Are diamonds really a girl's best friend?

After the AA meeting I went to on Sunday, a young woman (I think she is 29) came up to me to talk about a resentment she developed over the weekend. The topic of that meeting was resentments. The book Alcoholics Anonymous tells us to not harbor resentments because they can send us back to the bottle for relief.

She had attended a bridal shower on Saturday and, as she said, all the young women there had diamond rings and were either engaged or married. And she wanted what they had. That thinking is so typical of people in AA and people in general: if I get this promotion, or car, house, baby, husband or wife, career, large bank account, diamond, then I will be happy.

But it doesn't work. Nothing outside ourselves will fill that void inside ourselves. Before my husband and I married, we went to counseling. I told the therapist about things that went on in my home and my husband said to the therapist, "When I hear about how hurt she is, I want to put my arms around her and tell her she's wonderful." The therapist told him, "No one can fix her. Only she can."

As Sylvia Bornstein says, "happiness is an inside job." So here's this beautiful, smart, energetic and loving young woman who thinks she is not complete without a husband and a diamond on her finger. She was comparing her insides with those women's outsides. They looked good with their diamonds on their fingers, but really, my friend has no idea how their lives really are. I told her fifty percent of those women will get a divorce eventually. I can't remember the statistics. It may be higher now.

In the meeting I attended this morning, we read a story from the big book where the author wrote how good his life looked. He was a father with a prestigious career. He had children. He was an athlete, an artist, an airline pilot and he was in the book Who's Who in America. That is impressive. However, he wrote that he was unhappy and had been for a long time. Drinking helped relieve that unhappiness. He just numbed himself with liquor. Until the alcohol stopped working, and he became more miserable from his drinking.

He wrote that he spent over $10,000 on therapy. That did not cure him of his alcoholism or his unhappiness. He got desperate, so he tried AA. Not only did he stop drinking, he was able to achieve contentment and peace. Because we learn in the 12 step program how to find serenity. But it is work. Living a spiritual life requires constant vigilance or we can slip into self pity and resentments. Yes, it's work, but well worth the life we achieve from living according to the principles of alcoholics anonymous. It provides a life that no diamond on my finger could provide.