As I was writing my last post, Confidence, I realized it was essential to make clear the difference between confidence and arrogance. I know -- we're grownups and you understand the difference. Unfortunately for me, I thought I did, and I learned the difference the hard way. Besides, in the first Pride and Ego post, I said it could have been the longest blog post ever, so here's some more.
I've been lucky enough in my life that things came relatively easy to me. I was a good student who never had difficulty with tests, did great on the SATs, went to a great university, etc., etc. Sure, I had some awkward moments socially as a kid -- I was smart, not much of an athlete . . . you get the picture, but those moments were solved when I started drinking. When I was drinking I was social, I was funny, and I fit in.
By the time I graduated college, I had built my confidence. I could take on the world, and nothing would stand in my way.
In my advertising career, it wasn't that things just came easy to me. Real life doesn't work that way. But I was good at what I did, and I worked hard, and that is a powerful combination. I did well in my career. I climbed the ladder, and I was consistently assigned challenging clients, as the folks that made those decisions thought I could handle them, and I did.
I was lucky (at least I realize that now) that I was able to overcome obstacles in my path. But I truly began to believe that I could do anything. I'd started believing my own press. If it took bending the rules a bit to make things happen, I'd figure out how to bend them and get away with it. I got things done, even if it wasn't by the book. I could make things happen.
The problem, when you truly believe that you can make anything happen, is when you can't that's on you, and, when it's something that matters, the blow to your psyche can be severe.
When you truly believe you can do anything, you're beyond confidence. I'd become arrogant.
My father died tragically in 2004. At that point, many of my friends were on the lookout to see if my drinking would get the best of me. It was a legitimate concern. Everyone knew I liked to drink, but I didn't cross the line at that point. I knew there was danger, and I also realized that too much alcohol at that point sent me into depression over what had happened, so I actually went the other way and managed my drinking carefully.
What did happen though was I went back full bore into being the caretaker of the family in my dad's absence. It was a role I had played over the years, and I believed it was the role my father would have wanted me to take on.
My mother never really recovered from the death of my father, and no matter what I did to try and fix it, to help her become active, to help her become happy, I never succeeded. I could do anything, so this wore on me. What was I doing wrong?
In 2011, it was clear to me that my mother was not well. I tried to get her to see a doctor. She refused. We played this out over and over again, to the point of tears, but I could not convince her to go to the doctor. Finally, after a full year, she felt poor enough to take herself to a doctor. She was in congestive heart failure and had been for close to a year. Caretaker Dave sprung into action, and I got in touch with a top cardiothoracic surgeon on 4th of July weekend. Several days later, she was in surgery, and the surgery was a success.
But it was too late. In December of 2012, I got the call that my mother had collapsed and was unresponsive. She was taken to the hospital via ambulance, and I met her there. She never did wake up. She'd been in heart failure for so long, her other organs were damaged, and her liver had failed.
What followed was guilt. It was my fault. I was supposed to be in charge. I was supposed to take care of the family. I didn't convince her to go to a doctor. I couldn't. I had failed. I'd let down my father and my brother, and my mother had died because of me.
As traumatized as I had been by the death of my father, I did not cross the line into substance use disorder. But, in my arrogance, I couldn't handle my guilt over my mother's death. If I could do anything, why couldn't I save my mother? I must have done something wrong.
In the years following her death, I numbed that guilt (among other things) with alcohol. It is not uncommon for people with substance use disorder to be people who believe they are in control, that they can dictate the outcomes of circumstances that are truly beyond their scope. When I drank I could forget my failure, as many others like me have done and are still. I could act like everything was OK, like I had done nothing wrong.
The real truth is I HAD done nothing wrong. I had tried to the best of my abilities to convince my mother to do what was best for her. She, making her own decision, did not act on that advice. How arrogant of me to believe that everything was in my power, that I had control over the actions of others? And therein lies the key to this post, the difference between arrogance and confidence.
Comments