Forgiveness is not a solution, it’s dysfunctional
By Richard Clark
Since 1939 we have been living with the twisted, religious idea that recovery has three principal components: staying sober, finding some version of ‘God’ which includes any watered-down declaration of higher power, and hacking away at a few steps. My views and experience are this is both naive and delusional.
Addiction is very complicated. Take apart a wristwatch and study it for two weeks. Now, please explain how it works in 17 minutes so we can each build our own watch. Traditional AA is building your own religious watch, most often with guidance from people who can barely tell time—join a group, get involved, repeat the steps ad nauseum. That seems more like living in the penalty box of religion.
The Origin of Forgiveness
Christianity for the last twenty centuries, and Alcoholics Anonymous since 1939 have been touting the virtues of forgiveness. Bill Wilson and Bob Smith and Wilson’s book Alcoholics Anonymous offered a solution to alcoholism. It was indoctrination into Christianity and their idea of a recovered life was being a sober Christian.
The book Alcoholics Anonymous introduced new possibilities for alcoholics and offered three things: 1 – It was socially approved Christian propaganda. 2 – AA bolstered the Temperance Movement’s goal of an alcohol-free society. 3 – Alcoholics Anonymous didn’t resolve the problem of addiction but it did occasionally resolve the problem of morbid alcohol consumption, which insisted on Christian forgiveness. This begs the question: If it is an illness what need of forgiveness?
Jump ahead eighty-five years. In 2025 there are three new players in social awareness.
- The ever-increasing exposure of religion’s appalling history of lies, violence, and abuse. These undermine religious dominance and authority.
- Anti-religious sentiment is growing. Atheist types are increasing in numbers and coming out of hiding.
- Psychology and sociology are not the nascent soft sciences of the 1950s. They now offer established truths about mental health that we can reliably depend on.
With much resistance from religious faiths, historical truths and psychology are inexorably moving to the forefront of social consciousness and addiction treatment. Religions will continue to lose their dominant strangle-hold on morality and power. This is inevitable.
As much as religious types claim open-mindedness, love, and acceptance as the goal of a ‘spiritual life’ I can find no evidence of this. Religion offers censure, accusations of perpetual sin, and penance, but not open-mindedness. It dangles the carrot of forgiveness beside the judgements of sin and guilt. Open-mindedness cannot be contractual or conditional.
Arising from the ineffectiveness of religious AA as recovery, it is automatically assumed that to forgive is an aspiration to virtue. I disagree. In my view, forgiveness makes interpersonal conflict worse and sets up an emotional trap that prohibits compassion and responsibility. Forgiveness is the setup for harsh judgements, condemnation, and perpetual conflict.
The Anatomy of Conflict and Forgiveness
The mirage of forgiveness, whether it’s religious forgiveness (keeping a sinner in the church and in the revenue stream) or relationship forgiveness (the politics of acceptable judgement), involves a sequence of mental events that must be examined. Consider arguments…
Arguments are about being hurt or betrayed in some way and another person’s bad behavior. The point of an argument is for the offended person to get the guilty person to admit their ‘badness’ and to agree with being condemned or punished for their bad behavior. If the offender (who did a wrong thing) admits their crime and guilt that entitles the hurt person to compensation. That’s the set up. The wounded victim of nasty behavior arbitrarily decides on a punishment of some degree but then magnanimously gives up their entitlement: If you promise to never ever do it again, I’ll forgive you. Forgiveness is often a conditional discharge and probation in relationship court. That’s the anatomy of relationship forgiveness.
In religious forgiveness, the cycle is quite similar: the offense (being born), judgement, conviction, penalty, and forgiveness. It varies depending on the century or decade of the offense. Someone sins. Sinning is the foundation of religion, which is the perpetual penalty box. People are bad before any crime is committed. Add in the zeal and righteousness of the priest that’s imposed on the sinner, the ever-changeable nature and evaluation of religious wrongs, the punishments assigned, and the contriteness or wealth of the offender. It’s confusing at best, but the church needs an active program of forgiveness to maintain the status quo and keep the pews full. If there were no forgiveness the building would be empty in six months (priests included).
