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“I would assert, and I know this personally from years of living with it, that the shame of not being able to quit, of being too weak to stop, of being unable to do the right thing, unable to do the thing that everyone else that I know could easily do - that weakness, that level of shame changes your life. You can deal with the financial losses, and you can even deal with the lies (they have a short half-life, either you get away with it, or you apologize and say you won't do it again). But the shame, guilt, and loss of respect for yourself when you can't make yourself stop, that awful sinkhole of personal failure, never goes away.” — Kurt Dahl
I would assert, and I know this personally from years of living with it, that the shame of not being able to quit, of being too weak to stop, of being unable to do the right thing, unable to do the thing that everyone else that I know could easily do - that weakness, that level of shame changes your life. You can deal with the financial losses, and you can even deal with the lies (they have a short half-life, either you get away with it, or you apologize and say you won't do it again). But the shame, guilt, and loss of respect for yourself when you can't make yourself stop, that awful sinkhole of personal failure, never goes away.