Blaming and Excusing

I've been working on my resentment list for Step Four and I'm noticing a pattern. Every resentment I write down is followed by an explanation of why it's completely justified. They did this to me. They said that about me. They should have known better. They're the reason I'm angry.

We may discover that we have blamed all our difficulties on the alcoholic and excused ourselves with rationalizations. This is exactly what I've been doing. Every problem in my life has the alcoholic as its root cause. My anxiety? Their drinking. My controlling behavior? Their chaos. My isolation? Their embarrassing public behavior. Everything is their fault.

But Step Four is asking me to look at my part not theirs. Yes they drink. Yes their drinking affects me. But what's my part? How do I contribute to my own difficulties? Where am I using their drinking as an excuse to avoid looking at myself?

This is hard uncomfortable work. It's so much easier to blame them for everything. But blaming them keeps me stuck. It makes me a victim with no power. When I can see my part – even while acknowledging their disease – I find my power again. I can't control their drinking but I can change my response to it.

I can take one situation where I blame someone else entirely and ask: What's my part? Not to take blame that isn't mine, but to find where I have power to change my response. That's where my freedom lives.