How often have you forgiven someone and then found yourself, days or years later, thinking yourself into another fit of pique about some transgression for which you had forgiven them? Reliving the event occurs because unresolved issues like victimhood and self-righteousness are hidden under the transaction of forgiveness. Forgiving someone (again and again) allows you to reclaim the moral high ground. Both people in the transaction avoid personal responsibility.
Forgiveness is a fail-safe protective device that reassures the self-proclaimed victim and the accused that they can continue to do “wrong” things, and the relationship will survive. It’s reassuring to know there’s an ‘approved’ way of appearing to solve problems. Permission for judgements and condemnation, which are the set-ups for forgiveness, remain unaddressed, the need for forgiveness will become worse even though there is no change in the external conditions. Over the long-term the players feel trapped in a circular, hopeless situation. * The church pews stay full and in relationships one person gets to continue to judge and condemn someone and the other to be forgiven. And on it goes.
The Compassionate Alternative: Acceptance
Society and religion (and AA) have it that addicts are not ordinary people contending with illness, they are nasty characters. For addicts in recovery to become recovered and compassionate they must do two things: 1 – openly disagree with being categorized as defective people with bad characters, and 2 – learn how to ignore religion and stop forgiving people; be responsible and learn acceptance.
Addiction is the mental illness of broken relationships. When we are classified as persons of bad character there’s shame and guilt which in turn creates more internalized shame. There are seven consequences of religious and socially imposed shame and guilt: 1 – more broken relationships, 2 – a serious difficulty in negotiating recovery, 3 – higher rates of treatment failure, 4 – more cognitive dissonance, 5 – more repetitive inadequacy, 6 – more puzzling conflict, and 7 – eventually more addiction.
The historically professional response to addicts has been the professional refuses to work with them, telling the unregenerate addict to come back when they are sober. This means they should go to some version of a twelve-step program, become religious, and then return for counselling. This professional negligence has been tacitly endorsed by society and governments. It implies addicts are bad people (not ill) and is imposed on everyone, including defenceless youth. Just like the church convincing defenseless children they are sinners, does everyone else convince drug, alcohol, and sex addicts they are corrupt.
To get past the inescapable social and religious condemnation that addicts are sinners; to get to a mindset of compassionate harmony, the following four beliefs are required:
- Addictions, unmanageability, and related problems are the mental illness of relationships.
- The recovery psychology of addiction is complex. It requires personal responsibility and self-examination, not examination of others. Drop the word blame from speech and thought about oneself and stop complaining. (This is exceptionally difficult.)
- People are people and mistakes are mandatory.
- For compassionate harmony to prevail wisely conducted (non-religious) therapy, with a determined commitment to non-angry personal responsibility, is often required. **
Any commitment to one of them is rendered meaningless without an equal commitment to the others. Half-measures availed us nothing.
There are three initial benefits to adopting these beliefs. First, if a person firmly accepts them then religion and God are not necessary. Second, people can get past the chaos of forgiveness. Third, these establish the necessary foundation for acceptance. My post of March 9, Switching from Addiction to God is Not a Solution, explained that broken relationships are the core nature of religion (and addiction). Forgiveness and religion are built upon the cruelty of condemnation and judgement.
People must re-educate themselves through personal responsibility into a deep level of self-acceptance regarding their own limitations without blame. Addiction ‘recovery’ is achieving a sense of inner peace through compassion and gentleness toward themselves regarding their humanness. Once self-acceptance is achieved compassionate harmony is available to everyone. Here is a very brief outline of the path to acceptance:
- Abandon the abuses and demands of and religion and addiction and their inherent broken relationships. This is superficially addressed in the first nine non-religious steps.
