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I think most who know me would say that I am a pretty easygoing person who tends to get along with most people. And when push comes to shove, I usually don’t do any shoving. I’ve gotten much better over the years at a staple of recovery: exercising restraint of pen and tongue.
However, I also am guilty of an ugly side of navigating conflict as an agreeable person—copping a resentment later. Or, as is often the case, copping many resentments.
I’ll give you a good fictional example. If I want to get Chinese food some night, and two of my kids want Mexican instead, and my wife and other daughter want pizza, I usually end up saying, “OK, how about that pizza place that also makes tacos and quesadillas?” (That’s a real thing in the town I live in, by the way.) I put aside my wants in favor of the entire crew.
Then I eat delicious pizza and move on… but later that night, I will be mulling the day’s events and a seed will sprout up for a tiny little resentment.
“Hey, why didn’t anybody factor in what I wanted tonight?”
Then the seed starts to grow.
“Nobody ever really incorporates what I want for dinner. Actually, nobody ever incorporates anything I want into anything. My kids are bad about that, but my wife didn’t say anything, either.”
And it goes on and on and on until it’s 10 pm and I am silently irate about dinner from earlier in the day. Then I go to bed and wake up with that resentment still sitting in there. I often will throw in a little hot sauce on top of that resentment by starting to think about anger toward myself, that I need to stand up for myself more, that I need to insist upon what I want and need more in the future, that I need to stop being such a weak person.
That all adds up to a disaster. All of a sudden, I am this agreeable, salt of the earth person who’s actually boiling underneath the surface, and it’s only a matter of time until I boil over. You see it often out there in the world: the quiet, smiling person who blows a gasket and does something stupid.
Luckily I don’t have too many of those moments any more because sobriety taught me how insidious silent anger can be, and also what to do about it.
What is there to do about it? Working a good Fourth and Fifth Step. Write out the resentment, what it affects inside you and what your role in it is.
It helps me to put it on paper, and it helps me even more to walk through it with another sober person. There’s something concrete about writing it out, and then there is something bonding when you share it with someone else. I also like the accountability of recognizing your role in a resentment and figuring out a solution with another sober person—there’s a part of me that finds that solution to be my responsibility after that, and it is shared with someone I respect. I tend to respond well when I make a commitment with someone else—I feel like I need to hold up my end of the bargain.
With a situation like the restaurant example, my role often is to be agreeable but to also make sure I am voicing my opinion in a healthy, productive way. I often will say something like, “OK, let’s get the Mexican food and a pizza. But I’d really appreciate that next time we get the Chinese food since I am compromising on tonight’s meal. Is that a deal?”
People usually nod, and it works out the next time. And if it doesn’t, I know that that’s okay, too.
Just kidding. I have to do the whole thing all over again because I am super pissed about getting Chinese food…
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 retired Army officer answered his front door to some neighbor ladies, who'd begun a campaign to end drinking in their small town.
"When did you have your last drink?" they asked.
"1945," he said.
"That's great!" the ladies said. "So, you are a teetotaler now?"
"I wouldn't call it that, exactly," he said, looking at his military watch.
"It's only 2015 now."
(Credit: Grapevine, by Anonymous, March 2008)
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