Forgiveness and Sobriety: Freedom through the 12-Steps
The Poison of Unforgiveness
Looking back, I have no doubt that my need to blame and resent others and see myself as the innocent victim of other people’s harm towards me was the main cause of every single relapse I ever had. Looking at it through the lens of forgiveness, it was, of course, its polar opposite: unforgiveness. It was as if my wounded pride, which I now see as an aspect of my maladapted ego, always led me to believe that I had a right to resent all these people for harming me. It didn’t seem to matter to my ego if some of these supposed harms happened twenty or even thirty years ago. Neither did it seem to matter to my ego that these resentments were hurting only me and not the person that I believed had wronged me.
After some years in AA, I realized that my alcoholism was a multi-faceted disorder. Besides the physical dependency on alcohol, there was another feature to the illness that wasn’t immediately apparent. This was the duality present in my alcoholic personality. The insanity of the second step amounted to an internal conflict between the maladapted alcoholic ego and the authentic self. They were frequently at war with each other. This conflict was frequently so uncomfortable that alcohol became my only source of relief.
With regard to the business of unforgiveness, many of us have heard the following one-liner, popular in AA.
“Resentment is like drinking the poison yourself intended for the person you resent.”
We all have to agree that this sounds pretty crazy, right? Yet how many of us must admit that we do this kind of thing all the time? It amounts to an unwillingness to look at our part in the conflict and a refusal to forgive an injury, real or imagined, that clearly harms only us, not the other person.
Diffusing the alcoholic ego
For years in AA, I was very angry and hated the people I believed had wronged me. It was such a negative way to live that it was impossible to stay sober. I tried every imaginable therapy to try and find relief for my suffering. None of them worked. Quite the opposite, in fact. Many of these therapists, I am sure, were well-intentioned. They all told me that I had a “right to be angry” because of my unfortunate childhood. Boy, was this something my alcoholic ego wanted to hear. If I didn’t hear it, I would spin such a victim story that I would manipulate the therapist into agreeing with it. “Yes, Andy, you have a right to be angry.” You can imagine that after a session like that, I was all primed to go straight to the liquor store!
When I got the Gift Of Desperation (acronym for GOD), I found an agnostic-friendly sponsor and, through no personal virtue, went through the 12-step process. I will be grateful for the rest of my life that I became teachable and followed a sponsor’s suggestions. I believe that the 12-step program was tailor-made for alcoholics with egos like mine. After years as a drunk, I have no doubt that my alcoholic ego had become a very clever and accomplished survivor. However, the steps were cleverer. In a very intelligent yet gentle way, they showed me how wrong my perception of my history had always been.
Steps Four and Five
I had only ever been able to see everything from my own point of view. Now I was being invited to look at things from other people’s point of view. I was invited to look at their histories and their wounds. My refusal to forgive had been because I insisted on seeing myself as innocent and them as guilty, even evil. The AA Big Book and the twelve steps gradually helped to challenge my chronic self-centeredness.
When I was doing the Fourth Step, my sponsor pointed out the following quote in the Big Book. He knew how committed I was to seeing myself as someone who was always the innocent victim.
“This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too.”
BB “How it Works” pages 66/67
Well, I could certainly no longer deny that I wasn’t well and I had a very distorted and angry way at looking at my history. This was true even before I picked up my first drink. In which case, who was I to judge and condemn my mother, who, like me, was a sick and suffering alcoholic? Who was I to judge my foster mother, who, as a young woman, was caught up in the carnage of the Warsaw uprising during the Second World War? There, she witnessed mass killings on a daily basis. No doubt she had her own unresolved traumas to carry. Perhaps she wasn’t able to be a better carer to me than I needed.
If I were looking to be forgiven for all the people I had harmed, used, and abused as a practicing drunk, could I not at least extend the same courtesy to those I had judged and condemned? Steps Four and Five were very sobering. Literally! For the first time in my life, forgiveness began to look possible. This was nothing short of a miracle for someone who was as twisted with bitterness and hatred as I was.
The delusion of the victim’s belief system
In stark contrast to my experience of therapy, the steps helped me realize that in my relationships with others, I had not always been the innocent victim. Often, I had been a victimizer. I had been a bully and a manipulator. I had used people for personal gratification and to ease my loneliness. How could I not begin forgiving the people I believed had harmed me when I had harmed many of them just as much?
Without being heavy-handed, the steps showed me how often I had fooled myself. Yes, I was a victim in childhood, but I kept believing this until the day I arrived at my first AA meeting. It just wasn’t true. By adolescence, I had made the highly dysfunctional transition from victim to victimizer. The evidence of my step work was plain to see. Although initially humbling, it was the most freeing piece of truth of my entire life. Through it, I began to grow up.
The freedom of radical forgiveness
For thirteen years, I was in AA without a sponsor or a program, and I was what AA often calls a “Dry Drunk.” Of course, I was also sometimes a wet drunk, as I relapsed frequently during that period. If you asked me to describe that time in my recovery, I could do it in one short sentence: It was “hell on earth.”In terms of human suffering, it made the worst periods of my active alcoholism look like a walk in the park. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
To live with undealt-with blame, hatred, and resentment is no way to live, and certainly no way to stay sober. What lay at the heart of all that blame, hatred, and resentment? Lack of forgiveness! Today, I can see that forgiveness is a central component of emotional sobriety. Every spiritual path, whether theistic or non-theistic, emphasizes its importance. I forgive the other person as much for myself as I do for them. It is the way to love, peace, harmony, and freedom.
Ongoing forgiveness
Recently, I had an experience with someone that made me feel horribly used. I felt justified in holding a resentment toward this person. I was unable to let it go. This person became a mental obsession. I would ruminate about him and the ways I would like to punish him. Eventually, with the help of the Tenth Step, I was able to look at and take responsibility for my mistakes in the relationship. Once I had done that, I also had to acknowledge that he is a sick person and in a lot of denial about his problems. What is clear is that he is very unhappy.
What really matters, though, is that I forgave his mistake and was able to access understanding and compassion for his situation. This is something he needs far more than my resentment. In so doing, I have set myself and him free from the trap of a toxic negative attachment. In my experience, this type of resentment is soul-destroying. AA has taught me that it’s better to be wrong and happy than right and miserable. It works if you work it.
In fellowship,
Andy F
