Shame as a Concern-based Construal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199
Shame and Shaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Healthy and Unhealthy Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Moral Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Guilt and Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Shame as Emotion and as Trait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
When Shame Goes Wrong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208
Non-Moral Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
The Hidden Shame in Our Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
Embarrassment and Humiliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214
Shame and Pride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Compensatory Pride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Transposing the Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219
Shaming the Shamers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Hiding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220
Taking Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221
Examining Moral Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Examining Non-Moral Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Intrinsic Worthiness: Shame from Harm Caused by Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223
Intrinsic Worthiness: Shame from Harm Caused by Circumstances . . . . . . . . . . . . .225
The Appearance of Worthiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226
Emotional Sobriety: Freedom from Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .228
“Shame is not an emotion we ordinarily talk about in the rooms. We are not likely to bring it up when we tell our story. It is not something we particularly want to discuss with our sponsor when we do Step 4. In fact, we may not wish to include it in our inventory at all—even if it is a big issue with us. The reason is simple. Shame hides. The things we tend to feel ashamed of are usually too personal, too private, and too intimate. We would rather not have anybody know about them. We would just as soon keep them to ourselves.
But we can’t. Not if we are going to do a truly searching and fearless moral inventory. Not if we are going to deal with and heal from all the manifestations of our disease. Thus, shame’s tendency to hide represents a special problem for Step 4—and for its follow-up in Step 5. For in these Steps honesty demands that we uncover and face all the facts about ourselves. It requires that we open up and disclose everything that may have a bearing on our wrongdoing and the defects associated with them. We need to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth.
And yet, the 12&12 rhetorically asks, who really wishes to be that “rigorously honest?” (S1, p. 24). Not many. From which it follows that shame may be yet another reason why some of us avoid, delay, or shortchange our inventory. It may be as big a reason as guilt. Maybe bigger. Why? Because shame cuts deeper.
Shame As a Concern-based Construal
This becomes evident when we consider that, whereas guilt is a perception of being blameworthy, shame is a perception of being unworthy. Shame is the most devaluing of emotions. It says not only that we are circumstantially at fault or that we are instrumentally not good in this or that particular instance, but that we are inherently faulty, that we are no good in some fundamental way that impinges on our value as a person. Shame can go so far as to question our very worth as human beings.
A concern for personal worthiness is defining of shame. The emotion is based on a desire to be worthy in some way that is important for us to be or to appear to be. In varying degrees, such a concern can touch upon anything that we perceive might reflect upon our value, dignity, or self-respect. Exactly what this is differs for different individuals and is subject to social, cultural, developmental, and other variables. At the broadest and most public level, it encompasses such things as physical appearance, social graces, linguistic ability (speaking, reading, writing), intellectual aptitude, education, occupation, level of skills or talents (professional, artistic, athletic), social status, economic or financial condition, and sex, race, color, or ethnicity. At the narrowest and most private level, the concern is more uniform: it is for moral worth, for rectitude, for rightness of character and conduct.
The emotion is triggered by the perception that, in some significant way, we fall short of the desired worthiness or respectability. The perception is fundamentally one of defect, where defect is an umbrella term referencing a global condition that says that we are inadequate, deficient, inferior, substandard, or below par. The feelings aroused are aptly described by terms of detraction: we feel devalued, diminished, demeaned, degraded, dishonored, disgraced. Shame’s consequent concern is a desire to be, or appear to be, more worthy or respectable.
. . .
When Shame Goes Wrong
A concern for worth, for dignity, and for self-respect can hardly be an unhealthy concern. Like the concern to be good, it is intrinsic to being human. Yet it can become unhealthy. When it does, shame goes wrong. For, as we have argued, the emotion is based on such a concern as we perceive it to be affected. If the concern is warped, so will be the perception, and with it the emotion. The emotion becomes defective or dysfunctional then, when our concern for worth is distorted or misdirected.
This can happen in three closely related and often overlapping ways. One, when social appearances prevail over moral reality and the concern to seem worthy takes precedence over the concern to be worthy. Two, when our concern for moral worth is subordinated to (or eclipsed or displaced by) concerns for non-moral worth. And three, when our consequent desire to regain our worth or reduce our unworthiness turns to dishonesty and gives way to secrecy and concealment, to deceit, duplicity, and denial, to rationalization and justification. When these things happen, our perception of reality is warped. It is then that we can become ashamed of the wrong thing, for the wrong reason, and in the wrong way.
The potential for disorder in all three cases lies in the very nature of shame as an emotion: its concern not only with intrinsic worthiness, but with the appearance of such worthiness. It follows from the fact that, as we have noted, in practice the way people see us is more important to us than the way we really are.
. . .
Emotional Sobriety: Freedom from Shame
A spiritual awakening is gradual. Thus, healing from shame can begin from the moment we hit bottom and enter the rooms. But becoming free from the emotion begins with our inventory. That is when we come out of hiding. We remove the padlock, open the door, and shine a light inside the shadowy closet. We get honest with ourselves. Rigorously honest. We bring to bear on the dark and negative side of our nature a new vision, action, and grace (12&12, S11, p. 198). We stop leading a double life. We cease covering for Mr. Hyde.
Where we are ashamed of the right thing, for the right reason, and in the right way, subsequent Steps provide a series of spiritual principles which will free us from the emotion as we repair the damage and as the defects which drove our behavior are removed. Where we are ashamed of the wrong thing, for the wrong reason, or in the wrong way, the same Steps and principles will relieve us of the defects which render the emotion defective, and with that of the emotion.
What are we basing our worth on when we feel ashamed? That is the fundamental question our examination of shame needs to answer. Basing it on appearances, circumstances, and what people say and do to us will always result in a disordered emotion, however understandable it may initially be in some cases. Only where we have acted shamefully can we be rightly ashamed.
But in AA that is not a hopeless condition. No matter how low we have sunk, or “how down the scale we have gone,” as it says in the Promises (Big Book, p. 84), we can recover. As we do, “we will see how our experience can benefit others” and help them to recover as well. Thus can evil be transformed into good. Thus can we be free from shame.”
– From Part II: Emotions, Chapter 11: Shame and Humiliation, pp. 199–200, 208–209, 228
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