You got the Love

One of my pet peeves is immediately inflamed when I hear people justify their own behavior or the way they treat people based on the prior conduct of the person that have offended in some manner.  I have pointed to the “Golden Rule” to indicate to that person that the rule says nothing about treating people the way they have treated you.  It encourages us to do unto others the way we would have people do unto us.  In other words, treat people the way you would like to be treated.

I firmly believe that this is one of the best guidelines for human behavior that we have.

That doesn’t mean I always follow the rule myself, though, a fact that was really driven home to me this evening and left me feeling very much like a hypocrite.

Thursday has probably become my favorite day of the week. It is not because I am one day closer to the weekend, either, although that part doesn’t suck.  No, it is because of my Thursday night meeting that I attend.  My home group decided a few months ago to change the format of the Thursday night meeting from an “Open Speaker” meeting to a “12 and 12″ meeting.

What that basically means is that we are reading through the book “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.”  One person reads a few paragraphs aloud, and then offers their insights on the reading.  That doesn’t mean people can’t chime in, or that the reader can’t later offer his or her thoughts on a passage read by a different attendee, however.  That happens a lot, actually. There have been a few times I have been asked to read.  On occasion, I simply don’t have anything to share regarding the passage, for whatever reasons.

But then there comes a night like tonight, when the paragraphs I read describe me perfectly. It’s not that the paragraphs introduced a completely novel concept to my mind, because they didn’t. I think that the paragraphs simply and concisely illuminated one of the biggest fears I have harbored since I joined the program.

Here’s the passage I read:

These obstacles, however, are very real. The first, and one of the most difficult, has to do with forgiveness. The moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with another person, our emotions go on the defensive. To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully focus on the wrong he has done us. This is especially true if he has, in fact, behaved badly at all. Triumphantly we seize upon his misbehavior as the perfect excuse for minimizing or forgetting our own.

Right here we need to fetch ourselves up sharply. It doesn’t make much sense when a real toss pot calls a kettle black. Let’s remember that alcoholics are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions. Moreover, it is usually a fact that our behavior when drinking has aggravated the defects of others. We’ve repeatedly strained the patience of our best friends to a snapping point, and have brought out the very worst in those who didn’t think much of us to begin with. In many instances we are really dealing with fellow sufferers, people whose woes we have increased. If we are now about to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why shouldn’t we start out by forgiving them, one and all?

I drank heavily for just a few short years, and I went incognito relatively soon after doing so. For that reason, I like to think that I hurt few people for which “amends” are required. There is one person, however, who comes immediately to mind every time I even think about the amends I owe others.

That person is my ex-roommate. We lived together a few months when we were in law school. We shared a moving truck when we relocated to the pebble, although we did not live together after the move. It was only later that we decided to share an apartment again. The second time was absolutely disastrous, and I have no illusions that there is some “third time” to charm that particular situation. Granted, I am not sure Mr. J would go for a third time, either, but the key is that I know it won’t, and shouldn’t ever happen again.

What I (not “she” or “we”) broke the second time might not ever be completely repaired.

Whenever I think of her, I can freely acknowledge that I treated her badly, but it has always been followed with a laundry list of things she did that hurt me. That’s hilarious in a sad and pathetic way, really. There were many nights that I blacked out completely, of which I simply have no memory at all; yet I vividly recall every single incident in which I feel that she wronged me.

And, in that respect, I have become a hypocrite.

One of the things I have heard often in the program is that one should focus the spirit of an “amends” solely on one’s own conduct. It’s not recommended that one approaches the person wronged with the basic message of “I’m sorry I hurt you, but you hurt me, too.” It’s not generally a way that one makes peace with the past.

I wish I could say that the epiphany I had this evening immediately fixed everything. No light shone down on heaven to rid my soul of the resentments I have been harboring about her for quite some time. That’s something I will have to work on some more. If I had to face her tonight, I think I have enough control over my mouth that I would refrain from giving her a list of time she hurt me. But then it wouldn’t really be sincere. Hopefully, when the time comes that I just actually go to her and try to offer her my apologies for all the times I hurt her, I will be sincere.

She deserves that, and more.

It’s a classic example of a situation in which I simply must approach her and deal with her in a manner based solely on the way I would want her to treat me. I have to forgive her, really, if I ever really hope to earn her forgiveness. What a novel idea.

For that realization, alone, I am so thankful on this warm Thursday evening.

CAVEAT: I don’t know if you noticed this phrase: “It doesn’t make much sense when a real tosspot calls a kettle black,” but when I read it, I thought of the pot calling the kettle black. I pictured an actual pot, but because of the “toss” part, I thought it was like a chamber pot, or the compost pot Mr. J and have been so bad about using recently.

I know. “Chamber pot.” It grossed me out, too.

I had never seen that term, so I looked it up. It actually means “a tippler; drunkard.” Nice play on words, there.

Who knew?

Heh.

QUESTIONS: Do you have your own damned double standard? Being brutally honest, and I am quite serious about this request, if you have a friend who stood before you and apologized for past harms committed under the influence, how would you react?

Seriously, people, be honest.

It will give me some idea of what I might encounter on that day.

Have you ever been in my situation, and what was the result?