#224: I Drunk Texted My Ex and Feel So Much Shame — Help! (Ask Steph)
Let’s start with a collective exhale.
If you’ve ever woken up after a night out, checked your phone, and felt that full-body cringe when you realised you drunk texted your ex—please know this: you are human. You are not broken, weak, or uniquely embarrassing. You’re also very much not alone.
This is one of those experiences that feels intensely personal and shame-inducing, yet is incredibly common—especially after a breakup, when emotions are still raw and self-control can be fragile.
So let’s talk about what to do after the drunk text—without spiralling into shame.
Why Drunk Texting an Ex Makes Sense (Even If You Regret It)
When you drink, your inhibitions drop, your judgement gets fuzzy, and the emotions you’ve been carefully managing all day suddenly feel louder. The urge to text your ex probably isn’t new—it’s just that when you’re sober, you have guardrails in place.
You might be in no contact.
You might know, logically, that reaching out won’t help.
You might be actively trying to move on.
Alcohol doesn’t create the desire—it just removes the brakes.
So if part of you is thinking, “Why would I do that?” the answer is simple: because you’re grieving, you’re human, and you were in a moment where your self-control was compromised. That doesn’t mean you’ve undone all your progress.
What About the Shame?
Shame has a way of turning a single moment into a sweeping identity statement:
“I’m pathetic.”
“I have no self-respect.”
“I always mess this up.”
But here’s the truth: shame doesn’t help you grow. It just makes you feel worse—and ironically, feeling worse often makes you more likely to repeat the behaviour you’re ashamed of.
So instead of beating yourself up, the more constructive question is:
What can I learn from this so it doesn’t happen again?
Should You Follow Up With Your Ex?
If you feel the need to acknowledge the message, keep it simple. You don’t need to over-explain, justify, or pour your heart out.
Something like:
“Sorry about that—shouldn’t have sent it. Take care.”
That’s it. Clean, boundaried, and respectful. Then the focus shifts away from managing your ex’s perception of you and back to what actually matters: supporting yourself.
The Real Work: Putting Guardrails in Place
This is where growth happens.
Building self-trust isn’t about never making mistakes—it’s about responding to them responsibly.
Ask yourself:
What conditions made this more likely?
Where did things start to spiral?
For many people, the answer is alcohol—especially in the tender period after a breakup. If you know drinking lowers your guardrails right now, it might be time to pause or significantly reduce it for a while. Not as a punishment, but as self-protection.
Other helpful guardrails might include:
Deleting your ex’s number
Blocking or unfollowing them on social media
Avoiding situations where you’re likely to drink when you’re feeling emotionally vulnerable
This isn’t about white-knuckling your way through temptation. It’s about removing the temptation altogether when your willpower is low.
That’s not weakness—that’s maturity.
Turning Shame Into Self-Respect
Instead of collapsing into embarrassment, try reframing the experience as feedback.
You woke up feeling bad because you acted out of alignment with your values. That discomfort is information—not a verdict on your worth.
The question becomes:
What do I need to do to support myself in making a better choice next time?
When you answer that honestly—and follow through—you start rebuilding:
Self-trust
Self-respect
Self-worth
And those are things that often take a hit at the end of a relationship and in the aftermath of a breakup.
Be Kind, But Be Accountable
You don’t need to punish yourself. You also don’t need to brush it off like it doesn’t matter.
You can hold both:
Compassion for being human
Responsibility for doing better next time
That balance is where healing actually happens.
So if you drunk texted your ex and feel ashamed—take a breath. Learn the lesson. Put the supports in place. And remember: one moment doesn’t define you.
You’re allowed to grow from this without tearing yourself down in the process.
Sending you lots of love.
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[00:00:00]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is an Ask Steph where I answer a listener question. And this one is, I drunk texted my ex and I feel so much shame. Help. What do I do? Okay, so deep breath first acknowledge that you are human and that this is one that many people relate to. You are far from being the first person to drunk text and ex and you will not be the last. So try not to be too hard on yourself.
