Alcoholism – The role of resentment

It is often said “resentment is the number one offender of alcoholics”. What exactly does that mean? How does one live life without ever feeling resentful toward some person, place or thing at some point? How can one guard themselves against feeling resentful?

As if things were not tough enough, Columbia South Carolina is certainly a grand place to find a few resentments lying around. After all, South Carolina is often thought of as firing the first shots of the civil war. Catching a resentment during the day can sometimes be like going out and catching a cold.

So how does an addict or alcoholic deal with resentment vs. recovery? The first thing to realize is no human being has any power or control over any people, places or things. We (alcoholics and addicts) can not change or control the behavior of this world. This alone is an enormous step toward anyone’s sobriety and recovery.

When I began my personal drinking at a young age, I was resentful toward smarter people, richer people, funnier people… better looking people. As the years passed, my resentment list only grew.

At the very end, my resentment list morphed into Armageddon with hostile feelings toward the one person that was supposed to be my best friend, my spouse. I was told by caring people, that if I did not want to die drunk, I had better do something with my resentment.

Naturally I asked “what can I do”? I was told of a “tool” to use called the “Resentment Prayer”. I rebelled by saying “I did not believe in prayer”, “that I did not believe in God”, anything to continue my ways. I was told my choices were simple, to pray or die.

The resentment prayer states the affected person is to pray for the person one is resentful at, to have all the things in life that the resentful person wants for themselves”. Say what? How was I to do that? I was very hurt toward my spouse, her demise seemed more appropriate.

So I asked, “How can I do this”? I was told, “pray to be taught to pray”. Not liking my chances, I could think of no argument to keep from trying. That night I silently said, “God please help me do this” and that was as far as I got.

Each night the sentence grew a few more words. Within a few weeks, I began to focus on other life issues and my spouse began to have less importance. I never drank again.

Alcoholism – What is failure?

Our modern culture seems riveted on success vs. failure in simple black and white terms. No matter the subject, we always seem to divide along two lines, one of winning and then that of suffering loss. Modern children are raised with this strong since of success vs. failure which is more often seen as winning vs. loosing. The sporting arena is probably our first guide stone for measuring success as we quickly grow accustomed to our favorite team “winning”. As we grow in life, the simplicity of picking winning sides becomes intuitive and without thought as we quickly learn disdain for loosing.

When it comes to addiction in Columbia SC, is this really the best attitude to approach recovery? For instance, if one finally makes a very difficult and hard choice of picking a day and time to begin living clean and sober, then is it really wise to view subsequent time periods of drinking or drugging as success or failure? If one does drink or drug again after becoming clean and sober, has that person truly “failed”?

It’s unimaginable that any person, let alone a very sick addict or alcoholic, could possibly have the strength and ability to permanently overcome the mental pressure that success or failure brings on. What enormous pressure to be under for all of the remaining hours of ones life! I will NEVER drink again? Ever? I will NEVER use again, ever? Do the hours not begin to tick by like weighty bricks with that thought?

The secret to successful recovery is to change our way of thinking on what successful recovery really means. Have we indeed failed if we drink again? After all, that is what alcoholics do, drink that is. We must first learn to accept and realize that for alcoholics and addicts to drink or use, is for alcoholics and addicts to die. These substances kill us. Once we replace our old fashioned notions of success vs. failure with this simple fact, we are then ready to make progress in our recovery. Gone will be the shame we feel if/when we do become intoxicated again. As long as we are alive, we are NOT failing! As long as we are alive, we have the power to choose to live sober that very day regardless of anything that may have happened on any preceding day. We must shed the stigma that to drink or drug makes us a looser. We must commit ourselves to a simple fact, that every day we are alive we have a choice of living sober that one day.

Alcoholism – Relapse or Recovery?

People get sober every day in a variety of ways. People get sober when they spend some time in a jail cell for instance. People get sober in many hospitals, treatment centers and detox units across the nation every day. People get sober because a spouse may be threatening them or even an employer. Sometimes a consultation with a physician will shake a person into a bit of short term sobriety. Good reasons abound for intoxicated people to spend a few days without any chemical ingestion and consequently, “sober up”.

So what is the difference between sobriety and recovery? What’s the difference between drunkenness and intoxication? Is it “relapse” or just plain old “drunk again”? What’s the difference between an alcoholic and a drunk? Can someone be a drunk without being an alcoholic or vice-versa?

For this alcoholic, the question was never “can I get sober”? The real question was, and still is, “What does it take for me to be able to LIVE each day sober”? Once I began to see and ask the question somewhat differently, amazing miracles began to happen.

When I was trying to “get sober”, it was ME doing the “trying”. I was trying to have POWER over alcohol. As long as I continued to try and gain power over alcohol, failure was as certain as the eventual next drink… which always, sooner or later, came my way. Once I began to learn how to LIVE sober, the bondage of alcohol seemed to vanish. It was then that I realized “learning how to live sober a day at a time”, is what I had spent a life time running from. The problem was me.

Daily people shout that if only “so and so” would happen, then they would not have to drink. If only a spouse or career would behave satisfactorily, then they would not “need” a drink. It is always something else that is “causing” the problem and this being so, then only brute strength and will power could possibly overcome drinking again. The problem with this is that no human being has that kind of power each and every day, each and every hour. Somewhere lurking in the dark corners of some quite time somewhere lays yet another drink of alcohol.

Sobriety and recovery is truly a situation where by giving up, we begin to win!