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INSTRUCTION 1 - Resentments
Read the following and come to understand what we are doing.
WHEN TO DO STEP FOUR AND WHY
Perhaps the greatest of the promises of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that God, as we understand Him, will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Once we've made the decision to let Him do that, as required by Step Three, the Big Book warns us, "Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us (from God) .... So we had to get down to causes and conditions. Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory."
WHAT WE SEEK
The inventory is described as "a fact-finding and fact-facing process". We seek the truth about ourselves and honestly take stock of our lives. We search out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. The Big Book states repeatedly that self, selfishness, self-centeredness are the root of our trouble. Convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we consider its common manifestations and group them into three categories: (1) Resentments, (2) Fear, (3) Sex. We then treat each category separately in the inventory.
RESENTMENTS "The Number One Offender"
From resentments "stem all form of spiritual disease". We are instructed to list all the people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry or had resentments. What's a resentment?
(a) Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary defines "resentment" as "a feeling of displeasure or indignation, from a sense of being injured or offended." Suggested synonyms include anger, wrath, ire, indignation.
b) Anger can be strong, intense, explosive, brief. Resentments often are more suppressed, longer-lasting and chronic - the "slow burn". A resentment has been described as the feeling I have when I think someone else ought to feel guilty.
(c) We are dealing with a destructive, negative, unpleasant action or inaction of a person, institution or principle.
The "person" may be oneself. Our actions, or our failures to do what we think we should have, can generate the resentment referred to as "guilt". "Institutions" may be authorities, companies, governments, government agencies, groups of people or various organizations. "Principles" are truths, some of which offend us; e.g.,
1 .- Alcoholism is an incurable disease.
2.- Honesty is the best policy
3.- As you give so shall you receive
4.- When you are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with you.
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