Monday 30 January 2017

WALK IN DRY PLACES #essentialsofrecovery

NO JUSTIFIED RESENTMENTS

Personal Inventory

One of the greatest hurdles in sobriety is the so-called justified resentment. We feel that we have a right to be angry at somebody who has hurt or offended us. This feeling might be correct if our anger could remedy the matter and bring it to a just conclusion, but this hardly ever happens. If we are angry, we usually want revenge more than we want justice. Uncontrolled anger will make us behave as unjustly as those who harmed us did. This means more trouble.

Whether revenge is sought or not, anger also poisons our own lives. Emmet Fox compared it to the insane practice of drinking prussic acid. People cannot take a drink of acid and then assign it to the person they detest. They will bear its effects in their own bodies. In the same way, our anger produces its own acids, which destroy our peace of mind and make us ineffective.

We can deal with “justified resentment” by reminding ourselves that there’s no justification for the pain and sickness a festering resentment will cause in our lives. There is no justified “first drink,” and in the same way, there is no justified resentment.

Today I may have to swim against the tide by not getting upset over matters that enrage others. I will not let myself be drawn into the angry currents around me.

© 1996 by Hazelden Foundation 
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