Episode 46 -- August 15, 2020

Exit the Resentment Lane: Positive Self-Talk During the Pandemic

There's a lot to be angry about these days. The coronavirus pandemic has affected our jobs as well as our family routines. It has derailed plans and hurt people we love. Everybody seems on edge; we're short tempered and stressed. For healthy recovery to take place, anger needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. Those of us attending to our recovery know we need to develop a wider range of emotional skills than our previous lives required of us, including healthy ways to express anger, and how to recognize ways others' anger affects and triggers us. Learning to accept, understand, and manage our anger can make recovery less stressful and reduce the chance of relapse, something we all can appreciate during this National Recovery Month. In this excerpt from their book, Of Course You're Angry: A Guide to Dealing with the Emotions of Substance Abuse, Gayle Rosellini and Mark Worden call us to examine self-pity as a destructive form of unhealthy anger, and find a way past it.

It has been edited for brevity.

Addictive people and their family members often suffer from a major problem that doesn't always look like it's related to anger, but it is. It's called?self-pity.?And like resentment, self-pity is caused by negative self-talk.

We feel sorry for ourselves because our family, friends, co-workers, lovers--the whole darn world--don't give us what we want, need, and feel we deserve. As we wallow in self-pity, we don't stop to ask ourselves if what we expect from our family or friends is reasonable. Some of our demands are never even voiced. We just expect other people to know what we want. How unreasonable can you get?

Self-pity is anger, plain and simple. We're angry that life isn't fair, that it's full of hardship and disappointment. We see ourselves as victims tossed around by an uncaring world. We're strong believers in luck--bad luck for us and good luck for everyone else. And we're blamers. Who do we blame? Anyone handy: spouse, kids, Exxon, the environmentalists, the government, the extraterrestrials....

We keep our self-pity bubbling with self-statements like, "It was my husband's (wife's, parent's, child's) fault."

We think thoughts like these:

• I wouldn't be so tired all the time if my husband made enough money so I didn't have to work.
• I wouldn't be stuck in a job I hate if my parents had encouraged me to get a better education.
• I'd be more respected by my friends and have a better social life if my wife were good-looking and if she had a better personality.
• I wouldn't have had to spend ninety days in jail for my third drunk-driving conviction if my wife had come up with bail on Saturday night.

We're experts at this blame game. If we can't find a person to blame, we'll even blame God. Self-pity, resentment, and fault-finding are symptoms of the family disease of substance abuse. Part of our recovery process is fearlessly confronting these defects in our thinking.

Wait a minute! Hold it right there! Did I just hear you say,?Poor me, why is this all so hard? Why am I saddled with all these special problems?

Well, maybe it's because the good things in life seldom come easily or without practice. It's true: We may have more than our share of problems. If so, that's all the more reason for us to put in the effort required to make our recovery work!

Consider the things that make you angry. Your sloppy stepchild, your lazy colleague, your insensitive spouse, the car that won't start, the snotty salesclerk, the boss who refuses to recognize your worth, your mother-in-law with her critical smirk. The list is endless. We get lied to, manipulated, fooled. We get insulted, ridiculed, used. Life treats us unfairly, dammit! Doesn't that give us the right to be angry?

Listen: Every single person in the world has similar (or worse) troubles to face every day. We are part of a huge mass of humanity facing the difficult problems of everyday life. Our problems are no more burdensome than our next-door neighbor's. People who look like they are sitting on top of the world have just as many problems and tragedies as we do. They just handle them better! (Or seem to. Appearances can be deceptive!)

Cope 'N Hope
Cope 'N Hope. Sounds like an oven cleaner. But coping and hoping--realistically--enable us to get out of the resentment fast lane. We learn to cope with problems realistically, and we learn to have reasonable expectations about the people in our lives.

Having problems does not make us special. But we can?become?special--by learning to cope with our problems and angry feelings without destroying our self-esteem or trampling all over somebody else's feelings. We cope with our problems by learning to be responsible for our own happiness.

But, you say, your life has been nothing but one bad break after another. Your blood boils at the mere thought of the hassles that family, bosses, and so-called friends have put you through! They?make?you angry and unhappy.

Not so. We make?ourselves?angry by some line of illogical thinking. We blame other people for our own troubles. We "catastrophize," we make mountains out of molehills, we turn everyday irritations into major calamities. We get angry because we're thinking (partly unconsciously), "It's not?right?that Doris didn't get me out of jail."

Let's stop for a minute. Analyze your thinking. Listen to what you're saying to yourself, the self-talk that's going on when tense situations come up.

We do have these kinds of thoughts and, indeed, they make us angry.

Our feelings of anger are triggered by our negative, irrational, catastrophic thoughts. This is the main reason we sometimes get into such a state over minor aggravations.

Here's a fact of life we had better not ignore: Recovering people can't afford to get into a state over annoyances. We can't waste our energy turning molehills into mountains. We don't have time to spin our wheels catastrophizing some little snafu into a major crisis.

Why not? Because we have real catastrophes to deal with. Things like broken families, damaged children, wrecked relationships, unemployment, bad credit, legal complications, and perhaps other problems.

We have work to do!--making amends to people we have hurt with our arrogant and selfish behavior, rebuilding a career left in the ashes of substance abuse, rebuilding the rest of our lives.

If we are to fully recover, we must learn to put the petty irritations of everyday life into proper perspective. We must take responsibility for our own behavior and stop blaming other people for our mistakes.

So what if Roy hogged the floor at the last AA meeting and you didn't get to have your say?

So what if Delbert was twenty minutes late coming home for dinner and the salad got soggy?

So what if somebody stole your parking spot?

So what if you got yourself in a jam and your spouse (parent, friend, child) couldn't or didn't rescue you?

For this, you're ready to make war? For this, you get resentful, bitter, and churlish? You'd risk your recovery by stubbornly clinging to that resentment? Life is too short and recovery too precious to squander serenity on petty grievances.

We can learn how to cope with our frustrations and disappointments without becoming angry and resentful. And we can learn how to change unrealistic expectations into reasonable hopes.

First, we must thoroughly analyze away the illogical and self-defeating self-talk that's running through our minds. Second, we must practice (and practice and practice) using positive, rational, logical self-talk to develop reasonable expectations--cope 'n hope.

For example, ask yourself, "Will I really die if Paul forgets our anniversary? Is it really so awful if I have to remind him? Is it a crime for him to be absentminded? So what if I have to drop a few hints for him to get the message? In most ways, he really does try to be a good husband. I wish I didn't have to remind him of important things, but it really is just a teensy little flaw in his character compared to his good points."

The conclusion is that you won't die, and it isn't necessary to create a torrent of unpleasant emotions about Paul's oversight. He probably feels bad enough already. And if he still doesn't remember after you remind him, well, you'd better find out what's really going on, instead of jumping to conclusions. Talk about your concerns.

By practicing this kind of rethinking--positive, rather than negative, self-talk--we can rid ourselves of old resentments and prevent new ones from forming.

About the Author
Gayle Rosellini has worked and published widely in the field of chemical dependency. Mark Worden has written many articles on dependency and recovery.

© 1985, 1997 by Hazelden Foundation
All rights reserved.