TigerLili

I would like to know other people's experience of resentment, how they recognise it and how they deal with it.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with AA for 5 years. I would always find myself annoyed and irritated with people and meetings and end up leaving. I’d stay sober for a while, think I was doing ok and then forget I had a problem and start drinking again.

The other day I agreed to go to a meeting with a friend who is struggling. When I came home I re-read the Big Book sections on Steps 4 and 10 and something told me to look up the definition of ‘resentment’, so I googled it.

Here are some of the definitions I found:

• bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.
• strong and painful bitterness you feel when someone does something wrong to you
• Indignation or ill will felt as a result of a real or imagined grievance
• displeasure
• animosity
• hostility
• hate
• loathing

I nearly fell over. I hadn’t considered resentment to cover those things. My definition of ‘resentment’ was quite narrow in comparison. I thought resentment was a fairly specific emotion but now I realize it covers a whole spectrum of emotions.

It says right there in the book that resentment is the number one problem for alcoholics and that untreated resentment will make us drink again and will be fatal. I have no argument with that. I know it’s true. I had never made the connection between my uncomfortable emotions actually being resentments and drinking again. Kinda obvious, I know. Reading it this time hit me like a truck and looking up those definitions blew my mind.

Obviously I have been quite blind to my own emotional world. I’m not used to looking at it, trying to understand what’s going on emotionally etc. I just want to blot anything painful or unpleasant out and push it away. I had no idea that the hostility I felt towards a work colleague, for example, was actually covered under ‘resentment’.

So I guess the upshot is that I think I have to become more emotionally aware and treat every uncomfortable or unpleasant emotional reaction as ‘resentment’ in the manner the BB advises. I am sure that’s really obvious to a lot of people but it’s been a major revelation to me.

It feels like a million tons has dropped off my shoulders. I didn’t realize I had been drowning in all this toxic, negative emotion and that it had never occurred to me what it was or what I needed to do with it.

In my experience of doing the Steps a couple of times with different sponsors, there was so much focus on ‘wrongs done to others’ that I had never considered that the left over emotional effect of wrongs done to me, or wrongs that I had observed (eg I have a lot of anger with someone over the way they treated other people even though they were ok to me) or as mentioned above, ‘imagined grievances’.

So I’m making a list of emotions and words that relate to resentment to keep in my inventory book to remind me that those things exist, that I have trouble recognising them and that I need to be on the lookout for them.

What are your thoughts around resentment leading to relapse? What do you do about resentments in you life?

KateL

A little yes, still after years of sobriety. I donlt hate or feel hostile but have trouble forgiving certain things like violence towards me. I don't let it get to me as much but I don't let people walk over me. Silly little annoyances are much more tolerable now though.

cardoon

I can feel it. When I do ( still learning to recognize, of course) I just ask myself what caused the feeling. Then I say to myself something along the lines of, " Mind your own business".

MB8

Hey tiger. 100% my number 1 issue is resentment since I quit drinking. I resent my wife first and for most. I resent her because she doesn't drink and never has. She can make 1 drink last an entire party and never really drinks it anyway. I know this is completely ridiculous but it's the truth. It's something I am truly trying to work on. It's not her fault that she's not a drunk like me. Why do I hold that against her. She knows it too. She will say " you totally resent me because you can't drink ". The problem is she never even asked me or told me to quit. I did it on my own as I know I've needed to for over 10 years. So yes, resent is awful. I struggle with it daily. MB8

EndGameNYC

In my experience, holding onto resentments is equivalent to reliving painful hurts in the eternal present. Anger and frustration arise when we don't get what we want; whether that's a material object, the way we want people to act or treat us, a certain status or level of success, or emotional satisfaction. Rage takes its place, and replaces all other emotions, when we continue to want things our own way, despite the fact that it eats at our very being. Those of us who carry resentments do not camouflage our internal lives very well at all.

Mitch Albom, originally a sports writer from Detroit and author of Tuesdays With Morrie and other books, has long gone uncredited with the quote, "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." He's on record as dealing with his own struggles with alcohol.

He's also credited as saying, "Holding anger is like a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."

Resentment is the gift that keeps on giving.

I've learned that the best way out for me is to live a good life.

MB8

Endgame. That is good stuff. I just totally had my eyes opened up by your entire post. Also I am a huge sports nut and have watched Mitch Albom on sports reports reporters many times. Didn't know of his struggles with alcohol. I guess what they say is true. It doesn't discriminate. Thanks again for your post. MB8

Taking5

My facorite part of that definition was the "real or imagined" part.

There is an AA dictionary out there (Google it) which is very helpful. The book was written in 1935 and it uses some words that aren't very common anymore and I have found it to be of great help.

Bostonsportsfan

Yes, but working on letting go.

seahorse661

Resentments are/were huuuge for me. My happiest times were sitting on my own, drinking myself stupid and replaying all the wrongs I had endured. I could go days in that self-pitying state, imagining my revenge on everybody. The Joe and Charlie discussion (its on the XA speakers site, I think) describes it well.

Doing step 4 woke me up to how destructive and time consuming this all was. In many cases when I had to look at what the actual hurt was, there wasn't one! It just suited me to perceive that everyone was abusing my good nature and I had a reason to drink.

