One of the hardest things for alcoholics to deal with, as I see it, is our resentments. I know this because of my own experiences and those I have talked to over the years in here.
Probably the hardest of these is in our own families. There are probably many reasons for all of this, but I’m not interested in that. What gets my interest up is what we can do about eliminating these threats to our peace of mind and our sobriety. Particularly our sobriety.
At the end of each meeting, most meetings, we say the Lord’s Prayer. That part which says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us, is one of the hurdles we have to cross. The same is in the prayer of St. Francis in the Eleventh Step in the 12&12. Forgiving others is what merits us forgiveness.
Why is all of this so important? Ask anyone who has survived going back out and drinking because of resentments. Pretty much what the BB tells us. That resentments cut us off from the sunlight of the spirit, we drink again, and for us to drink is to die. I have seen this and its results too many times since I have been in this program and I don’t want to go there.
For me I know that by myself I could not handle resentments. In this program I needed the help of my Higher Power. I really had no idea how to handle these things. And I know I got that help when I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. It was in the Ninth Step while I was making an amend to a former manager I had worked for and was angry at and filled with resentment over. I got done and had left the office when all of a sudden it hit me. All of my anger and all of my resentments had vanished in the blink of an eye. At that moment I remember I realized that my sanity in my alcoholism had been restored. I had stopped fighting everyone and everything including alcohol.
I know for me, when I think about these things, I have to go back to the source of what Fr. Martin and those old timers talked about for a long time in this program. Our emotions. They said that we had to place the intellect over our emotions. I heard that over and over and over in the past. I rarely hear it today, probably because so many of us are ruled by our emotions and have become accustomed to that. Our emotions take over and rule our minds. They do the thinking for us and govern our actions. We’re literally held prisoner, as long as they are in charge.
I was talking to an old friend of mine in here in the program today about these very things. That the solutions to our resentments are spiritual. I remember reading the story in the BB, Freedom From Bondage, about the woman who hated her mother and what she found to be the solution for her. It’s one way. Very spiritual. I remember another friend of mine in here, who was weighed down by a couple of resentments, which drove him to anger and rage, when he read that chapter and changed. He and the men he resented became good friends after that. It works.
I know that I’m the last one in here to think I’m a spiritual person. I don’t feel spiritual most of the times. I know that I have to strive to do the things I need to do. That’s because my sponsor and all those others back then kept encouraging me to never quit. To keep on keeping on. To develop perseverance. To strive to pray and meditate and keep a faith, a belief in my Higher Power. To have hope and to practice that Third Step. To let go and let the God of my understanding take what I can never handle.
I know that one of the things which gets in the way of most people like myself is my over sized ego. The drive to control everything. Never wanting to let go. And that’s exactly where our emotions come in. Anger, fear, anxiety, worry, resentments, and, as always, the list can go on and on.
I know this is where so many spiritual counselors and directors can come to our aid. My sponsor and a lot of others. I have to be able to admit just how powerless I am over these things. I know that I have to listen to others with experience who can direct me to do what I need to do and be grateful for the help I get from them and that which my Higher Power gives me.