Gratitude and Resentment: Not Feelings

I sometimes notice that in meetings there are times that certain topics for discussion begin floating from one meeting to another. Sort of cross-pollination. In the last couple of weeks, the topic that's floating around here, both in the Contra Costa county area where I live, but also in Sacramento where I work, is the topic of Gratitude.

When I first got sober in October 2001, I remember that during the month of November the topic was often Gratitude. While I was glad to have had the obsession and the actual act of drinking leave me the month earlier (two days before my first AA meeting...), I wouldn't characterize myself as grateful. In fact, those that described themselves as "grateful alcoholics" sort of bothered me. What was there to be grateful about? Sure, I was sober----but I wasn't able to drink and for some strange reason I missed that. I missed what was clearly a miserable way of life. Strange.

By the time my second sober November came around, the topic of Gratitude started being bantered about and I think I started harboring something of a resentment for this unofficial AA tradition of focusing on the Thanksgiving-like theme of Gratitude during the month of November. That's when I learned an important truth about both Gratitude and Resentment. Neither were feelings.

When I was newly sober, my feelings were all over the map and I was, to say the least, quite uncomfortable with them. All of them. Good (sense of peace, calm, joy, happiness, love, affection, etc.) and Bad (anger, fear, jealousy, hatred, anger, depression, anger, etc.). None of them were the way they "should" be: if they were "good" they weren't good enough or they didn't last long enough. If they were "bad" they were too bad and lasted waaaaay too long.

Within a short time, I met Dr. Earle who'd gotten sober two days before I was born. He'd gotten sober on June 15, 1953 and I was born June 17, 1953. When I met him, I was 48 years old and two months sober; he was 48 years and five months sober. One of the first things I learned from Earle was that there was nothing good or bad about feelings: they just were. Actually, I don't think I learned this from Earle. He certainly tried to teach me this truth of his, but I wasn't buying any of it. Learning took some time.

Earle would some times come into a meeting and gently put his gnarly old hand on my shoulder and ask, "How are you doing, Mike?" I'd respond as I thought one should in public, "Fine." He'd then look at me with a knowing smile and say, "You wouldn't lie to an old man like me, would you?" and then he'd sit down next to me and we'd chat before the meeting. I can't tell you how much I miss those chats. Especially today as tomorrow will be the 5th anniversary of his death.

When I eventually became comfortable enough sharing some of the truth about my feelings with this old man, we would sometimes get into a back and forth routine along the lines of the following: What are you feeling? A little depressed I suppose. What's wrong with that? Well, I don't like feeling depressed. What's wrong with that? It's depressing! What's wrong with that? I start to feel sad. What's wrong with that? It hurts. What's wrong with that? I start to get angry. What's wrong with that? I don't like being angry. What's wrong with that? It's uncomfortable! What's wrong with that?

Now, that would go on and on until I'd get so frustrated that this absolutely stupid old man who, in addition to being 48 years sober was also a licensed psychiatrist and surgeon, seemed to be fixated on asking me the same question again and again and again. What's wrong with that feeling? Ultimately, I'd lose all patience and respect for this man and let loose with what I hoped to be the "Final Answer" with him and I told him that "what was wrong" with all these feelings was that if I kept having them, I was surely going to start feeling like drinking again! God dammit! I thought that would finally shut him up, but, you guessed it: his only response was to ask with that irritating smile, "Well, Mike, what's wrong with that?"

By that time, I'd learned enough to know that it was useless to follow up with the only remaining retort which was, if I kept feeling like this any longer, I might not only "feel" like drinking, I might actually drink! I never asked him that question. For years, I've thought that his response might have been, "what's wrong with that?" but recently, I've decided that he would have said that all of these feelings, including the fear of drinking again, were all just feelings. Not good or bad. Just feelings. For years I'd attempted to manage feelings by means of alcohol and other techniques and aides. None of them really worked because they were all premised on the idea that particular feelings were unacceptable. I don't think that Earle would have flippantly said that the actual "act of drinking" again would be good, he was talking about feelings within me. Come to think of it, he pretty much only talked about feelings and emotions. Even when he was talking about seemingly "spiritual" things, he was really talking about emotions. I think for him, emotions and spirituality were synonymous.

Anyway, it was about this time that I started to try to reconcile Earle's teaching on feelings with some things I was hearing in AA, including the importance of Gratitude in the recovery process and the ultimate dangers of Resentment. When I listened to recovering alcoholics talk about either of these topics, I thought most people were talking about "feelings" (grateful and resentful) and if so, I began to wonder "Why were they talking about Gratitude as something 'good' and Resentment as something 'bad'?" Given that Earle was something of an AA icon (his story was in the Big Book and he had known Bill Wilson), I thought I'd finally found his Achilles Heal: were all these folks wrong to talk goodly about Gratitude and badly about Resentment?

When I challenged Earle about this apparent widespread heresy, he laughed and explained to me that neither Gratitude or Resentment were feelings. They were both attitudes. Or better, decisions. Gratitude was a attitude or habit one could develop over time to appreciate all that one had received in life, so-called good and so-called bad. He said that for some time, recovering alcoholics had discovered the value of developing such a habit or attitude of gratitude. It seemed to help many people stay sober and, more importantly, develop a joyful and contented way of life...without need for chemical enhancement.

Resentment too was not a feeling: it was a decision. Resentment means to "re-feel" and while resentment is often mis-talked about as though it were a feeling in itself, it wasn't. Earle believed that resentment wasn't a feeling, it was a decision (sometimes a well-entrenched habit) to hold on to a particular feeling well beyond it's natural life span. Resentment isn't "anger", it's a decision to hold onto anger (or any other negative feeling) well beyond it's normal shelf life.

After six years of sobriety, I'm no longer resentful about the topic of Gratitude. I actually appreciate it and enjoy the opportunity it gives me to share this story with others. January's become a time for me to reflect of the gifts of my sobriety, and one of the most important gifts given me in my life was the fourteen months I had spending some time with Dr. Earle Marsh. The night he died, I was holding his hand. He wasn't alone. He'd waited for me.

And that's another story.

Mike L.