An Alcoholic and a Child of God

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself." This would have been a perfect epitaph for my headstone if my drinking had killed me before I got to AA. It was something I was constantly told; it was a feeling about myself that, although I didn't like it, I came to accept. I became very ashamed of the life I had made for myself and the hurt I was causing to others. I was told that "real men" didn't do what I was doing; didn't say, act, or behave as I did. Being compared to a "real man" and being told that I didn't fit that category hurt my already faltering self-esteem, but the look of shame and disgust on a loved one's face was even more painful.