From Addiction to Self Esteem

Nathaniel Branden once described self esteem as the reputation you have with yourself. If you know someone who frequently lies to you, you usually think less of the person. If someone takes something from you by deceit, you don’t trust them. If someone’s always negative, you don’t like being around them. What if that “someone” is you? After a while you think less of yourself, you don’t trust yourself, you don’t even like your own company. When you don’t feel comfortable in your own skin, something’s terribly wrong. Moving from addiction to self esteem takes action, persistence, understanding and time.

A person living with addiction begins lying to defend against the consequences of constant drug use. People who become addicted sometimes steal, and this is not just common theft — executives in large companies might skim from their employer to cover the high cost of addiction. Addiction almost always negatively affects self esteem. The addicted person becomes undependable, and the idea of being a screw-up seeps in and is reinforced over and over.

I’ve heard clients in treatment say they don’t like themselves, don’t trust themselves and many don’t believe they can change. If a person’s trying to recover from addiction and doesn’t improve their self-esteem, they might grow restless and discontent in their own company because of bad memories and their poor self image. Recovery has a lot to do with forgiving ourselves for the past and making a plan to do differently in the future, changing things we messed up, if possible.

Once the recovering person begins taking action, changing the way they relate to others, making an effort to be honest, apologizing immediately for mistakes, repairing the past, but realizing no one is perfect, things begin to change – the person begins to realize they can achieve goals — they can follow through — they can become dependable and trustworthy. Self esteem improves recovery and makes a person want to continue in the journey from addiction to self esteem as confidence and self-respect grow.