The Spirit of Unforgiveness

Stuck in pain and resentment

“Our moral inventory had persuaded us that all-around forgiveness was desirable, but it was only when we resolutely tackled Step Five that we inwardly knew we’d be able to receive forgiveness and give it, too.”

-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (Step Five)

We have spent the past several weeks exploring certain survival skills learned in childhood that helped us grow up in anger, abuse, neglect, isolation—everything that comes with an alcoholic home or a home that has been affected by this disease in other ways. The denial, avoidance, projecting, and lying helped us when we were kids. We were able to get through situations which would have been impossible mentally and emotionally to survive otherwise. And now, as adults, we have carried some or all of these emotional structures into our mature bodies and minds and have still struggled with the little child inside of us.

Now that we are recovering people, uncovering and further exploring just what makes us tick has been essential to the process of overcoming these obstacles to healing. As someone who has been in the program for almost two decades, I can tell you from my personal experience that just surviving is no longer an option—nor is it comfortable. I have to grow or die. Sounds extreme, but my alcoholism is constantly calling me back. If I am not forced to look at life situations and am instead handling them with the same tactics I used at age twelve, then there is a good chance that I will fall back into old and very dangerous behaviors that will lead back to drinking.

The final survival skill I want to write about is perhaps the most difficult: forgiveness. I used to hold on to my resentments. I held on to my pain. I was a bitter, miserable human being who began to hate everything and everyone. That is how I showed up in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Looking back, it is quite miraculous that I made it through those early months of sobriety without going out. I most certainly would have gone out to drink again, because I do identify as a real alcoholic, if it wasn’t for the willingness to do Steps Four and Five. The rage, self-hatred, and disappointment had me absolutely trapped and consumed in self. Me. That was all I ever thought about.

The Fourth and Fifth Steps of our program have this magical power to “flip the script.” There is nothing in the world like it. Only by writing out all of my resentment, fears, sex harms, and other harms not having any connection to resentment, did I have even a chance to see that I had in fact hurt others. I had in fact put myself, time and time again, into positions where I was harmed very badly. This was me, not my ex-husband. It was me, not my employer. It was me. I was the one.

I will never forget when I actually saw this reality. I was sitting on my sponsor’s white leather couch in the middle of the desert near Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas. And I knew. And once I know something, I cannot unknow it. I was completely convinced on my drive back into town that I had to make amends. I knew that I was completely responsible for how shitty my life had become. That was a turning point in my recovery.

I had to forgive—or die. Because for an alcoholic of my type, I will drink again. And for me, to drink is to die.

There was a great deal of power in the amends process. I could only look at my part—I had to leave the other person out entirely. This was a revolutionary change in my thinking. I believe that after I had done Step Five, I really became a member of A.A.

What people on the outside don’t get is that by making an amends, I will actually start to forgive. By humbly setting aside my selfishness and having the really hard talk with the person I am making amends to, the healing has already begun. It is indeed one of the most miraculous things about recovery. By looking at me I forgive you.

And for any of you wondering what I now do at 19 years of sobriety and 17 years of Al-Anon recovery when I once again need to forgive, well, it’s the same thing. The program hasn’t changed just because I have a little time. First, I practice a nightly inventory. If a person, principle, or institution is showing up three days in a row as a resentment, I write out a full inventory. I share it with my sponsor, and I make amends as needed. Boom! Forgiveness has begun.

It works every single time. But it only works if I am willing to do the work yet again.

I always ask myself, “How free do you want to be?” Do I want to remain blocked from the Sunlight of the Spirit? Do I want my morning and evening prayers to be a chore with no connection to a Higher Power? Do I still crave conscious contact with God? Do I still want to experience those miracles that I did in early sobriety?

Today I choose real recovery. I am leaving my childhood survival skills of denial, fear of relationships, anger and hostility, lying for no reason, and a spirit of unforgiveness behind me—one day at a time.