[00:00:28]:
It makes sense that you know when your inhibitions are lowered, your judgement is impaired and you feel sad, lonely and you know, the thing that you want to do all the time suddenly becomes the thing that you're willing to do. Right? I'm sure that during the day you probably want to text your ex as well, but you know that that's not the thing that you're doing. Maybe you're in no contact or you know, you're just deciding to keep the boundary, but then when you have a few drinks, suddenly you're willing to do the thing that you otherwise have more self control around. So it's a very human thing. And, and at the same time, I think the way that we can deal with that shame in a more constructive way is by committing to make sure it doesn't happen again and to learn the lesson. Okay, so I don't think that the focus should be on like how do I undo this with respect to my ex. I think you can, you know, if you want to, you can send a follow up message saying really sorry, shouldn't have sent that, hope you're well or whatever. Adapt it to the circumstances in a way that makes sense to you, depending on what the message actually said that you sent while you were drunk.
[00:01:34]:
Whatever. Think you have to over explain it. I don't think that you have to, you know, give some whole big apology. I think you can just acknowledge, sorry, shouldn't have done that. That was a, you know, overstep, won't happen again. And then I think you have to really put guardrails in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. Because that is how we learn the lesson and that's how we grow and that's how we build self trust. Not by stewing in shame and blaming ourselves and telling ourselves that we're a loser or we're pathetic or we're so embarrassing we go, oh, okay.
[00:02:05]:
We might have that feeling of waking and like face palming and going, oh my God, I feel totally cringe about what I did last night and I feel really embarrassed how do I make sure that doesn't happen again? Or maybe I'm not going to drink for a while, right? If I know that at the moment that's not a healthy thing for me and that it removes the guardrails that are otherwise in place, that it impairs my self control to a point where I'm likely to behave in ways that I'm going to regret, I need to not do that, right? I need to walk it back a few steps and go, okay, where did this start to spiral? Where did this start to take a turn for me? Okay, drinking. Maybe I'm not going to drink for the next month or two months or whatever while I'm really in this tender place with respect to my breakup. Maybe I need to delete my ex's number. Maybe I need to block them or unfollow them on social media, whatever the guardrails look like. You need to be sensible and responsible in creating those structures for yourself. At a time when self control feels hard. And this is true outside of the context of drunk texting an ex. When we are trying to move on from someone, when we are trying to push against what feels instinctive, which might be reaching out to them, and instead do what's right, which is closing the door and creating the space and trying to move our life forward, we do really need to help ourselves out.
[00:03:32]:
And part of that is removing temptation. It's not just white knuckling it to extreme degrees. It's like, okay, how do I remove the temptation when I am in the headspace ways to do that? How can I be rational and sensible and mature and responsible about helping myself out so that in the moments when I maybe have less willpower, the temptation isn't there. And that's a life lesson you could apply to a lot of things, but certainly in this case. And when it comes to moving on from an ex, I think that that's a really good rule of thumb. So don't beat yourself up. Don't be too hard on yourself. That's not actually going to accomplish anything other than making you feel worse, which I would argue is then going to make you more likely to want to go out and get drunk and text your cheques again.
[00:04:15]:
So don't do that. You don't have to beat yourself up. You're not the first person, you won't be the last. But learn from the way that you're feeling. Take that as feedback rather than just going into this kind of contracted, cringy, shamey place. It's like, okay, I don't want to feel like this again. So what needs to happen in order that I can ensure that I don't wake up feeling like this or that I don't, you know, act out of integrity or out of alignment or in ways that I'm ashamed of? How can I support myself to keep making good choices? And that's really what you have to get clear on and then you gotta follow through. And that's a really powerful way to build self trust and self respect and self worth, which are three things that you are going to need after a breakup because oftentimes those things take a bit of a hit when we've been on the last legs of a relationship and then working through a breakup.
[00:05:02]:
Okay, so sending you lots of love. Don't be too hard on yourself but do figure out what you need to do to support yourself to make a better choice next time.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
drunk texting, ex, breakup, shame, self-trust, setting boundaries, moving on, no contact, regret, self-control, guardrails, self-compassion, self-respect, learning from mistakes, apologising to ex, impulsive decisions, integrity, self-worth, removing temptation, not beating yourself up, social media boundaries, deleting ex’s number, blocking ex, emotional healing, alcohol and judgement, relationship recovery, personal growth, supporting yourself, making better choices, self-blame