All too often we are most willing to stand back and recount, with vivid accuracy, everytime we have been victimized. We will expend a vast amount of energy holding accountable and vilifying those who have wronged us. Even as our world crumbles around us, our focus remains on others. We are loath to let the memory die, no matter how painful. Placing them on the shelves of our mind, where we keep such things, affords us the freedom to dwell and relive at our leisure, keeping these memories alive, perhaps all the while planning our retaliation. On these shelves, the memories stay alive and are never in danger of being forgotten. Though others may forget, we are free to revisit and keep them alive indefinitely. Great lengths are taken to never let them go. Yet this freedom comes at a cost.

Welcome to episode eight of Two Drunks With a MIc. The podcast where we share our past so that others might have a future. Subscribe and share is all we ask. You never know where your efforts to help will land. There are countless struggling addict/alcoholics out there. Some on the verge of completely giving up, giving in to ending their suffering all together. To us this is heartbreaking. We know we can’t help everyone but even if all we do is reach one person, it will all be worth it.

In the early days of my recovery, I was starting to feel really good. I was participating in all of the required program functions, regularly attending 12 step meetings, working with a sponsor, and I was also pretty active at my church. But for as good as I was feeling, I found myself often plagued with a small nagging feeling of unrest. It got to the point that it was getting in the way of positive forward progress and I was concerned. As I processed this concern, working things out through the required journaling and speaking to a few people, it came to light that there was an event in my past that I couldn’t seem to let go of. And, in short, it was eating me up. Couldn’t is actually the wrong word. Truth is, I simply wouldn’t let it go. I had been wronged. Disrespected.I wanted satisfaction. The people and events aren’t important. What is, however, is how I was able to move past this.

One of the programs I was involved with at church was a recovery ministry. I knew the pastor who led the program. I also new his wife. It was during the time at one of these meetings that his wife approached me and mentioned that she thought I seemed as though I had something weighing on my mind. I told her what I had been dealing with and she very matter-of-factly told me that I needed to forgive the person. She wasn’t the first person to tell me this. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t even the third or fourth person. There were many that had given me this counsel. My first and immediate response had always been: screw that. There’s no way that that’s ever gonna happen.

Over the couple of days after speaking to my friend's wife, the constant dwelling on the wrong that had been done to me was replaced with the soft quiet voice telling me that forgiveness was the only option I had if I ever wanted to be rid of whatever this was I was dealing with. So here I was, probably 5 or 6 months sober at this point. Doing great but still resisting. The old self was still hanging on and was hell bent on keeping this one shred of my past alive. It was insanity. I was faced with a choice.

But here’s the irony of it all:  At this point I was spending much of my time in step work reaching out to those I had wronged over the nearly three decade span of my drinking career, doing my best to make amends, and basically asking them to forgive me. Not one person I went to refused. So what was my hangup in extending the same grace that I had been given? I hope the answer is obvious. I was being selfish.