Tackling Resentments–Leggo My Ego

For alcoholics resentment, ego, and fear are constant companions. They are stalkers and predators, hovering and beckoning our will. They encourage us to be miserable. They invite us for cocktails. 

The lucky alcoholics have implements, weapons if you will to combat these foes. They are the 12 steps.

I just found a sponsor and, since I already completed the first three steps (the easy ones, in my opinion), my sponsor and I will start with the fourth step. Step four addresses people and situations that cause our resentments. Except that people and situations DON’T cause our resentments. We do.

I’ve been the human embodiment of resentment for as long as I can remember, long before I took my first drink. My list of complaints and poor me’s was long, and growing. I could and still can develop a resentment at a mere glance. I used to stew for days, weeks, months, and years over some perceived wrongdoer. My favorite AA saying is, “You don’t know who I think I am,” because you didn’t.

If you wanted to make me mad, here’s what you had to do: Compete with me, preach to  me, disagree with me, ignore me, interrupt me and so on. Okay, I haven’t conquered the one about being interrupted. That one will go on my list.

To my  amazement, now that I’m ready to sit and write down my resentments, there will be a few more trees in the Amazon and a few more squid in the ocean.

Because of my four month exposure to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the experience, strength, and hope of the people in the meetings, and the steps…my resentments have become few. I still get them but it’s like they materialize on the right side of my brain and immediately the left side kicks in with a reason for each one. Here’s an example: “Shirley is acting holier than thou, like she’s better than I am.” Reason: “This bothers me because it threatens my ego, pride, and self esteem. It makes me fear the erosion of those things and I need them.”

I swear on my life, this works. It’s like having Frasier and Niles Crane in your brain. When this  process happens, the resentment evaporates. I can almost see it go “poof” and it’s gone.

That’s not to say it doesn’t get replaced but, because of what I’ve learned, I’m able (as long as I’m conscious of my own  character defects–ego, pride, fear, self pity, and low self esteem) to match the defect to the resentment. I always favored that test taking format in school so it really works for me and the resentment disappears.

Honestly, sometimes it’s a little anticlimactic because we alcoholics actually LIKE our resentments. We’ve spent our lives clinging to anger and self righteousness, throwing pity parties for ourselves and lashing out at the absent guests. Somehow it made us feel better. More captivating than any novel was me trapped inside my own head, ice cubes tinkling in the glass, tears streaming down my face, daggered thoughts spearing at the core beings of the perpetrators. It was like a bad movie. And it was a waste of time.

Another great AA advisory is not to give others rent-free space in your head. I’ve learned that there are too many positive things that belong in my head and people who’ve transgressed don’t get to be there. A whole world has opened up. I have so many interests and good things to think about that I can’t be bothered anymore with anything negative. I don’t even have to try to push these things out. All of the beneficial stuff floating around in there does that for me.

That certainly isn’t to say that I never have a negative thought or that I don’t have strong opinions. I just don’t let them stay around until the historical society comes to put them on the registry. 

Regarding the steps, we are promised that, “we will be amazed before we are halfway through.” I love the word promise because the idealist in me has always associated that word with absolute truth. If I hear it, I believe whatever follows it will happen. If I say it, you can believe I mean it. Promise is a strong word in my world.

I’m not even halfway through and I’m amazed. Here I was simply focusing on my initial recovery and not drinking, not trying to control the universe and good things began to  unfold, like yards and yards of fabric. I’m way less responsible for the state of cosmic affairs than I thought and that alone amazes me. I must RSVP a thanks but no thanks to my ego on that one because I like being free from ME.