January 31 – Not My Fault
“There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way.” — Big Book, p. 58
Some alcoholics unfortunately can’t admit they’ve been wrong. Every bad break, every lost job, every fight — somehow it’s always someone else’s fault. They can’t give a straight apology because, in their story, it’s always the big old scary world did this to me again. It seems like they were born saying, “Not my fault.” And they never truly recover.
We used to avoid people like that because we knew if we got too close, we’d probably be blamed. But the truth is, we weren’t any better. We blamed everyone and everything for the way we felt saying something like "If you had my life, knew the pressure I was under, went through what I went through — you’d drink too." We had a whole list of reasons ready to go. We weren’t lying — We honestly believed our own stories. That’s the part that’s terrifying — We really did believe it.
Blame feels like armor, but it’s really a trap. It keeps us from seeing our mistakes, keeps us sick, and keeps us stuck in a protective, self-willed bubble of delusion. Saying not my fault made us feel safe, but it also kept us powerless. The moment we started considering owning our mistakes, something shifted. The truth didn’t destroy us — it gave us a way out.
It’s easy to spot people who won’t take accountability, but harder to admit when that person is us. The world got smaller when we hid behind blame, and it opened up the moment we started getting honest. Hasn't it turned out the more honest we have been getting, the more free we feel? And freedom feels good.
What’s a mistake you finally owned in sobriety that ended up being a relief instead of a punishment—and what surprised you about how good it felt to stop defending yourself?
