Resentment eats at you from the inside. You know this if you’ve been carrying anger toward someone who hurt you, betrayed you, or left you feeling powerless. In recovery, resentment isn’t just emotionally exhausting, it’s dangerous. It’s the number one cause of relapse, according to the AA Big Book, and it can pull you back into old patterns faster than almost anything else.
If you’ve been searching for the “AA Big Book resentment prayer” and hoping for a simple 5-step process to finally let go, I need to be straight with you about something important. The resentment prayer in AA isn’t actually a separate 5-step program, it’s a specific tool from the 4th Step work, found on page 552 of the Big Book. But don’t worry. The process for using it is clear, practical, and genuinely life-changing when you commit to it.
Here’s what you need to know about the resentment prayer and how to use it to find real peace, even when everything in you wants to hold onto that anger.
What the AA Big Book Resentment Prayer Actually Is
The resentment prayer isn’t some mystical incantation. It’s a practical reframe designed to shift your perspective from victim to someone who can choose freedom. The Big Book describes resentment as “the number one offender” that destroys more lives than anything else. This prayer is the antidote.
Here’s the reality: when you resent someone, you’re giving them power over your thoughts, your mood, your day, and ultimately your recovery. The resentment prayer helps you take that power back, not by getting even, but by changing how you see the person who hurt you.
The prayer appears in the context of 4th Step inventory work, where you’re writing down your resentments and then taking specific action to release them. It’s not about forgiveness for their sake, it’s about freedom for yours.
The Complete AA Big Book Resentment Prayer
This is the actual prayer from page 552 of the Big Book. Don’t skip over it, read it slowly and let it sink in:
“God, Please help me to be free of anger and to see that the world and its people have dominated me. Show me that the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, has the power to actually kill me. Help me to master my resentments by understanding that the people who wronged me were perhaps spiritually sick. Please help me show those I resent the same Tolerance, Pity, and Patience that I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Help me to see that this is a sick man. Father, please show me how I can be helpful to him and save me from being angry. Lord, help me to avoid retaliation or argument. I know I can’t be helpful to all people, but at least show me how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. Thy will be done.”
Notice what this prayer does. It doesn’t ask God to punish the person who hurt you. It doesn’t even ask for an apology. Instead, it asks for your perspective to change, to see them as spiritually sick rather than evil, and to treat them the way you’d treat someone in the hospital.
The Big Book’s Process for Using the Resentment Prayer
While there isn’t a formal “5-step” process in the Big Book, there is a clear method outlined for working with resentments. Here’s how it actually works:
Step 1: Write Down Your Resentments
Start with your 4th Step inventory. List the person you resent, what they did, and how it affected you. Be specific. Don’t just write “John hurt me.” Write “John stole money from me when I was trying to get clean, and it made me feel like I couldn’t trust anyone.”
Step 2: Identify Your Part
This is the hardest part, but also the most freeing. Where were you at fault? Maybe you enabled the behavior, maybe you ignored red flags, or maybe you retaliated in ways that made things worse. This isn’t about blame, it’s about taking back your power.
Step 3: Pray the Resentment Prayer Daily
For the person you resent, say the prayer every day for at least two weeks. The Big Book is clear: you probably won’t mean it at first. Do it anyway. The meaning comes later.
Step 4: Pray for Their Well-Being
This is where it gets real. The Big Book suggests praying for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, their health, prosperity, happiness, everything. Even if you don’t mean it. Especially if you don’t mean it. This is like the set aside prayer for the sick man, whether they want it (or deserve it) or not.
Step 5: Continue Until the Feeling Changes
Keep going until you can think of this person without that knot in your stomach. For some people, this happens in days. For others, it takes months. The timeline doesn’t matter, the commitment does.
Why This Process Actually Works
The resentment prayer works because it interrupts the cycle of mental rehearsal that keeps your anger alive. Every time you replay what someone did to you, you’re essentially practicing being angry. The prayer gives you something different to practice.
When you consistently pray for someone’s well-being, even when you don’t feel like it, you’re training your mind to see them differently. Not as a villain in your story, but as another person struggling with their own problems. This doesn’t excuse their behavior, it frees you from carrying the weight of their behavior.
Think about it this way: resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. The prayer is the antidote that neutralizes the poison before it kills you.
We’ve seen this work countless times here at our 50-acre campus in Eastman. People arrive carrying resentments that have been eating them alive for years. They’re angry at their ex-spouse, their employer who fired them, their parents who didn’t understand their addiction. That anger becomes fuel for using again.