- Live life governed by the five spiritual principles for compassionate harmony: do no harm to self or others; be honest; be socially humble through equality; live with charity of spirit; be responsible/never blame. The non-religious versions of Steps Ten to Twelve are the approach to this type of life. ***
- The requirements of acceptance are: 1 – Addictions, unmanageability, and related “life” problems are my illness that only I can fix. 2 – Personal responsibility and self-examination, not examination of others, is the requirement of every moment. 3 – Drop the word blame from speech and thought—stop complaining. 4 – People are people and mistakes are not optional.
- Meditate on the non-religious wisdom of others, with a determined adoption of non-angry personal responsibility. Anger, righteousness, and blame are our own fault. Therapy may be required. **
- These beliefs make speculation, God, and the abuses of religion unnecessary, thus avoiding the perpetual conflict and chaos of forgiveness.
- Attain sincere acceptance of oneself which must become a way of living. The result and effect are acceptance of others and of life and then compassionate harmony becomes the order of the day.
Acceptance
Do not forget that we (addicts) are living with a mindset of 180 years of religious and social rejection and persecution. Attaining sincere self-acceptance is awkward and often emotionally difficult; it goes against six generations of being condemned. When addicts reach this level of awareness and assume uncompromising personal responsibility and attain self-acceptance, they (we) can live with our illness and recovery without apology or guilt. This allows for egalitarianism and that is the key to humility. Addicts then stop condemning others and avoid the petulance of forgiveness (which is not available to religious types). That sets addicts free to become themselves and sets everyone else free from being blamed and judged.
Freedom from judgments renders forgiveness unnecessary. A side note: It seems that our own unavoidable and ever-present frailties and misdemeanors make a mockery of someone ever forgiving anyone for anything.
Forgiveness requires judgement and condemnation, and these are the hallmarks of religion. If you reflect carefully, what becomes evident is the hypocrisy of religion: claiming love and acceptance while offering condemnation and forgiveness. There is no authentic acceptance when forgiving.
Addiction recovery is an inside job. Acceptance allows for relationships without judgements built on compassionate harmony… but that does not mean you must expose yourself to repeated bad behavior. Accepting that someone is irresponsible or rude but not condemning them for that allows you to gracefully distance yourself. You can be respectful about how they choose to live without harsh judgments, but you do not have to allow it to be a part of your life.
Addiction is an illness, not the character flaw of a sinner. Maintain a consistent, uncompromising devotion to veracity, egalitarianism, and personal responsibility. A person who refuses to apologize or forgive, and makes a real effort to be accepting, is in the deep end of the recovery pool. When you achieve that level of sincerely accepting your illness and your humanness the result is you view yourself without judgement. At that level of acceptance there is authentic compassionate harmony available to everyone.
* Some of the observations made here are adapted from The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, Karen Horney, Ph.D. (pub. 1937), p.138.
** It may be difficult to find a therapist who understands and supports this view.
*** Forgiveness is examined at length in the book Spiritual Transformation in Chapter 7. // The non-religious ‘twelve steps’ based on the psychology of addiction that appear to be more therapeutically effective are explained in detail in The Addiction Recovery Handbook, Chapter 5.
Richard has been clean and sober since 1980. He’s always been open about his atheism and is active in his weekly agnostic meeting. Professionally, Richard has been a therapist in addictions work since 1985. For several decades he’s been committed to the ancient Buddhist stream of Arhat consciousness and been recognized as a Pratyeka-buddha, pre-Theravada practise (and still working at it). He offers on-line private counselling sessions with clients from across Canada. Richard has written three books and is presently writing a fourth book. In it he will detail the psychology of Buddhism, the preferrable healthy psychology of atheism, and outline effective therapy for counsellors and addicts. There is more information at Green Room Lectures.
For a PDF of this article, click here: Forgiveness is not a solution, it’s dysfunctional.
Somewhat lengthy, and repetitious. Try coming up with a condensed version.
I thought the piece was about DOUBLE the guideline for Agnostica essays. It wasn’t but it very much felt like it was.
Why do you want to tear something down that did work for a lot of people. Talk about ego!
