Self-pity is anger turned inward

When I replace self-pity with gratitude, I truly begin to live.

“When we discover that we really can make a positive contribution, many of us find that self-esteem has replaced self-pity.”

-Courage to Change p. 188

I became a member of the Al-Anon fellowship on February 26, 2007. This week, I celebrated 16 years of continuous sanity because of Al-Anon. I had to count a lot of losses to get to that point. Let’s take a look at how much insanity I had to endure before someone else’s alcoholism and addiction finally brought me to my knees:

1. Car stolen four times

2. Let the alcoholic back into my home ten times

3. Kicked the alcoholic out of my home ten times

4. Drove the alcoholic to rehab five hours away and risked my new job one time

5. Picked the alcoholic up from rehab and again risked my new job one time

6. Drove the alcoholic to work even when I was exhausted fifty times

7. Picked the alcoholic up off the street and took him to the McDonald’s drive through to eat five times

8. Kept my phone on at night in case the alcoholic called and needed to be picked up one hundred times

9. Took the alcoholic to meetings with me, where he fell asleep sitting in the back row twenty times

10. Bought the alcoholic a new phone whenever he sold his on the street six times

11. Tracked the alcoholic’s whereabouts on the phone five times

12. Bought the alcoholic alcohol one time

You get the picture. I quite obviously qualified for the Al-Anon program. And every time I did one of the above actions, helping an alcoholic who should have been helping himself, I got more and more resentful. And that anger turned inward to a disgusting self-pity. I could not get me off me once again.

I had experienced this type of self-pity at the end of my own drinking and in early sobriety, but this felt even worse. After all, I no longer had booze to take away the pain. I worried constantly. It affected my job. I was pretty desperate, and the really good people from AA, including my sponsor, begged me to go to Al-Anon. But I just wouldn’t do it. I felt very comfortable in AA and really believed AA could solve this problem.

I finally did get desperate enough when I ran out of good ideas on getting him sober. I asked Renee to be my sponsor at a Monday night AA and Al-Anon step study. I was terribly afraid to ask her. I felt like an absolute worthless piece of garbage. How could I have let this get so out of control? At the end of the meeting, I took a chance and asked her. We were in her dining room. I will never forget that moment. When she said yes, I felt that now I had a chance. A chance to get better.

My self-pity slowly turned to gratitude through the number of actions I was willing to take. I started going to more Al-Anon meetings than AA for quite awhile. I immersed myself in the program. I read the daily readers and just a few months after I joined Al-Anon, that is when I started doing a morning time with God. My prayer and meditation became my daily salvation from the destruction of the disease. I sponsored in AA and stayed very committed to finding new women to help, taking them through the steps. Going to recovery house and detox meetings.

It took a very long time, but life became hopeful once again.

He never got better. But I did. And I discovered that my life did matter. I mattered to God, to the people in my new program, including my sponsor. I mattered to the people of AA, most of whom absolutely could not understand why I was staying with the alcoholic and who also mistakenly thought that I was preventing the alcoholic from getting sober. I learned how to live in both programs, and in both programs I still live today. Today I live with integrity, self-worth, and a recognition that alcoholism is a way bigger disease than I am. I cannot control alcoholism. But I can rely on my Higher Power, and he relieves me of my insanity.

Renee M. passed away on December 22, 2013. My book is dedicated to her and to my longtime AA sponsor, Barrie F. I am very grateful for the gift of recovery that sponsorship continues to give me, including my current Al-Anon sponsor. May God bless you and keep you all in His loving care, in this life and the next.