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Look Again at Your Own Words - Your Answer is Already There

answered 12:40 PM EST, Fri June 06, 2014
anonymous anonymous
Why do I feel so ashamed when I wake up after drinking if I did not do anything that I am ashamed of the night before? I do not think there is anything wrong with getting drunk in my own house. I am not a violent person actually I am supposed to be a very happy and funny drunk but no matter what happened the night before I wake up feeling so ashamed I could almost cry.

Dr. Mark Abrahams Says...

Dr.  Mark Abrahams . Abrahams
PhD, MTS, LMHC, NCC, CCMHC, MAC, NBCFCH
LinkedIn.com

I am referring to these words specifically: "I am supposed to be a very happy and funny drunk." This clause is like a compressed file, there is so much information in it that you have expressed, yet seem oblivious of. In the first place, you are disclosing your identity as a "drunk," and that alone is a basis for much concern. The term drunk is a colloquial expression for alcoholic when it is used as a noun, which is how it is expressed in your words. It has a meaning of less concern when it is used as a verb, as in 'getting drunk.' 

Being a drunk, an alcoholic, is not, as the supposedly stereotypical notion of being "happy and funny," (often depicted as a partier putting a lampshade on his/her head, because [s]he's 'lit'), is just the opposite. Compulsive, addictive drinking is not indicative of a "happy" person, and as for being "funny," more people are laughing 'at' the antics of a disinhibited drunken person, than 'with' them. They are been made 'fun' of, often behind their backs, which is to say, contemptuously. As for the word 'fun' itself, I used to point out to the adolescents I used to work with that the letters f-u-n are the first three letters in funeral, especially in regards to their experimentation with drugs and alcohol, but the same applies to adults. Alcoholic fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver are commonly the result of people with Alcohol Abuse and Dependence Disorders, but there are lots of other negative medical consequences, brain shrinkage, Korsakoff's Syndrome, esophageal cancer, etc..

It is not only the social consequences of drunkenness that you are becoming emotional to. You know that consumption of alcohol to the point of gross intoxication means not only inebriation but also alcohol toxicity, which is self-damaging on the level of cells, tissues, and whole organs. This is an act of self-destruction that is being repeated compulsively, but the question is 'why?' Are you self-medicating? Is there an old trauma that is in the 'back of your mind' yet eats at you chronically, but which is forgotten when you're drunk? Does your morning-after shame really have to do with a 'shamed child syndrome' because you are unnecessarily ashamed of something that happened to you long ago? And further, could it be possible that the miserable feelings associated with a hangover remind you at some level about miserable feelings you felt long ago after one or more traumatic events? Are you playing 'chemical Russian roulette, secretly hoping that one morning you will simply not wake up, having died from acute alcohol toxicity? These are just a few of the questions that a capable therapist could tease out from a clinical history, psychotherapy, or hypnotherapeutic regression, depending on how available to consciousness your personal history is, or how repressed into your unconscious. 

Checking in at this site was a good first move, and your next move is to seek actual psychological counseling. I wish you well on your path of self-knowledge and recovery from whatever pain you have been seeking to escape from.

 

Read more: Addiction Treatment, Intervention and Recovery Counseling - Choose Help 
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Page last updated Jun 06, 2014

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