Resentment

Resentment is like drinking a cup of poison and expecting the other person to die. This is a really good way of describing resentment. I know many people who have a resentment against someone and they are seething with anger and bitterness. While the person they feel wronged them goes blithely on completely unaware of what effect they have had. The only person suffering is the one with the resentment.

I was told two related stories this week, both about unreasonable behaviour by parking ‘officials’. One involved someone clamping his vehicle in his full view – even though he requested very politely not to start the process and he would pay the fine; the other involved a car left for a minute at the pick up point outside Heathrow airport being towed away – again in full view of the driver with the towing process not having been started by the time he returned to his car.

In this case, the driver had to get on a bus to follow the towed car, sit in a police station, pay the exorbitant fine, get another bus to a compound – and then finally get his elderly parents in law home. And all because the parking officials adopted an entrenched ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ stance. However, neither of these car owners harboured their resentments against the said officials for very long: one made a decision to quickly let it go, and the other had already turned it into a funny story before he even got home.

Hold on to Resentments

Alcoholics and addicts tend not to deal with resentments so sensibly. We hold on to them and they become bigger and all consuming until the emotional pain can lead us back to drinking or using again. In this way resentments can then pose a physical danger as we might not get back from this relapse and addiction is a killer illness.

We can also let all these frustrations and resentments build up into a seething and confusing mass. Someone I know went through treatment recently. She thought it a good rehab centre and, after spending 6 weeks there, decided to stay on for ongoing support. The clinic offered her a 75% reduction in the price for a month and after that she stayed on free for a further month.

This was a private clinic so most people would consider that generous. After an employment tribunal caused by her drinking, which had a reasonable outcome. The woman decided she was angry and drank at the rehab clinic. When she was found out, she ran off and drank, never to return to the clinic. She was not even discharged. What did she do? She continued to drink and kept calling the staff at the clinic BLAMING THE CLINIC FOR HER RELAPSE!!

Is that not Madness?

Is that not madness? But it typifies the way alcoholics and addicts see things. The Twelve Step Programme offers us a way of understanding our resentments and our part in holding them. It gives us a way of dealing with them and then we can experience freedom to live a happy and serene life. We deal with historical resentments and then learn how to deal with the daily ones in our lives so that we need never be a seething mass of anger and bitterness again.

Resentment is the number one killer of alcoholics and addicts. If we do the work, we have a way of dealing with it.

If you have an alcohol or drug related problem. Please call 01462 851414 for free and confidential advice and help.