Episode 177 -- December 23, 2021

Resentments are common in early recovery. Our lives have included all kinds of pain. We might feel like we've been wronged or hurt by someone else. Some of us have experienced trauma, and we cope by holding on to feelings of resentment and anger. Some of us may actually resent ourselves because of what we've done—or haven't done—when we were using drugs or alcohol. While the roots of our resentments are real, so are the dangers of holding on to them. Resentments can control our thinking, so they have the power to destroy our recovery. The goal, then, is to let go of our resentment and anger. To do this, we first need to honestly admit them and face them.

For decades, the book A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living has helped millions of people understand the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and apply the Twelve Steps to their lives. The following excerpt explores different ways that resentments can appear in our lives and how they present a roadblock to our recovery. We also learn that we can overcome our resentments. And we need to if we're to progress in our recovery. When we're no longer angry with other people or ourselves, we can open the door to experiencing positive feelings and emotions in our lives. We find that we can be peaceful, happy, serene, and free.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

The Nature of Resentment
Resentment is destructive when it means persistently re-feeling old pain—our anger, hurt, and indignation from the past—by replaying and reliving our memories of the incidents that caused the pain.

We need to understand that resentment can be a natural feeling and a natural process. All of us have some resentments. In fact, in some situations where resentment takes the form of righteous indignation, it can play a useful role. For one thing, this kind of resentment can make us get up and act. Imagine that you live in a somewhat run-down neighborhood. Your home needs painting, but all the other homes on the block do too. So you aren't particularly bothered by the peeling paint and ratty appearance of your house, and neither are any of your neighbors.

Now suppose a new fellow moves into the neighborhood. He buys the house right across the street from yours, and after a few days you see him painting his house and putting in new windows. Now his house looks a lot better than yours. You resent that, so you paint your house and put in some new windows and a new door.

Now your neighbor gets resentful because at this point your house is nicer than his, so he landscapes his front lawn and builds a patio. This makes half the homeowners on the block resentful, and pretty soon they're all out painting their homes and laying sod and building patios of their own.

This type of resentment can be useful, because it encourages a form of constructive competition. But what happens more often, especially among us addicts and alcoholics, is that our resentment gets used negatively, to make matters worse or more painful instead of better.

For example, let's imagine an addicted couple named Sue and Ralph. Sue and Ralph live on the same block where people are competing to see who can do the best fix-up job on their home. But instead of joining in and remodeling their house, Sue and Ralph let it stay as run-down as ever. As homes on the block improve, Sue and Ralph start to get angry at their neighbors, and they allow their house to look worse and worse by comparison. Pretty soon, their house is the eyesore of the block, and they resent the hell out of all their neighbors. Eventually, they stop talking to them, and when a group of neighbors offers to help them repaint their house, Ralph yells at them, "Get off my property!" Then, of course, he goes inside and he and Sue start drinking and using drugs.

In this case, Ralph and Sue used their resentment to turn a potentially positive and constructive event into something negative. Then, once they made the event negative, they used their resentment to make it even more painful. That is what we addicts and alcoholics often do with resentment.

Many of us even go a step further. We take a painful incident and we replay it over and over in our heads—for hours, days, months, and even years. We feel the pain a second time, and a third time, and maybe a thousandth time. We addicts and alcoholics are particularly good at this. We say to ourselves, "I don't know why I got hurt. I wasn't doing anything. Somebody just came up to me and hurt me." And then we replay the whole thing over so that we can feel the pain again. It should come as no surprise that the pain hurts just as much each time—maybe more. The stupidity of this is that while somebody else may have hurt us originally, we are now hurting ourselves each time we replay the incident in our minds.

On top of that, what most of us do, without realizing it, is to change what happened each time we replay the event. Again, addicts and alcoholics are especially talented at this. We embellish and dramatize things a little bit more each time: Maybe we make ourselves a little bit more virtuous and the people who hurt us—and the things they did to hurt us—a little bit nastier. Eventually, when we replay the incident, we've changed it so much that it hardly resembles what actually happened.

We don't deny that people have done things that hurt you. People—some more than others—do things that hurt other people. That's a simple fact. Life isn't always easy, and we don't know of a way to keep these things from ever happening. So long as you're alive, you're going to get hurt sometimes.

But look at what we do: Every time we get hurt, we hang on to that hurt, and we replay it over and over. It's like we've got a replay machine in our heads. And here's the weird thing: We don't use that replay machine to record the good things that happen. We only record the painful things. So it's no surprise that when we turn the machine on and begin playing things back, all we see are painful incidents.

This kind of resentment is like a boomerang—it goes out and then it comes right back at you. This is why it can be such a terrible, destructive thing. Once you resent someone long enough, sooner or later you'll resent your own position in life—and then you'll resent yourself for letting yourself get into that position. You end up swimming in self-pity.

Eventually, some of us start to live off resentment and self-pity. They become the guiding forces in our lives.

Does this sound familiar? This pattern of resentment, self-hatred, and self-pity is extremely common among us alcoholics and among other drug addicts. It's one of our biggest problems, and it often becomes a seemingly natural part of how we think. But actually it's not natural at all—it's a form of sick thinking we've created for ourselves.

One of the worst things about resentment is that whenever you're busy resenting somebody or something, at that moment that person or thing is controlling your will and your life. And if other people and things are controlling your will and your life, that doesn't leave any room for direction from a Power greater than you are. Your Higher Power can't direct a mind that is being controlled by resentments.

The Bottom Line on Resentment
According to the Big Book, the very worst thing about resentment is this: If you don't do anything about it, it'll kill you. It blocks you off from your Higher Power. It won't just ruin your life—it'll end it. The Big Book says it flat out: Resentment is fatal. You already know what happens once you start to drink or use drugs, and you also know that, for an alcoholic or addict, continuing to drink or use leads to misery or death. Once your resentments and anger cause you to take a drink or use, you're on the road to disaster.

It all boils down to this: It doesn't matter whether your resentments are justified or unjustified. The fact is that your resentment and anger block you off from the will of a Higher Power, and they cause you to drink or use other drugs. For your own good—indeed, for your own survival—you need to let go of your resentments and anger so that you can stop drinking and using other drugs and turn your will and life over to your Higher Power.

As your resentments disappear, you'll begin to experience a little bit of love, patience, tolerance, and goodwill toward your fellow human beings. The more your resentments leave you, the more good feelings will flow in.

© 1991 by Hazelden Foundation
All rights reserved