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Most people accept the notion that resentment is the No. 1 offender for alcoholics, that it destroys more people trying to get sober than anything else. Recovery literature often references that quote, and I wholeheartedly agree with it.

I didn’t use to. I thought maybe the answer was divorce, or a sudden death, or a specific terrible event that could rock your sobriety. But I do think that resentment is actually responsible for more relapses and struggles to get sober than anything else. And of all the difficult events I have experienced, the resentment that can spring up associated with that event was the most dangerous part of it.

But I was at a meeting the other day when the chairperson introduced a topic, and somebody said, “I believe that resentment is the No. 1 offender, and I think today’s topic is the No. 2 offender.”

Any guesses what he was talking about? I’ll give you 10 seconds…

OK, his answer was self-pity. He made the case that self-pity leads to resentment, which can lead to drinking. As he said it, I wasn’t sure I agreed. I started going through my head about what my No. 2 biggest tripwire I could hit in sobriety would be… and after a few minutes, I felt like self-pity was the right answer.

Think about it for a second. Think about a professional example. You think you should be promoted. You’ve felt that way for awhile but managed to stay pretty calm about it. Then Biff Dipshit from the corner cubicle gets the promotion instead of you. What happens?

For me, I think I would be pissed at first. Like, really fired up. But I think I would work through that after a few hours, and then I think the self-pity would show up. The thing that is so lethal about self-pity is how sneaky it is. When I’m mad, I know I am mad, and I know that I should shut my mouth and try to cool down. But when I am in the throes of self-pity, it is not pleasant but I am also comfortable in that brand of unpleasantness. It doesn’t feel like I am in any kind of danger when I am whining that Biff got the promotion and that my boss doesn’t understand how awesome I am and “this always happens to me” and “we need the extra money” and “this whole company always screws me.”

For me, I think that the reason it sucks to be in the self-pity zone is because it is a delusional way to explain away a difficult situation in the most self-centered manner possible. Think about complaining that the world always screws you out of stuff… how self-centered is that? Self-pity feels like you’re beating yourself up but you’re really making yourself the center of the universe and way more important than you actually are. In some ways, the most egotistical thing you can do is to climb in the pity pot and come up with all the ways people don’t understand how awesome you are.

So my answer for the No. 2 offender is self-pity. I also considered jealousy, money and pain as three things that belong in consideration. I think any kind of long-term physical or emotional pain can wear people down and make them reach for something to numb themselves out. With money and jealousy, I have heard people say that finance and romance can be incredibly stressful things to stay sober through. I think that’s true, and those three things would probably be 3-5 on my top five offender list, in some order.

Let me know what your top five would be!

This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:

A guy enters the local dive bar and says to his buddy, "Hey, Joe, I heard you were mugged leaving here the other night."

"Yeah, this guy pulled a gun on me and said, 'Your money or your life,'" Joe says.

"What did you do?"

"I told him I was just a drunk, and that I didn't have any money—or much of a life. He let me go!"

(Credit: Grapevine, March 2008, by Chris W. of Pembroke, Virginia)

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