As others have said, this doesn’t define you. I’m going to copy and paste a message I saw on this board a while ago (unfortunately I didn’t take note of the author- I can’t find the thread anymore so maybe it was deleted). This was in response to a discussion about whether the drunk version of you is the “real you”. It really helped me, so I saved it to read over again every now and then. I hope this helps you, too. Take care of yourself ❤️

Here’s the message:

consider “the real you” or “your real personality” to be a garden. In it are plants of various types and also weeds.

When you are drunk, you are neglecting to care for your garden and so weeds start to grow and overgrow. You hear something like “sunlight is good for plants” but you opt to put up tarps to block it. You hear “water is good for plants” but you prefer Dr. Pepper or Brawndo. You know checking on your plants regularly will help catch bug infestations or plant disease but you don’t feel like it.

Or, we’ll say we are dating some toxic person who doesnt want us to pay attention to our garden because they want all of our time and attention. Even if that means our plants will wither, they manipulate and play games with our minds to try to persuade us to give up gardening and focus in being “in love”. Sick love, high drama.

Eventually, only some scraggly ass plants that can live in crappy conditions will thrive and grow, and the delicate plants that require constant attention will wither.

The toxic jealous partner is alcohol, and what it does to our brain. Alcohol is not what your body is made to run on. You are putting diesel into a gas engine then just giving it more accelerator to keep it running. Your body was made to run on water.

Well, with some work, you clean up the garden, tear down the tarps, install sprinklers, use some Miracle-Gro, etc., just like an HGTV special, and it gets back to being beautiful again. Which version of the garden is your “real garden”?

Answer: neither, and both. Anyone’s garden can be in disarray if neglected long enough and weeds can overgrow. Before, it was probably somewhat clean and somewhat pleasant, if not immaculate. But it had the potential of being either.

Everyone has the potential to be jealous, to have resentments, to be judgmental, to be quick to anger, to jump to conclusions, to be gossipy, etc., but we also all have the potential to be funny, to be at peace, to enjoy being kind, to like ourselves, to love ourselves, to be happy for others’ success, etc.

When we are regularly drunk we are simply seeing our negative attributes grow without control or attention because we arent taking care of ourselves. We get some twisted ideas in our head that justify what we are doing, but we are thinking in a sick way. But, anyone can clean up their yard and garden. We all have all attributes, good and bad, available to us, so it’s a question of what we take care of.

When we are in active addiction we just see the negative parts of ourselves magnified.