Bill W. referred to it as a “dry bender. We always called it a “dry drunk”. In any event the same thing. The result of negative thinking and emotions. An “emotional bender”, as it is sometimes called. Dry drunks I know can lead real drunks, if allowed to remain within us. I’ve witnessed this over and over again.
Why bring this up? Because of a couple of things. Mainly a couple of conversations about resentments. It was this last thing, which made me stop and think. After all resentments are supposedly anger at someone else. Really? And that’s what made me stop and think about all of this.
What was finally clear to me is that an amend is all about forgiveness of the person I resent. The one I couldn’t forgive. However my readings about this and my experience have brought up something else. How am I going to forgive someone else unless I first forgive myself? I really went back and thought about that. Who am I really anger at in resentments? The other person? Or is it my guilt for the way I feel? My self pity? If I don’t forgive myself and think I’ve forgiven them, made amends, what am I left with? Increasing anger at the people I thought I had let off the hook. In the end it’s all about me over and over again.
I know I have been down this road many times in the past. Thankfully, due to this program and my Higher Power, I haven’t had to go there for a long time now. And, if I stay awake, aware of where I am and what it is I’m supposed to be doing, I know I never have to go back there ever again.
Bill says that his experience with dry benders was due to not just his thinking, dark, depressions, but his emotions. And my examining this brought up why was I depressed? What were all those emotions about? And that brought up my self pity and my anger at myself. My inability to forgive myself for what? A lot of things, but mainly the people, who “had done me wrong”. And it didn’t take long, when someone actually said they could see they were wrong in their thoughts about these people. Yet the inability to forgive oneself was there. And that was me, I hope in the past.
I never want to drink again and I know what it is I need to do. To keep my side of the street clear. Whenever I’m disturbed there’s something wrong with me. If I had been honest with myself in the past I would never had my resentments. But I wasn’t. It took these Steps to bring about the changes necessary. They opened my mind and my heart.
How easy it is to see these disturbances in others. I just hope that if I keep doing what I have been shown I will be able to continue down this path. The road to sober thinking and living. And I know in order to do this I will have to continue to seek the faith, hope, love, and help I have been receiving from my Higher Power. And that is through the Steps. To practice these principles in all of my affairs.