Shame Fuels Addictive Acting-Out
As I’ve emphasized before, addiction is an emotional dis-ease, and the primary emotion that fuels addictive behaviors is shame. So let’s define shame. According to Webster’s Dictionary shame is a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety. Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason say in their book Facing Shame that "While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person." I agree with Fossum and Mason. Guilt is an emotional that arises when we realize we have said or done something hurtful or wrong. Guilt is primarily about our behavior, which we can change. It’s true that we can be ashamed of something we’ve said or done, or failed to say or do, but guilt is the primary feeling that motivates us to be responsible for our bad behavior. Shame, on the other hand, is a devastating feeling about our own defectiveness or inadequacy as a person. Shame is ...