Resentment – More Freedom Blog

The Lies That Are Hidden In My Anger and Resentment

I can’t remember where I learned this, but it’s been extremely helpful to me and others in addiction recovery. A lot of it probably came from the ideas that Joe and Charlie cover in their step 4 mp3’s (there are 7-8 mp3’s there, I linked just to the first one), which I highly recommend. They discuss resentment and how we tend to use resentment to cover our own defects by focusing on others’ defects.

Sobriety

Sobriety is where recovery starts. Once I’ve put my addiction down, then I can start recovering. I like the sobriety definition from Sexaholics Anonymous:

“In defining sobriety, we do not speak for those outside Sexaholics Anonymous. We can only speak for ourselves. Thus, for the married sexaholic, sexual sobriety means having no form of sex with self or with persons other than the spouse. In SA’s sobriety definition, the term “spouse” refers to one’s partner in a marriage between a man and a woman. For the unmarried sexaholic, sexual sobriety means freedom from sex of any kind. And for all of us, single and married alike, sexual sobriety also includes progressive victory over lust.”
Sexaholics Anonymous, 191-192

It Got Worse Before It Got Better

When I stopped acting out and lusting, things got worse! What? I thought things would get better when I stopped acting out – why are things getting worse? I learned that I had been using these addictions to escape and numb out the stress, anger, and other negative feelings I was experiencing. For example, if I were feeling depressed or unloved or worthless, I’d resort to my addiction to cover those feelings instead of facing them head on and working through them. Because I rarely faced these difficulties, I never really matured as a person. I was 32 years old on the outside but was still 12 years old emotionally.

So, when I stopped acting out my addictions, these unresolved feelings of anger, resentment, fear, depression, etc. that had built up throughout my life came bursting out. Most times, this convinced me to run back to the addiction.

This is one reason why support from a recovery group and from a sponsor is so essential. Don’t worry, it does get better after the hard times and it’s a bit of a roller-coaster over time, so don’t get discouraged, and never, never, never give up!

Step 4

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

There are many resources that go over step 4, including my favorite treatment of the topic by the infamous AA legends, Joe & Charlie, who have multiple mp3’s about step 4 and overcoming resentment. So I’m just going to share my own experiences I’ve had in my own inventory and the inventory of those I’ve sponsored. Continue reading “Step 4”