Outvoid

I have found that letting go of resentments has been one of the greatest gifts that the 12 steps has given me.

My mother is a alcoholic and a nasty one at that. I am also an alcoholic and I've been a nasty one too. Big suprise, right? =)

While I am in recovery and my mother is not, I have still found it helpful to let go of my resentments against her. It's really done me good.

I used to carry this around everywhere. Nearly every morning when I woke up or at sometime during the day, I would find myself cursing her in anger for the way she treated me as I was growing up.

Someone in the program told me: "Holding on to resentment is renting out space in your head to someone else."

I found this to be very true. My resentment against my mother wasn't hurting her; it was hurting me. It was keeping me from being happy and from owning up to the things I've done to hurt others when I was intoxicated.

In working the 4th step, I am seeing that most of the time when I am resentful about someone else's behavior it is because it's a reflection of my own behavior at some point in my life.

I am grateful to the program and my Higher Power for giving me the courage to examine my own character defects and the strength to let go of resentments.

Pelican

Welcome to the Sober Recovery family!

Thank you for sharing your experience, strength and hope!

Practicing loving detachment can be difficult. How are you achieving this with your mother? Are you still in contact with her?

neecey1224

I am really struggling with letting go of resentment. Is it because I haven't finished working through the hurt and grief and healing processes? Is it because I am still working through owning my parts of things? I have learned through my recovery/healing process that this process has its own timing and that you can't make yourself progress to a certain point before its time for you to arrive there. Is my resentment issue a timing thing? Any insight to help me understand better is appreciated.

Outvoid

Pelican, actually I had to get a restraining order against my mother four years ago. I let it drop for a year only to have her leave me a series of drunken voice mails angrily berating me for getting on in the first place. So I renewed it.

However, I have the restraining order for my own self-care. I don't hate my mother; I just refuse to deal with her when she is acting out with alcohol.

I spent many years enabling her just as others have enabled my alcoholism.

Nevertheless, I have let go of my resentments and forgiven her. I still can't be in contact with her unless she chooses to enter recovery (and I've let her know that). But I can and have let go of the resentments which I carried around for nearly 20 years.

Outvoid

Neecey, you have a lot of excellent questions.

Unfortunately I can't answer them for you; only you and your higher power can find the answers.

However, I can share my E/S/H with you:

I found that acknowledging the grief and hurt has certainly been a big part of my process of practicing forgiveness and letting go of resentment. As you said, though, it's impossible to set a 'date' to find forgiveness.

One thing that I found particularly helpful was working a 4th step around specific resentments and looking at what I have brought to a situation. This doesn't neccessarily mean that I have done something wrong, but I certainly do bring something to every situation in which I have a resentment: my history, my emotions, the wreckage of my past, etc.

Let me give you a recent example:

I was in a SAA meeting that I go to on Saturdays. It's an open meeting and we had quite a few newcomers there. The secretary was not following the format of the script. This set me off in the first place, but then a newcommer started demanding that we change the format of the meeting - in the middle of the meeting.

I told the newcomer that we had a proceedure for that and welcomed them to attend our next business meeting. I also started that if they found the issue particularly pressing, we could call a business meeting at the end of the one we were in and call for a group consciousness.

The secretary finally woke up and asked if we could have a business meeting right them - right in the middle of the meeting.

I'm sure that anyone can see how irregular all of this is. Personally, I got really upset and was a minute or two away from taking the inventory of both the newcomer and the secretary. So I left the meeting and called my sponsor.

He pointing out to me that I had brought something to the situation: my past.

One of the things in my past was a complete lack of structure and lack of boundries. When the secretary significantly deviated from the script, I had a huge resentment at him. The same with the newcomer who was trying to dictate new policy on the spot without following proceedures.

It was good self-care that I left the meeting. However, in the next meeting, I spoke to the secretary and let him know honestly (without shaming or blaming him) why I left and how I became triggered. He, in turn, apologized for not following the script and not doing his duty as secretary.

Thus I let go of my resentment at him (and the newcomer) and the meeting itself. It took about a week of prayer and meditation to do so, though.

Remembering the words of the 12th Tradition helped as well: "...principles before personalities."

That's just a small thing. Most of us suffering from much greater resentments that may be based on years or decades of pain.

In such situations, I pray that my Higher Power will grant me the courage to change my heart, continue to work my program, and leave it in God's hands.

As the saying goes: This, too, shall pass. It will pass when we are ready and when God is ready.

The best to you, Neecey, in your search. The answers will come in God's time.