I now work on resentments daily. If I feel them start, I examine and deal with them. I also don't put myself in resentment-creating situations. Things like doing a colleagues work and then falling behind on my own work, doing favours for friends or family which are big inconveniences that they are too lazy to do. If I think its going to cause me to feel resentful I just say 'no, I can't help with that'

Letting go of past resentments and not allowing new ones to develop has been central to my sobriety

Dee74

I still have a problem with resentment on occasions.

I try to put myself in the other peoples shoes - try and work out why they did what they did - then I look at my reaction: was it fair - did I have expectations? were they reasonable?

if that doesn't bring understanding, I exercise, I play guitar, I shoot at things in a video game...

If that doesn't work I try to remember one of the most powerful lessons a book has ever taught me about forgiveness

Notimetoloose

I believe resentment is worse than hate.
I have heard it said that
hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy.

Hate is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die.

Resentment is the same, somehow we have to feel the feeling (pain, bitterness, etc) and then move on from the painful story.

Like most things worthwhile easier said than done.....

GracieLou

Once you see it, it cannot be unseen. Resentments were my number one problem.


My sponsor told me a couple months ago that one of the reasons she got me working the steps so quickly was because she could tell from our conversations and the resentments that I was in a bad place. I said "they were eating me alive", her answer "you would have drank". She could see it so clearly at the time.


Well the obvious answer is to rid myself of them but it was hard to do. I was in a meeting once and I heard "expectations and just premeditated resentments". That hit me. It was so clear that many of my feelings and my resentments were of my own making. Imagined wrongs. Many things I have done or said were a reaction to these imagined wrongs. This is were my part came into play. "I only did that because..." "I only acted that way because..." or "I feel that way because...".

"Because" of a resentment. Many were very old and I was still hanging on to the blame. Blaming someone because I thought they felt a certain way about me or they did things because they felt a certain way about me. It was all about me and my expectations of others.

Once I could see that many of my resentments were of my own making due to expectations or imagined wrongs, I could not unsee them. Then I could take it a step further and see where I had done wrong. I was calling the kettle black the entire time but I hid it by justifying my actions and using those resentments to do so.

I am not saying that every single resentment was imagined, that was not the case but MY reactions to them or what I did because of them were all on me. I had to identify my actions and I also had to give forgiveness to the people that did do me wrong.

Both were a key factor in letting go and moving on. Today I have let go of the old and I try real hard not to create new.

The BB speaks of scenarios we create, that play were we put people were we want them. When we are children, they call it imagination and it is a wonderful thing for a child to have an imagination. As an adult alcoholic, not so much. My imagination is now called scenarios and it can and will take me right to resentment alley. Today, when I feel anger or hurt, am I again, imagining a wrong? Am I assuming what others think or feel? Am I trying to control the situation or the person?

I no longer trust my imagination. It will lie to me. I have to think it over, take it to my sponsor or a trusted friend and get another point of view and pray about it.

TigerLili

Thank you so much for your responses, everyone. I have a lot to think about and I feel a bit overwhelmed, but I feel like I can see a way forward for the first time, instead of spinning my wheels in a fog and not being able to make any headway.

I went to a meeting tonight and there were only 9 people. Everyone shared about resentments, some people, like me, about how they were just learning to recognise and deal with them, and some people about how they are successfully dealing with them. I got some good tips and perspectives.

Phew. Who knew that recovery was so complex?

GracieLou

We can complicate a cotton ball!

I actually find it to be quite simple when I stop thinking about it and trying to control it.

I love those small intimate meetings. I get so much out of them. Keep coming back.

Threshold

I feel like resentments are burrs I pick up as I walk along life's trail. They hand on irritating me until I stop and pick them off. If I go back and rewalk the same trail...playing some past hurtful experience over...same old burrs are going to collect, and everytime I walk that path in my mind, more and more burrs.

But if I pick them up and don't keep rewalking that same path, I don't pick up those same burrs. and if I learn to stop and pull of the new burrs that I pick up even on my new path...then I am not constantly irritated.

I have a quote tacked to my wall "is this resentment worth the serenity it costs me to carry it around?"....I ask myself that question a lot. Occasionally I actually answer "yes..darn it...it's my right to carry this resentment and wave it like a flag today"...but then in a day or two, I usually decide it's NOT worth it and do put it down.

Lately I have seen that some of my fears actually stem from resentment. And seeing this connection is helping me loosen THOSE burrs from my fur. I don't know that my fear of bears and mt lions is a resentment fear though. lol.

doggonecarl

Expectations. The flip side of resentments. Learn to not have them. Because unmet expectations lead to resentments...then on to drinking.

RobbyRobot

I think generalising the idea that simply having unmet expectations creates resentments... and then on to drinking... is not useful or even practical. It's healthy to have expectations, and its okay to not have them met. Life is like that, for me anyways, lol.

Certainly resentments are useless and dangerous to carry around, and not just for those in recovery. I can't imagine me living a life without expectations.

Dee74

I think there are positive expectations and negatives ones - it's those

'!@#$%! I expected better of him/her/them'

ones that can be the problem

D

foolsgold66

I expect resentments.

Dee74

I expected someone to post that

D