A
healthy recovery is going to rely upon you forgiving other people,
too. We Alcoholics really suck at this. We grip resentments like a
chubby trick-or-treater grips a bag full of Snickers. We have to—have
to—knock
that off and forgive, even the people who are downright hostile
toward us.
You
will be able to initiate the process with someone by whom you feel
hurt in about two-thirds of the situations. Most of your injurers are
not going to come knocking on your door seeking a clean slate for
judging you, and the other third are likely to have slammed the door
on you and moved on from your drama. Remember the “full” line you
passed.
Forgiveness
isn’t a pardon, releasing a person from accountability for the
injury they caused. Pardon, a la President Ford pardoning Nixon,
assumes one person has authority over another. Forgiveness isn’t
forgetting either. Author Beverly Flannigan (Forgiving
the Unforgiveable,
Macmillan Publishing, New York 1992) says you have to remember to
forgive someone. “To forgive, one must remember the past, put it
into perspective and move beyond it. Without remembrance, no wound
can be transcended.”
To
transcend or close wounds with the two thirds who haven’t slammed
the door to you, forgiveness is a transaction. The Transactional
Model follows a sequence described in 1953 by J.A. Martin (“A
Realistic Theory of Forgiveness,” in The
Return to Reason,
Henry Regnery Press, Chicago).
A)
Injured accused injurer
B)
Injurer admits it
C)
Injured gives reasons he feels violated
D)
Injurer admits he was wrong
E)
Injured punishes
F)
Injurer takes it
G)
Injured seeks assurance it won’t happen again
H)
Injurer promises
I)
Injured accepts the promise and requires nothing further
J)
Injurer trusts forgiveness is permanent
That’s
pretty civilized, optimistic and tidy. And it works. You’ve
probably practiced the model without the extensive analysis since you
played in a sandbox. But the model is hardly realistic when you
encounter the kind of bitterness and stigma Alcoholics face. The emotional
sensitivity Alcoholics have in common doesn’t help, and creates an imbalance in the model
because the belief systems of injurer and injured are out of whack.
Steps C and D can become a snarl when one side doesn’t accept the
difference between drinking problems and problem drinkers. If the
bitterness persists, you may have to walk away with the satisfaction
that you tried: You attempted the transaction.
There’s
hope still, even when the Transactional Model fails or is
inappropriate because someone slammed the door on you and is long
gone, unable to participate in the transaction. They’re gone
believing they
have
been injured. Without the opportunity to confront the injurer, you’re
pretty much left to repair the damage and wipe the slate clean by
yourself.
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