Oct. 9, 2024 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

 

Step by Step

Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024

” …’If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.’” — Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, “They Lost Nearly All,” Ch 12 (“Freedom from Bondage”), p 552.

Today, if resentment is the deadliest poison to alcoholics alongside alcohol, I will make a sincere effort to free myself of it once and for all. If “Let Go and Let God” has failed because I have taken back my resentment, I’ll try what is suggested here — pray for the person or thing I resent to receive what I want for myself. Even if I can’t say I am sincere and honest in my hopes for whoever or whatever I resent, I will try for two weeks to pray for the best for them. God granting, after two weeks, the monkey on my back will be gone. Like alcohol and all the garbage that comes with it, as for resentment: enough is enough. Time to get rid of it. And our common journey continues. Step by step. — Chris M., 2024