Emotional pain is just as real as physical pain but is often much harder to see in oneself and other people, and often much more difficult to be really sympathetic to.
The nature of emotional pain can vary from person to person, but for lots of people in recovery it can be a mixture of the legacy of childhood trauma and various coping mechanisms developed over time to try to deal with the pain within.
Slogans and Sayings in Recovery
AA and other fellowships have lots of sayings, slogans and one liners that people will often share at meetings, and which are often repeated in recovery literature.
These sayings and slogans can have different meanings to different people and can either act as a sort of call to action or be a guide to insights that can either be transient or really meaningful.
The phrase ‘hurt people hurt people’ probably falls into the category of being really insightful in two particular ways.
Firstly it opens up a sense of context as to why some people behave the way they do. This is never meant to justify unacceptable or abusive behaviour, but providing a context can be crucial for someone to understand where the other person is coming from.
Secondly it can take a lot of pressure off the person affected by the behaviour in realising that the source of it is in the other person and not in them.
Inventory
It is often said in recovery that the emphasis on inventory or developing self-awareness is particularly strong or heavy, largely because there has been so little of it in someone’s life up until the point they get sober and start working the 12 step programme.
Taking inventory, developing self-awareness, can take time and can involve both recovery work in AA, other fellowships, therapy, spiritual direction and other types of therapeutic work that someone finds helpful.
The basic work of inventory in AA normally begins with Step 4, and in particular with a list of resentments that someone has against the world – people, places and things.
One of the most important elements of this bit of work is often glossed over or ignored but is crucial in terms of freeing yourself from this list of resentments or anger.
On page 65 / 66 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous it goes into some detail as to how to make a list of resentments, and then goes on to say that‘the first thing that is apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong’
it goes on to clarify this statement a bit further but its meaning is really important. It is asking you, once you have made a list of resentments, to realise the context within which you are feeling angry.
Understanding that other people are what the book refers to effectively as spiritually sick doesn’t to any extent diminish your or their sense of what happened, but it provides a context for it.
Context
Why is context so important in terms of freeing yourself from resentment and anger? It can be quite difficult to generalise about the reasons for this, but essentially context gives someone the whole picture of what was happening as opposed to an isolated view of it.
There is often a tendency, especially amongst active alcoholics and addicts, to see everything in very black and white terms, very all or nothing thinking. This isn’t unique to alcoholics by any means, but it is often how they think, both in active alcoholism and in recovery as well.
This sense of black and white thinking, all or nothing thinking, creates an environment where people see things as either being their own fault or someone else’s.There is an inherent sense of conflict.
The value of seeing a situation in context is that it can break this sense of black and white thinking, and make people realise the reality of a situation as opposed to a purely confrontational view of what did or didn’t happen.
This sense of widening the experience to make it more real often has a big effect on lessening the energy around the anger or resentment that is felt, and lets people approach the resentment or situation in a more balanced manner, allowing them to see more clearly where the other person may have been at fault or where they may have been at fault as well.
Once context is understood, the resentment normally loses a lot of its impact, and allows people to look at things more objectively than if they are simply seeing it in a more all or nothing field of vision.
Cycle of Abuse
Many people in recovery have grown up in what are known as alcoholic homes, where alcoholism has been present either in one or both parents, or sometimes in a wider generational sense.
One of the main effects for anyone growing up in an alcoholic home is that they normally try to second guess one or both parents in order to make themselves feel safe. This second guessing normally involves seeing something in very black and white terms, all or nothing thinking.
This way of thinking and seeing life stays with them through adolescence and into adulthood, to a greater or lesser degree, and is really the main reason why people struggle with seeing life as a process, not as a sort of chess game, once they get sober.
There is always a danger when generalising about areas of recovery, but it is probably true to say that if people continue to see and feel resentment in very black and white terms, then it is very difficult to break that.
At a practical level, when starting to do inventory, it can be helpful to realise that inventory is a process of developing self-awareness, and understanding why it can be so difficult to do this, can be a real freedom in many ways.
Hurt People Hurt People
Back to the saying ‘hurt people hurt people’. Like any slogan or saying in recovery it can easily become a bit of a cliche if overused. However, the importance of it should not be neglected because of this.
Understanding that people in recovery, and often people who have affected them in any area of life, have emotional pain in different ways and for different reasons has an important practical effect.
In order to get real benefit from this saying, someone needs to be open to this truth and be willing to compromise their black and white thinking, understanding the reality and the context of what they are dealing with.
Not everyone wants to do this. It is often much easier at a superficial level simply to blame other people for what has happened, and how angry you might feel as a result of that.
However the sense of looking at oneself in recovery can sometimes go to the other extreme of blaming yourself and character defects for how you feel.
Some people see this as an attractive option, as it sort of reinforces a false sense of security and a false sense of control.
Extremes on both sides rarely help people and often make a situation much worse. Understanding where someone else is coming from is a crucial element in moving forward in recovery when dealing with any type of resentment, fear or anger.
Whilst it may seem easier simply to see it as ‘them or us’, it rarely is, and continuing to believe this simply reinforces a self-imposed sense of isolation, and a round robin way of thinking that imprisons you in your own head.
