Forgiveness & Resenting The Painful Side Of Life – Forgive For Good Recovery Workbook By Fred Luskin

I believe the movement from being a pain killer to becoming a pain healer is at the heart of recovery. This article helps us understand the crucial role forgiveness can play in this healing movement. It’s extracted from a recently published workbook specifically designed for integrating forgiveness with the Twelve Steps. The author, Dr. Fred Luskin, wrote a best selling book called ‘Forgive For Good’ in 2002. He is the founder and director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project that has been doing forgiveness research since 1996.

Dr. Gabor Matte author of the best selling book “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts – Close Encounters With Addiction” expresses this relationship between pain and addiction this way:

“Addiction originates in a human being’s desperate attempt to solve a problem: the problem of emotional pain, of overwhelming stress, of lost connection, of loss of control, of a deep discomfort with the self. In short, it is a forlorn attempt to solve the problem of human pain. Hence my mantra: The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.”

The extract below is from the Introduction and Chapter 3 of Dr. Lumpkin’s Forgive For Good Recovery Workbook: Overcome Addiction, Heal Your Past, and Find Peace In Sobriety published in 2025. My hope is to post more articles on this important topic that I believe have great potential to reduce relapse and improve the quality of our sobriety. – Bruce M.

Introduction

The Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book (2002) states clearly that resentments are the number one reason people fail in recovery. It says, “Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. A person mired in resentment has scant chances of recovering from addiction.” The ubiquity of resentments and the danger they pose to sobriety make the work of forgiveness essential to recovery.

Our motivation for writing this book stems from our personal struggles to find a constructive response to these questions: What do you do when your life falls apart? And, what if you contributed to its falling apart? It took each of us a long time to find the answer: forgiveness. We truly struggled to learn what South African archbishop Desmond Tutu said so eloquently is true, that “there can be no future without forgiveness” (1999).

We write this to offer you a proven prescription for releasing resentments, one that has been refined through studies and research conducted over twenty-five years by top researchers and institutions. The resource we offer you is forgiveness.

The Painful Side of Life—Receiving an Arrow to the Heart (From Chapter 3)

In Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, poet Alice Walker (2018) wrestles with the painful side of life, likening it to receiving an arrow to the heart. The truth is that no one escapes the tragedy of an arrow to the heart; it is a part of our shared humanity. And even if you live a blessed and peaceful long life, at some point you will face the stark reality of the human condition: death. As author Nanea Hoffman (2023) observes, “the biggest problem with life is that none of us is going to get out alive!” There is no escaping the reality that at some point in life an arrow of sorrow, or anger, disappointment, or despair will pierce your heart. It is just a part of the balance of life. While there are moments of sublime beauty and love, there are also tragic experiences that will break our hearts.

When we get an arrow to the heart, our first response is to say, That hurts! or Why did this have to happen to me? This reaction is natural and healthy. But if after twenty years we are still asking Why did this happen to me? we are not living our best life. And very likely we need to do some forgiving.

The Painful Side of Life: Getting a No

After years of teaching and reflection we came to a very simple definition of forgiveness. We think of it now as the process of making peace with the word “no”—making peace with those arrows to the heart, making peace with life’s heartaches and disappointments. People would come to our classes and say, “My partner lied to me.” Or “My partner cheated on me.” Or “My partner is drunk again.” Or “I did the stupidest thing.” Everyone had a yes they wanted to have happened, and they came to forgiveness classes because they could not make peace with the no they received. You wanted this, but life gave you that. Or you did not want this, but life gave it to you anyway. And to be sure, life’s nos can be wide-ranging—some small and insignificant, and some tragic. Some are minimal: you really wanted the chicken salad sandwich, but they ran out, so you got the pimento cheese instead. At the other extreme, some nos are devastating—like the loss of a loved one in an automobile accident. No to the promotion. No to an extension on your rent. No to your prayers to save your father from cancer. No to your own prayers to save yourself from cancer. The word “no” can be hard to hear. For folks in recovery getting a no can translate into Poor me. Poor me. Pour me a drink.

Life offers many responses to receiving a no from life or getting an arrow to the heart: anger, depression, resentments, substance misuse, and so on. But the healthiest long-term strategy is to choose to accept and to forgive. Something happened to you that you did not want, and it is important. It had a profound effect on your life. Getting insight into what that is helps you process your feelings about it. In treating clients dealing with negative emotions, therapists often encourage them to “name it before we can tame it” or “feel it before we can heal it.” Doing this will empower your sobriety and recovery, and open pathways for you to enjoy living a better life. Forgiveness is learning the skill of removing arrows, bee stingers, and splinters that enter our lives unwanted and then remain long past the time they have any value. The initial sting of these painful experiences tells us that we need to find help, or to protect ourselves from further harm.

To think that we should never have to face pain or difficulty is to misunderstand how precarious, precious, vulnerable, and beautiful the gift of life is. If you have spent twenty years bemoaning how you were slighted, you are not living a joy-filled life. And, unfortunately, the responsibility for that is on you.

Forgiveness as It Relates to the Pain of Life

Every one of us will receive nos from life and arrows to the heart, but through forgiveness we are able to grieve and process our misfortune—whatever it is. Even if, God forbid, there is a debilitating automobile accident, or the loss of a limb from an explosion in war, there still can be a quality of life—provided we are intentional about creating it. There are many inspiring stories of soldiers returning from war wounded who then seize the opportunities that awaited them, instead of giving in to the prison of self-pity and despair. If you are still breathing, an arrow to the heart, whether self-inflicted due to a mistake you made, or at the hand of another person or life event, is recoverable. Likewise, a no from life does not have to be the final word. The recovery literature is clear about the importance of a fearless moral inventory and the need to make amends if necessary.

Is Everything Forgivable?

To say that everything is forgivable is a bold assertion, and it is important for you to hear this from us at the outset. If there is something you need to forgive, or if you need to ask for forgiveness or to forgive yourself for a mistake you made, all of this is possible. Why? Because, in our approach, forgiveness is something we do for ourselves. When you forgive, it in no way suggests the perpetrator should not be held accountable. To the person who did you harm, you can spend your life saying “I hate you” or “I despise you” or some words like these. It is your life; it is your choice. Unfortunately if you choose to be miserable, that is on you. If you spend your life talking about how much you hate the other person, you will not have the time or the creative emotional energy to express your love to your family and friends, and to live your life to the fullest.

The Cost of Unforgiveness

Unforgiveness, whether toward others or toward yourself, is a toxic cocktail that is a threat to your sobriety. Arguing that you should have gotten a yes when you got a no for ten years is exhausting. It is also a little crazy to think your opinion of how life should turn out different will have any effect other than making you tired and angry. It is also sad to see grown men and women arguing that life did not turn out the way they wished as they stay stuck in the past.