I wept nearly every day in my first year in recovery. What a contrast with the previous 25 years, when I  acted out sexually whenever I felt sad. In doing so, I had stuffed so much grief inside me that when the dam broke, I thought the flood would never end. There was a lot of pain down there. All those losses that I had never grieved: the death of my father when I was a teenager; many lost loves; two broken marriages; separation from my children; two failed careers; hard-won fame and fortune gone. There was a world of sadness here that I had never expressed naturally. I had just “moved on” to the next career or relationship, until one day I was 12th-stepped. 

Vee, the woman who 12th-stepped me, told me that I had been out of my body for a long time. I had no idea what she meant. Later, when I saw myself being sexually abused as a child, but only from high up on the ceiling, I began to understand. Some things are just too shocking and painful to be survived, and thus, my soul had simply left my body at that moment. Before it could return home for good, my body needed to be washed clean with many tears.

Vee had told me that if anything ever came up about my childhood, I should call her. As I spoke to her on the phone that day and told her what had “come up,” I began to be engulfed by a gigantic wave of shame and with a terror that this was going to kill me. Instantly, Vee said, “Get angry. Get really angry!” And I did. Three huge waves of rage followed over the next few months, and then it was all over, and the tears came. Anger and tears are necessary parts of grieving.

Rage probably saved my life that day, but as a way out of shame, it has its disadvantages. People can get hurt. My hands certainly hurt after I had finished smashing branches of trees on the ground. Years later, I realized that there was a much better way to deal with shame. Here is how I found out about it.

Circa 1998, I was travelling with two SA buddies in Israel. (We’d been told there was an SA group somewhere in the country but had been unable to discover where, so we were just holding our own meetings privately.) In Galilee, we had found a kosher hotel and booked in for the night. I asked if I could borrow a bowl from the dining room in which to prepare my evening meal. They gave me a white bowl with a green band around the rim. I used this for supper in my room and brought it back to the dining room at breakfast time.  

I gave the bowl to a waiter. It was at that point that I noticed that all the crockery in the restaurant was white with a blue band around the rim. A great wave of shame arose inside me. Unwittingly, I had used the bowl I had been given the evening before for the wrong kind of food. I called back the waiter and told him of my mistake. He was not upset, but I still was. I so wanted not to offend the religious sensibilities of my hosts, or those of my buddies, who were both Jewish. I was so upset that I wept—and immediately the shame passed.

Thus, I discovered the functional way out of shame, which is still the worst feeling in the world. Tears collapse shame. Of course, as a child, I had been told that big boys don’t cry, so I had lost that functional way out. Instead, I discovered that acting out with rage or sex, or violence, got me out of shame temporarily. Or I could medicate my pain with alcohol, drugs, or food. Or I could just vacate the current reality by dissociating or disappearing into fantasy. But all of these escapes had bad consequences. Only tears do not.

Today, I am OK with tears—my own or others’—and I like to remind myself that a wet cheek is a sign of a healthy man.