The conviction that wrongdoers are very sick helps show their behavior is not personal. 

Page 60 of the AA Big Book states that the first requirement (for Step Three) is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. I have seen this as the foundation for the decision to turn my will and life over to the care of God. I just recently came to see another huge significance for this statement, and it centers around the word “any”. 

The implication here is that ANYONE running their life on self-will will not have a successful life. We need to be convinced of this for the solution proposed in Step Four to be effective. It is clear that this was their meaning because, when they describe what it looks like to live a selfish and self-centered life, they use examples of a priest, businessman, actor, alcoholic, and outlaw. Why is it so imperative for me to accept that all people experience what we later will hear referred to as “the spiritual malady”? It is imperative because it directly relates to their solution for mastering resentment.

Resentment is described as the “number one offender” as in the number one reason for relapse and consequently death, so having a method to “master” and get freedom from this is crucial for sobriety, freedom, and a comfortable, serene life. What the authors propose comes directly from this first requirement for Step Three—we must become convinced that the people who wronged us were spiritually sick like us. They were stuck in self and focusing on trying to get what they wanted when they harmed or offended us. They were driven by fear and prey to misery and depression. Their behavior was not about me. It was not personal. 

I often suggest people go through the exercise of imagining a spiritually fit person in the same circumstance as the individual we resent. How would that person have acted? The answer should be obvious—completely different! That is because what they did had nothing to do with me and everything to do with their spiritual condition at that moment. 

This is the true reality of my condition when living in self and blocked from God. I am unable to act the way I want to. I am unable to live up to my moral and philosophical convictions even when I really want to. There is a direct correlation between my experience of freedom, peace, and joy and my willingness to seek and be conscious of God moment to moment. Living God-dependent is the whole point of the 12-Step program–and lo and behold, I am free when I live that way!

If I can see these things in my own life, I can hopefully begin to see how this same inability is present in other people as well. One of the foundational guiding principles in my life today is that everyone, at all times, is trying to make themselves feel better using the tools they have in that moment. This could mean rage, anger, and belittling, or it could mean surrendering their will to a higher power and seeking to love, comfort, and understand. 

A vital component of this new understanding is in changing how I perceive others’ motives in what they are doing. When I am “in self,” I automatically assume their motive is personal. I assume they are doing it to me, intentionally!! I have no choice but to be resentful then. I must change my understanding to see that they, like myself, are spiritually sick and driven by fear. When in self and driven by fear, people are NEVER thinking of me as they take their actions; I am just a target for their pain and discomfort. 

Once I can begin to get a new perspective, I can begin to get freedom and approach true forgiveness. In fact, I believe that when a new understanding is fully reached, there is no longer anything to forgive. I realize I was never actually wronged in the first place. That is true freedom.