online Alcoholism & Addiction Counselling

We all make mistakes from time to time, it’s inevitable. But how you react to them can make a big difference to your self esteem.

What do you tend to say to yourself when you make a mistake? If you have a judgemental inner voice that says something like “I’m so stupid, I always make a mess of things” or, “why did you do that again, you’re so useless”, then of course you’ll feel bad about yourself as a result.

If you have many of these self-criticisms happening regularly, it tends to lower your opinion of yourself, and can lead to depression, and from there to drinking more.

Similarly, how you respond to your alcohol consumption has an impact on how you feel about yourself. If you drink more than you intended one night, you might judge yourself for it, saying something like “you’re such a loser, you got drunk again”. The consequences of such a thought are probably feelings of hopelessness and low self esteem. Contrast that with a different reaction to getting drunk, like “I wish I hadn’t done that again, I really need to work out what’s going wrong” – there’s no judgement or self-criticism in that, and you’re more likely to feel hope that you can change.

This is just one small example, but the important point is to listen out for the content of your inner voice, and notice when it’s being harsh or critical, then stop to consider what you could say to yourself instead that would be more understanding and caring.

And before you reject this idea, saying “but that’s just how I am”, these self-statements are not a fixed part of your personality, they are just habitual, so they can be changed.

You can start by making yourself more aware of what you habitually tend to say to yourself. Write it down when you notice you’re being self-critical, then you can begin to challenge such thoughts when they pop up next time, maybe something like “hang on a second, I’m not useless, I just made a mistake, that’s all”. No judgement, no labelling yourself as faulty, just an acknowledgement of human error, and maybe some forgiveness too.

Many people do not accept their own feelings – especially the negative ones. When you feel angry, you might tell yourself, “oh no, I shouldn’t feel angry about it”, or maybe “why do I feel so lonely, what’s wrong with me” ?

But the key to mental health (or suffering a bit less at least), is accepting your own feelings as they are, and not judging yourself for having them. That doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly go away, but just that you realise that its OK to be feeling them, there’s nothing wrong about them.

You need to recognise that you feel a certain way for a reason, so your feelings are valid. Most of the time we have very little (if any) control of our emotions – they appear within us without our choosing them, they are not our creations. So we cannot really judge ourselves as ‘bad’, or stupid for having them.

Nor can we judge ourselves if we’re finding it hard to deal with those feelings – we often think “oh why can’t I cope with this, I’m useless” etc. Well there’s not many people who can easily handle their emotions all the time. The truth is, we’re all struggling with our feelings, few of us really feels in control of them.

So there’s no easy solution for coping, but accepting who you are and what you’re feeling (however painful that might be) is a good start. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling like you do.

Have you become dependent on alcohol to give you self confidence? Many of our clients say they have no self confidence left because of their drinking. Sometimes they feel so guilty about their behaviour, towards their families for the pain they’ve caused them, for instance.

Eventually you might lose your belief in your own abilities or worth. If you can’t socialize comfortably when you’re sober, if you don’t think you’re entertaining / clever / open enough without having a drink first, then your confidence obviously needs to recover.

When you try to cut down on your drinking, one of the things people often have difficulty with is their lack of confidence in themselves. To rebuild that self esteem again takes time. When you feel good about who you are, then you’re more confident. You need to observe yourself – notice when you are judging yourself negatively or blaming yourself for mistakes you think you’ve made.

Part of this comes down to forgiveness. We all make mistakes, we’re human after all. But forgiving yourself for pain you’ve caused loved ones can be particularly difficult. Very often we are far more forgiving of others than we are of ourselves. Mistakes or failures are just incidents, or certain things you are still learning, try not to see them as evidence of a defective personality – there’s no doubt still plenty of things that make you a valuable person.

The process of rebuilding your self confidence also requires recognizing your ability to deal with difficult feelings or difficult situations without alcohol – you don’t fall apart, it’s just difficult that’s all. If you don’t believe you can cope with life without being drunk, then you won’t.

And believing in yourself is what self confidence is all about.