Page 87 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Alco_1893007162_6p_01_r5.qxd 4/4/03 11:17 AM Page 66

66 ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
parent was that this world and its people were often
quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was
as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was
that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore.
Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at
ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have
our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the
victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph
were short-lived.
It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment
leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise
extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours
that might have been worth while. But with the alco­
holic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a
spiritual experience, this business of resentment is in­
finitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when
harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the
sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns
and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The
grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may
be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcohol­
ics these things are poison.
We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the
future. We were prepared to look at it from an en­
tirely different angle. We began to see that the world
and its people really dominated us. In that state, the
wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to
actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that
these resentments must be mastered, but how? We
could not wish them away any more than alcohol.
This was our course: We realized that the people
who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.