“Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender. … From it stem all forms of spiritual disease …” (Chapter 5, Big Book)
Resentment is the pathological mechanism by which the pathogen propagates itself.
Self is the pathogen.
Self = the notion I am a self-authoring being, separate from and independent of God and others, an individual, an undivided and non-connected unit, with its own plans and designs, identity, scheme, plot, and image.