But when they commit to this process, really commit, not just go through the motions, something shifts. The anger doesn’t disappear overnight, but it stops controlling them. They sleep better. They stop rehearsing conversations they’ll never have. They focus on their own recovery instead of other people’s wrongs.
When the Prayer Isn’t Enough: Recognizing You Need More Support
Sometimes, though, resentments run so deep that working through them requires more than daily prayer. If you’re struggling with trauma, if the resentment is connected to abuse or betrayal that happened during active addiction, or if you find yourself stuck in patterns where anger leads straight back to using, you might need a more structured approach.
This is especially true if you’re dealing with resentments while also trying to get physically clean. When you’re why medical detox is the only safe way to reset, your brain chemistry is still stabilizing. Trying to process deep emotional work during early detox can actually be counterproductive.
That’s why residential treatment exists, to give you the time and space to work through these deeper issues safely. In our experience, people who try to muscle through resentment work while still managing triggers at home often get overwhelmed and end up using again.
The Difference Between Forgiveness and Letting Go
One thing that trips people up with the resentment prayer is thinking it’s about forgiveness. It’s not, at least not in the way most people understand forgiveness. You don’t have to forgive someone to stop letting them control your thoughts.
The prayer is about letting go of your need for the person to be different, for the situation to have been different, for justice to be served in the way you think it should be served. It’s about accepting that what happened, happened, and choosing to stop letting it poison your present.
This can be especially challenging when dealing with family resentments. Maybe your parents enabled your addiction, or your siblings turned their backs on you when you needed help most. The anger feels justified because it probably is justified. But justified anger can still destroy your recovery if you let it.
Practical Tips for Making the Prayer Work
Start Small: If you have multiple resentments, don’t try to tackle them all at once. Pick the one that bothers you most often and work on that one first.
Write It Down: Don’t just say the prayer in your head. Write it out, with the specific person’s name included. “Please help me show John the same tolerance and patience I would grant a sick friend.”
Set a Consistent Time: Do this at the same time every day. Many people find it helpful to include the resentment prayer in their morning meditation or evening reflection.
Track Your Progress: Notice when thinking about this person stops ruining your whole day. Notice when you can hear their name without your stomach tightening. These are signs the process is working.
Get Support: If you’re working through this alone and it feels overwhelming, consider talking to a sponsor, therapist, or counselor who understands both addiction and trauma work.
When Resentment Is Tied to Legal Issues
Sometimes resentments involve more than hurt feelings: they involve actual legal consequences. Maybe someone you trusted stole from you, or maybe family members are navigating Georgia’s specific involuntary treatment laws to try to get you help against your will.
These situations require careful handling. You can work on releasing the emotional charge around the situation while still protecting yourself legally and practically. The resentment prayer doesn’t mean becoming a doormat: it means stopping the poison of anger from eating you alive while you handle the situation responsibly.
The Long Game: Building a Life Without Resentment
The goal isn’t to become someone who never gets angry or hurt. The goal is to become someone who doesn’t let anger and hurt control your choices. When you master the resentment prayer, you develop what the Big Book calls “emotional sobriety”: the ability to feel difficult emotions without being dominated by them.
This is crucial for long-term recovery. Resentments don’t just threaten your sobriety in early recovery: they can build up over months or years and create the perfect storm for relapse when you least expect it. Learning to process and release them as they come up is like developing an immune system for your recovery.
In our residential program, we often see people arrive who’ve been sober for years but are hanging on by a thread because they never learned to handle resentments properly. They’ve been white-knuckling their way through anger, and eventually, the anger wins.
That’s why taking time to really learn these tools: not just intellectually, but experientially: can be so valuable. When you’re removed from daily triggers and have the support to work through deeper issues, you can build emotional skills that serve you for the rest of your life.
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in these patterns: if resentment has become a constant companion and you’re tired of letting other people’s actions control your peace: it might be time to get serious about addressing it. Sometimes that means working harder on your 4th Step. Sometimes it means finding a sponsor who can guide you through this work. And sometimes it means getting the kind of intensive support that only comes with residential treatment.
Whatever path you choose, know that freedom from resentment isn’t just possible: it’s waiting for you. The resentment prayer is one tool among many, but it’s a powerful one when you commit to using it consistently. Your recovery, your peace of mind, and your future are worth the effort it takes to let go of what’s keeping you stuck.
If you’re struggling with resentments that feel too big to handle on your own, don’t hesitate to speak with an admissions lead who has been in your shoes and understands exactly what you’re going through. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you need help learning how to be free.
