Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys alcoholics more than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.
I didn't even KNOW I had resentments toward other people--I was the wonderful martyr who did everything I could to please others. I did EVERY thing for you. I was all things for all people--the father, the husband, the successful man, the poet, the writer, the woodsman, the friend, the gentleman farmer, the drinking buddy, the comedian, the left-handed smart a**. I was anything you needed and, in this manner, I never had to face WHO/WHAT I actually was. Hell, I have no idea who I am even today! I DO know WHAT I am and, frankly, I'm very relieved that I'm just an ordinary alcoholic. Yiikes! I thought there was something seriously WRONG with me!! LOL Thanks everyone for being a part of my recovery process.
Yeah resentment in a negative mind grows quicker than bacteria and only hurts the person thinking the sh@t. One thing about an active recovery is it stuffs up the time i can give to any negative thinking because there are options, self analysis and self truth coming back at me as any negativety heads out which is really cool because i can either pull my head in or sort my sh@t out real quick instead of sitting in it and feeling the old warmth:)
And you know how you said that you dont know who you are, well that is the greatest thing because you can be just a man going about life in a positive and spiritual way one day at a time and passing the good forward just through your E.S.H
I am having a problem with a resentment, or at least I think I am. Over the past few weeks I have a growing hatred towards alcohol. Can I hate alcohol too much? Is it possible to have a unhealthy resentment towards it? It does get to me some days, and I hope I am not setting myself up for a relapse.
Lineman.... I have times when I really hate alcohol. I hate what it is and what it does and I hate the way it is kind of glorified. I think perhaps you are just having some natural feelings that you need to have to put distance between you and it and to realise that it's something you really don't want anymore. It's quite ok to hate it, I think so anyway!
For a while I felt real disgust at adverts for alcohol, pubs, people drinking outside pubs, off licences, supermarket aisles containing booze.....loathing, disgust, hatred...like someone had ripped of a mask and shown me this evil thing writhing about where I'd previously thought everything was fine and dandy.....it passed.....the question for me has been how to let resentments go.....I seem to have an image in mind quite a lot these days, of a river full of strong currents.....
The river is not its currents, the currents are not the river, the river is its currents, the currents are the river, all shaped by and shaping the riverbank with which they dance and all shaped by where we first began......
We are not our emotions....our emotions are not us, we are our emotions....our emotions are us, shaped by and shaping our lives and all shaped by where we began.....
I built a dam to contain my river, my currents, my strong emotions.....it bent my life out of its natural shape.....alcohol served its purpose, helping me to forget what was behind that dam ....but then it started to erode the wall in unhelpful ways, letting anger and fury spill out but causing more and more rubbish to be piled up behind it....then the dam burst....and I'm dealing with 45 years of rubbish all at once.....
Let the river of your emotions flow freely....don't act on them or dam it up....watch that resentment flow into you and through you and away....it's real and it's valid and it's temporary....cool sparkling springwater is coming down from the mountains and soon you'll be bathing in its clarity.
We are more than a bundle of emotions and slave to none of them.
Lineman I think I have had a love,hate relationship with alcohol. There are days when I loathe it. I hate what it has done to my life and to others who have been grabbed firmly in its grips. There are also days where I long for it like I would for a lost love or friend. All I know is that it is powerful and cunning and we always have to be alert on how it might once again get its grip on us. However if I was given a choice on whether to Hate it or Long for it I would most definitely chose the hate ,it would be a lot easier to deal with. That being said I think you are doing wonderful in your recovery and by admitting to your fear it shows strength and courage and that you are aware of just how cunning this disease. By being aware you are already putting up a barrier of it ever getting his grips on you again. God bless and take care.
