Possibly
the most discussed topic, in most anonymous fellowship meetings, is
resentment, or at least has a connection to resentment, that the person
sharing may not even be aware of. How often are we minutes, days,
weeks, months, or even years away from something, but it is still in our
noggin, just festering? We have another web page, on anger, with
some information about resentment, but have decided that a full web page
needed to be dedicated to resentment. From the anger web page, let
us quote an astonishing concept:
Resentment is anger
excited by a sense of personal injury. It is, etymologically, that
reaction of the mind which we instinctively feel when we think ourselves
wronged. Pride and selfishness are apt to aggravate this feeling
until it changes into a criminal animosity; and this is now
the more common signification of the term.
The above
is taken from a dictionary. The following is a quote from the
bigbook, on page sixty four:
Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more
alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principle with who we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our selfesteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships,
(including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were "burned up."
scribe's note: seems that we might need to change the word alcoholics
in the second sentence in this quote to "human beings."
Seems to
me that we now should back up a touch, and read from page sixty two, what
the probable cause was:
Selfishness - selfcenteredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, selfdelusion, selfseeking, and selfpity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of selfwill run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our selfcenteredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.
Lets put
a quote on this web page, so that we can see how fatal resentments can
really be. We quote from page sixty five, beginning at the bottom of
the page:
We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent
was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were shortlived.
It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while.
But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal.
For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
Now let
us put some things in order, as to what the original anonymous text book
states, that are prerequisites, before the spiritual malady is over
come.
Upon hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected that, after all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor's telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience.
(page 27)
Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a Power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that Power, and to do certain simple things. There has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure
of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements.
(page 50)
A number
of years ago, after a meeting, someone approached me and asked if I would
be their sponsor. Before I could answer, they commented that they
were not going to do an inventory - the forth step, even if I did sponsor
them. For the life of me, I can not recall what my answer was to
him. I believe that I did tell him that I would work with him,
because for many years now - since the early eighties, it has been my
routine to work with everyone, on the first eight steps, in order, and
then let go and let God.
Within
two or three weeks a report came in that he had gotten drunk, and had
backed himself into a corner, and fired on some policemen. They in
turn were able to get off a shot that killed him.
