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From the books ... Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book) and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12 & 12)
Click the page number or the book cover icon
to view that page in the literature.1.
This requires action on
our part, which, when completed, will mean that we have admitted to
God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects.
2.
3.
4.
As soon as he begins to be more objective, the newcomer can fearlessly,
rather than fearfully, look at his own defects.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Now let's ponder the need for a list of the more glaring personality defects all of us have in varying
degrees.
9.
10.
How could we be certain that we had made a true catalog of our defects and had
really admitted them, even to ourselves?
11.
At the very least, we shall have to come to grips with some of our worst character defects and take action toward their removal as quickly as we can.
12.
Human beings are never quite alike, so each of us, when making an inventory, will need to determine what his individual character
defects are.
13.
They comfort the melancholy one by first showing him that his case is not strange or different, that his character defects are probably not more numerous or worse than those of anyone else in A.A.
14.
Nearly anyone could submit a good list of such defects as these, and few of us would
seriously think of giving them up, at least until they cause us excessive misery.
15.
16.
We have seen that character
defects based upon shortsighted or unworthy desires are the obstacles that block our path toward these objectives.
17.
Hence it was most evident
that a solitary self-appraisal, and the admission of our defects based upon that alone, wouldn't be nearly enough.
18.
By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions:
that his character defects,
representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary
cause of his drinking and
his failure at life; that unless he is now willing to work hard at the elimination of
the worst of these defects, both sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him; that all the faulty
foundation of his life will have to be torn out and built anew on bedrock.
19.
We will want to be rid of some of these defects, but in
some instances this will appear to be an impossible
job from which we recoil.
20.
Surveying his business
or employment record, almost any alcoholic can ask questions like these: In addition to my drinking problem, what character
defects contributed to my
financial instability?
21.
Because our surface record hasn't looked too bad, we have frequently been
abashed to find that this is
so simply because we have
buried these selfsame
defects deep down in us under thick layers of self-justification.
22.
First of all, we had to admit
that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful
and humiliating.
23.
24.
The chief activator of our
defects has been self-centered fear -- primarily fear that we would
lose something we already possessed or would
fail to get something we demanded.
25.
But when we have taken a square look at some of these
defects, have discussed
them with another, and have become willing to have them removed, our thinking about
humility commences to
have a wider meaning.
26.
Some will object to many of the questions posed, because they think their own character defects have not
been so glaring.
27.
But all alcoholics who have drunk themselves out of jobs, family, and friends will need to cross-examine themselves ruthlessly
to determine how their own
personality defects have
thus demolished their security.
28.
Now willing to commence the search for his
own defects, he will ask, "Just how do I go about this? How do I
take inventory of myself?"
29.
We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all, have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
So Step Six -- "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character" -- is A.A.'s way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime
job.
37.
At Step Six, many of us balked -- for the practical reason that we did
not wish to have all our defects
of character removed, because we still loved some of them too much.
38.
Of course, the often disputed question of whether God can -- and will, under certain conditions -- remove defects of character will be answered with a prompt affirmative by almost any A.A. member.
39.
Moreover, it is usually a
fact that our behavior when
drinking has aggravated the defects of others.
40.
41.
And this they did find, in measure to transcend all
the defects of their frail craft, every test of uncertainty, pain, fear, and despair, and even the death of one.
42.
Instead, we looked at the
human defects of these people, and sometimes used their shortcomings as
a basis of wholesale condemnation.
43.
44.
45.
This the sponsor promptly
proves by talking freely and easily, and without exhibitionism,
about his own defects, past and present.
46.
By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions:
that his character defects,
representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary
cause of his drinking and
his failure at life; that unless he is now willing to work hard at the elimination of
the worst of these defects, both sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him; that all the faulty
foundation of his life will have to be torn out and built anew on bedrock.
47.
Though he could not accept
all the tenets of the Oxford
Groups, he was convinced
of the need for moral inventory, confession of
personality defects, restitution to those harmed, helpfulness to others, and the necessity of
belief in and dependence
upon God.
48.
To avoid falling into confusion over the names these defects should be called, let's take a universally recognized list of major human failings -- the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.
49.
Some people, of course, may
conclude that they are indeed ready to have all such defects taken from them.
50.
51.
To these it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to
reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned
with.
52.
53.
If you both show a willingness to remedy your
own defects, there will be little need to criticize each other.
54.
55.
They will tell how they tried to carry the load alone; how much they suffered of irritability, anxiety,
remorse, and depression; and how, unconsciously seeking
relief, they would sometimes accuse even their best friends of the very character defects they themselves were trying to
conceal.
56.
Another great dividend we may expect from
confiding our defects to another human being is humility -- a word often misunderstood.
57.
Most of us would declare that without a fearless admission of our defects to another human being we could not stay sober.
58.
59.
This does not mean that we expect all our character
defects to be lifted out of us as the drive to drink was.
60.
Looking again at those defects we are still unwilling to give up, we ought to erase the hard-and-fast lines that we have drawn.
61.
We have admitted certain
defects; we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is; we have
put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory.
62.
63.
A.A. experience has taught us we cannot live alone with our pressing problems and the character
defects which cause or aggravate them.
64.
Or anger and hurt pride might be the smoke screen under which we were hiding some of our defects while we blamed others for them.
65.
But even these people, if they
construct a list of still milder defects, will be obliged to admit that they prefer to hang on to some of
them.
66.
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