This hits close to home for me. Because of various outside forces in my childhood I went through life with an enormous amount of guilt. I spent a great deal of time being uncomfortable in my own skin racked with anxiety and as high strung as a piano wire. I was fed alcohol by an older sibling in charge of "taking care of me". I wasn't even a teenager yet but he did it because he figured I couldn't tell on him for drinking if I did it too. It was also great entertainment for him and his friends to watch this little kid get drunk for some reason. I didn't mind though. It was like magic that made all of that anxiety and all of those bad feelings go away.

I still struggle with unreasonable feelings of guilt all these years later. And I still feel uncomfortable in my own skin at times and wound up like a tightly coiled spring. I became better at controlling it as I grew up but alcohol was always there for me when it all got to be too much. It was my medicine. It was my confidence in a bottle. It was my instant entertainment. It was my solution to most problems and the door to my creativity. At least those were the things I believed...at first subconsciously and later what I told myself when drinking started to cause me misery.

The worst thing about me, what I would change before anything else, is that I never forget a wrong I've committed against someone now matter how insignificant and it will bother me until the day I die. I can't remember my new email password but I vividly recall saying something rude to Angela Johnson in grade one and humiliating her in front of everyone. And when the memory plays in my head the guilt and remorse I feel is as intense as if it happend yesterday. Imagine the weight of a lifetime of memories like that...and of course ones that are far worse. Not being capable of letting go of your mistakes and of self forgiveness is a curse I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Butterfinger....we sound alot alike. I even went to school with a girl by the same name :)
Stepchild....resentments???Now I am confused...I would think the things BF described would just be guilty feelings. The action he made years ago may have started from a resentment but the guilt he has felt all these years from that action doesn't seem like a resentment he still has. (Although that girl has most likely forgotten that incident, if she hasn't, she could hold a resentment toward him for his behavior.
Does that means things we did so very long ago, we need to make amends for it to those people. Gosh, I'd have people think I was crazy if I apologized to people for grade school things.

A resentment is something you re-feel...Over and over. It could be a harm done to another...Or one done to you.....It doesn't matter what she feels...This is our inventory. I didn't bother with grade school stuff. It says we've taken a look at our grosser handicaps.

If you have already made a decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.

BB pf 71

That's the goal here....Not to set right stealing Johnny's crayon in preschool. But if that's really eating at you....Have at it.

I relate. I used to think "self care" was the same as "selfish." I needed AA to learn the difference.

    One day I realized that my life had been an exercise in apologizing for taking up space and trying to earn the right of existence.  This sounds like the same stuff.  That was a very powerful share and a very real one. Thank you.

This is a good way to look at it. I found this in some definition..

Resentment can be triggered by an emotionally disturbing experience felt again or relived in the mind. When the person feeling resentment is directing the emotion at himself or herself, it appears as remorse.

Point is BF....If what you're experiencing has had a negative impact on your sobriety in the past....It has to be dealt with. Step 4 is not a list of dirty laundry...The incidents aren't what we're trying to remove....We can't. Our HP can't. They're done. We can try and set things right with amends later...But what we are trying to have our HP remove are the things that we have that created the incidents to begin with....Charactor defects. We do this step to bring to light our charactor defects....Things like...

1 Resentment, Anger:
2 Fear, Cowardice:
3 Self pity:
4 Self justification:
5 Self importance, Egotism:
6 Self condemnation, Guilt:
7 Lying, Evasiveness, Dishonesty:
8 Impatience:
9 Hate:
10 False pride, Phoniness, Denial:
11 Jealousy:
12 Envy:
13 Laziness:
14 Procrastination:
15 Insincerity:
16 Negative Thinking:
17 Immoral thinking:
18 Perfectionism, Intolerance:
19 Criticizing, Loose Talk, Gossip:
20 Greed:

This is how the Big Book puts it...

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 alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely 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. 

BB pg 66

 

-- Edited by Stepchild on Wednesday 15th of January 2014 06:50:50 AM

If it's something that bothers you...And you remember it to this day.....Then by all means it should be put down. That is something that is blocking you. I don't think age has anything to do with a resentment. But I wasn't ridiculous about it. I heard a guy in a meeting last week say he was working on a fourth step and he already had 75 pages...I could only think about the poor sponsor that got handed that. He'll probably look at a few pages of it...And that will be it.

This paragraph says a lot...

Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.

BB Pg 67

Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?

Those are the key questions right there. Those charactor defects will all fall into one of those categories. I never even knew...That anger could be fear based. I learned a lot in my fourth step.

Hey Step, I do agree with your line of thought here ... AND your reprint of what we're taught in the book ... All I was trying to point out is that my doctor, top in his field, AND a recovering alcoholic, knew my first few tries in AA were not thorough enough ... he come to know I was 'hard core' and treated me as such ... there are some that follow the suggestions and stay on the 'recovery train' from the start ... then there are some, like me, that must keep falling off the train and trying to get back on and hold on for dear life ...

Personally, I think if you've worked the steps and have not been granted the promises as described in the BB, then you haven't been thorough enough, or something is 'missing' and you must go to any length to get help to figure that out, else very little progress is made ... perhaps none ...

Amen