Some relish their sufferings so much that everything that happens is ballooned to enormous proportions in the re-living and the telling. Self-pitiers are difficult to wean away from their martyrdom ... Others nurse their grievances, resent their lot in life, seek scapegoats to blame for every thing that happens to them, particularly the alcoholic. (ODAT, 28 June)
This would be a useful insertion into meeting scripts, to be read out immediately before sharing commences.
The best thing I can do for myself is to convert my perceived difficulties into opportunities to show
others how God gives me direction and strength to transcend them.
Whining and blaming, apart from being irksome to others, actually harms me. It is not the event or the situation: it is my own response to it that is causing my suffering.
The relishing of suffering—in contrast to uncovering and uprooting its cause—can even be masked by pseudo-recovery and pseudo-spiritual activities, catchphrases, and 'principles', such as 'grieving' (when no one has died), 'feeling my feelings', 'being authentic', 'being true to myself', 'finding my own voice', 'holding the space', 'checking in', 'deep dives', 'digging', 'peeling the layers of the onion', 'being gentle on myself', 'journaling', 'reaching out', 'processing', 'reflecting', 'sitting with it', 'in God's time', 'letting time take time', 'wishing myself a long, slow recovery', 'a step a year'.
Although there's a smidgen of utility to at least some of these, they can all be recruited as tactics to indefinitely delay recovery; they can be solidified into the structural elements of the prison of self.
They're not doing it to me: I'm doing it to me. I can get off the merry-go-round whenever I choose. The Steps are available, and they're available today.