Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (contd)

aacultwatch's perspective on:

The AA (General Service conference approved) book:

“Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous tells how members recover and how the society functions”

(an almost as wildly discursive commentary as our 'take' on the Big Book)

This tome is much reviled in cult circles (especially amongst the Big Book nutters who regard it as almost heretical! (A point of interest: if you're looking for meetings largely free of the aforementioned 'fruitcakes', and for that matter sundry other screwballs, then a Twelve Step meeting following the format of the above text is usually a safe bet). The text we will be using is as indicated above. And now we come to:

Step Four (pp. 45-48)

 

“Step Four

“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” [note: of “ourselves” - NOT someone else]

”If temperamentally we are on the depressive side [this does not imply somebody suffering from clinical depression], we are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We wallow in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of it. As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point of despair that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution. Here, of course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.

If, however, our natural disposition is inclined to self-righteousness or grandiosity [Big book 'experts', Step 'Nazis', cult members generally perhaps?], our reaction will be just the opposite. We will be offended at A.A.’s suggested inventory. No doubt we shall point with pride to the good lives we thought we led before the bottle cut us down. We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all, have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking. This being so, we think it logically follows that sobriety— first, last, and all the time—is the only thing we need to work for. We believe that our one-time good characters will be revived the moment we quit alcohol. If we were pretty nice people all along, except for our drinking, what need is there for a moral inventory now that we are sober?

We also clutch at another wonderful excuse for avoiding an inventory. Our present anxieties and troubles, we cry, are caused by the behaviour of other people—people who really need a moral inventory. We firmly believe that if only they’d treat us better, we’d be all right. Therefore we think our indignation is justified and reasonable—that our resentments are the “right kind.” We aren’t the guilty ones. They are! [definitely cult members! Remember: We (the cult) are always right! And they're (the rest of us) are always wrong!]

At this stage of the inventory proceedings, our sponsors come to the rescue [that's if you've got one. They're by no means essential and sometimes a positive hindrance ie. control freaks]. They can do this, for they are the carriers of A.A.’s tested experience with Step Four [you better hope so or otherwise you may well end up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle!]. They comfort the melancholy one by first showing him that his is not strange or different, that his character defects are probably not more numerous or worse than those of anyone else in A.A. This the sponsor promptly proves by talking freely and easily, and without exhibitionism, about his own defects, past and present. This calm, yet realistic, stocktaking is immensely reassuring. The sponsor probably points out that the newcomer has some assets which can be noted along with his liabilities. This tends to clear away morbidity and encourage balance. As soon as he begins to be more objective, the newcomer can fearlessly, rather than fearfully, look at his own defects.

The sponsors of those who feel they need no inventory are confronted with quite another problem. This is because people who are driven by pride of self unconsciously blind themselves to their liabilities [Oh dear! We're back to the cult …. again]. These newcomers scarcely need comforting. The problem is to help them discover a chink in the walls their ego has built, through which the light of reason can shine [which incidentally does not involve bullying sometimes masquerading under the guise of so-called 'tough love'].

First off, they can be [not 'must be'] told that the majority of A.A. members have suffered severely from self-justification during their drinking days. For most of us, self-justification was the maker of excuses; excuses, of course, for drinking, and for all kinds of crazy and damaging conduct. We had made the invention of alibis a fine art. We had to drink because times were hard or times were good. We had to drink because at home we were smothered with love or got none at all. We had to drink because at work we were great successes or dismal failures. We had to drink because our nation had won a war or lost a peace. And so it went, ad infinitum.

We thought “conditions” drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn’t to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves [ie. NOT others!] to meet conditions, whatever they were.

But in A.A. we slowly learned that something had to be done about our vengeful resentments, self-pity, and unwarranted pride. We had to see that every time we played the big shot, we turned people against us ['circuit speakers', recovery 'experts', and sundry 'personalities' take note!]. We had to see that when we harboured grudges and planned revenge for such defeats, we were really beating ourselves with the club of anger we had intended to use on others. We learned that if we were seriously disturbed, our first need was to quiet that disturbance, regardless of who or what we thought caused it.

To see how erratic emotions victimized us often took a long time. We could perceive them quickly in others, but only slowly in ourselves. First of all, we had to admit that we had many of these defects, even though such disclosures were painful and humiliating. Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word “blame” from our speech and thought. This required great willingness even to begin. But once over the first two or three high hurdles, the course ahead began to look easier. For we had started to get perspective on ourselves, which is another way of saying that we were gaining in humility.

Of course the depressive and the power-driver are personality extremes, types with which A.A. and the whole world abound [viz. cult members – no wonder they loathe this text!]. Often these personalities are just as sharply defined as the examples given. But just as often some of us will fit more or less into both classifications. Human beings are never quite alike [ie NOT clones], so each of us, when making an inventory, will need to determine what his individual character defects are. Having found the shoes that fit, he ought to step into them and walk with new confidence that he is at last on the right track.”

(our emphases)(our observations in red print)

Coming next – Step Four (contd)

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)