Overheard in Recovery: Freedom

One of the "secrets" of recovery is to stay away from resentments, something tough for an alcoholic or addict. Addiction feeds on resentments, loves them, turns them into giant mountains.

One of the classic ways of dealing with resentments is found in one of the stories in the back of the Big Book of AA. It is titled "Freedom from Bondage" and is one of the best stories that sums up the AA program. The anonymous writer gives her solution, which she credits to some unnamed clergy writing in an unnamed magazine. It is classic recovery-

And actually works.

If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.
--Alcoholics Anonymous, P. 552