There are many points here, and I agree with many of the them and most of the philosophy. However, much of this method is not cohesively organized in both this documentation and supposed approach. Also, it really shows a severe lack of the interconnectedness of trauma and addiction. For example I see no mention of forgiveness being a healing aspect for the forgiver. I forgive so I can let go of resentment. This has nothing to with the others’ intention nor actions. It is simply for me to move forward. Furthermore, one can forgive someone and still set boundaries to protect oneself. This leads into the second poorly formulated opinion: self responsibility vs examining others’ responsibility. I could never have reached the level on contentment and sobriety had I not examined the actions of others around me, particularly those responsible for my upbringing and education as well as the environment. Understanding of the external effects on our morals, values, judgments and opinions of ourselves and others is vital in causes and conditions affecting recovery and life in general. To me, the article per se seems a little judgmental in its tone and delivery, which kind of contradicts that message.
I very much agree with the content of this comment EXCEPT for “the article per se seems a little judgmental.” More than a little.
I’m surprised that a supposed Buddhist seems to have missed the principal of forgiveness — the LETTING GO of resentment. AA, as I understand it, stresses letting go more than forgiveness. Being angry harms me. The Buddha agreed with that.
In a convoluted way, much too complex for this brief response, these three observations have pointed out the necessity of what I wrote. I view MOST of Mr. Wilson’s writings as harmful to the psychology of recovery, especially faith, prayer, defects, and forgiveness. But there are also a few invaluable truths. One of them is rigorous honesty. In “How It Works” he did not allow for any exceptions to the honesty “rule.” Whether or not the truth is awkward or uncomfortable is never a reason to not speak it. I am concerned with being respectful when I explain what I understand to be truth, but I’m not concerned with whether people agree with or like what I write. These responses indicate the authors didn’t like or disagreed with what I wrote. That’s to be expected but doesn’t make it not true.
Religion is wrong. Spirituality is wrong. AA is wrong. Forgiveness is wrong. And now, the freaken readers are wrong. I have to admire that sort of confidence, deluded as it may be.
Yeah, definitely the same tone I picked up. I also picked up on the buddhist background and was also surprised at the author’s opinion and response. He should take the graciously comments and feedback. Not explaining yourself while calling someone else wrong is basically gaslighting, and detrimental to the understanding of addicts’ experience. I think the first rule of any recovery program is honesty. Like I stated, I do agree with much, but In my opinion, the topic is simply not well supported by the content.
You lost me early on, too judgmental.
On the winding way to a couple of reasonable points, there are a few strange rematks and a palpable vibe of bitterness. If one is going to criticize an organization, I think it’s important to get the facts right.
The Temperance Movement in the United States was a Protestant church-led initiative (of more than 100 years) that resulted in the national Prohibition that began in January, 1920. The “Great Experiment” was a total disaster. The failure of the legal proscription of ALL drinking left America open to new ideas (or the recycling of old ones).
The vast majority of alcohol-related are caused by a small percentage of the population. AA focused on that demographic rather than promoting temperance for one and all. I see no connection between AA and the remaining scraps of the Temperance Movement. Alcoholics Anonymous’ focus from the beginning has been in the recovery of the alcoholic drinker.
I hosted a Zoom Meeting for our Many Paths to Sobriety Meeting on Sunday and made the mistake of using Richard’s reading as a topic for discussion. We are a secular group that welcomes believers as long as they agree there are many paths to sobriety. I warned attendees that the reading contained gratuitous bashing of religion. A couple of folks left as I read excerpts. There was unanimous agreement of attendees that Mr. Clarke’s writing is not helpful in attracting folks to secular meetings, and does not seem to be appropriate on AA Agnostica, if you want to make secular AA welcoming to open minded alcoholics.
I must ponder this essay and let it marinate. It made me think about the layers of rules and assumptions we labour under even as we throw some of them off. It is good to read something by someone kicking at the traces and pushing boundaries. Some one actively asking “WTF are we actually doing the whole day long?”