Guilt vs. Remorse

I know that I already wrote a fairly long post about guilt a while back, but today I was driving; listening to music and a song reminded me of all the bad things that I did when I was an addict. I thought of all the times I hurt my family and friends. I started to cry and I was overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. I cried very hard for a while. I thought to myself “I have forgiven myself for all of this, so why is it coming back again?” and I wondered “How long am I going to have these horrible feelings?”

I do not want to forget these memories as I keep them as a constant reminder of why I will never go back to using. On the other hand, I do not want them to haunt me and drag me down when I know I have been forgiven by God, myself, and a most of my family and friends. I was talking to my significant other later after this had happened and he pointed out to me that now I am feeling remorse more so then guilt. To me I thought the two where the same. They are very similar but I decided to look up the definition of each and compare them. The following is just a very brief definition of each:

Remorse: A feeling of regret or sadness for doing wrong or sinning; sorrow; pity; compassion

Guilt: A cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes - whether justified or not - that he or she has violated a moral standard, and is responsible for that violation.

Now obviously there is a much longer definition to each, but I pretty much chose the part that really showed what each word meant. I realized very quickly that I felt guilt as I was using and coming off of drugs. I was and had committed offenses that hurt me and others. Now, I have been in recovery for a while and I see that these feelings that I had today are feelings of remorse.

I found it interesting that compassion was included in the definition of remorse. I understand why though, through all of the wrong doing I have developed a sense of compassion that I never had before. Before when I was using I would feel guilty, I didn’t matter, as the definition states, whether it was justified or not; it was against my morals. Even though the two definitions are very similar, I think as an addict it is important to realize that there is a difference and that feeling both are natural.

The difference for me though, is today, after I was done crying I thanked God that He has saved my life and gave me a second chance. When I would feel guilt I would just feel worse about the things I had done, and it would often lead to me thinking of using again to cover the bad feelings. Even though it doesn’t feel good to feel remorse, it feels good just to feel. As an addict I had forgotten how to do that. Remorse reminds me that I need to hold my head high and keep pushing through even when life seems so hard. Remorse reminds me that I have so many people that love me and I never want to hurt them again.

So in a way, crying today and thinking of the past was good. It was a reminder that life is worth living, I have so many wonderful people in my life, and I have a loving God that will help me through anything life brings my way. I know I will prevail. Guilt is no longer a feeling I have. I will accept my feelings of remorse because I have come to accept what I have done in my past. It is over and I can only learn from it now. There is no reason to feel guilty, sad or any of those other negative emotions. My life has been filled with so much joy since I quit using, why should I let negative feelings drag me down? I can’t and I will not because with each passing day I learn so much about myself. I am getting stronger, and God is helping every step of the way. Life is going to be ok no matter what has happened in the past.