Fear and Expectations

Fear - primarily fear that we will lose something we have, or will fail to get something we desire - is "the chief activator" of all our defects of character. Yet, there is nothing objective that we need fear. It is entirely an inner, subjective phenomenon. That is, we are the manufacturers of our own anxieties, oftentimes needless worries that are fueled by the expectations we have about how we, the world, and the people that surround us will perform.

"We expect what we have known," a learned psychiatrist once told me. "And, then, we turn around and fear what we expect." In this way we forge a seemingly hostile world from the potential beauty that surrounds us.

Steps Four through Step Nine are designed to let us look objectively at what has shaped us, at the resentments, fears and sex experiences that have warped our perceptions of the world and its denizens, at the expectations we have formed about how life will necessarily unfold based upon our past experiences, and at how acute self-consciousness and unwarranted fears have crippled us. Armed with insights into what we have thought and done in response to our perceived resentments, fears and sex conduct we are enabled to walk through life on a new basis, correcting our wrongs as they arise when we inevitably fall short of our ideals.

The 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous (at page 75) highlights the experiential change we witness in our attitudes and in our being as our existential fears subside upon completion of the Fifth Step, and as we move forward in our task of clearing away the past's wreckage and drawing nearer to the God of our own understanding:

" . . . (W)e are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. (Emphasis added.)

No longer, I might add, need we be ruled by the fearful expectations we have built up over time based upon our past lives, particularly our lives in active addiction. Rather, we become inspired by the possibilities inherent in our new lives.

"The great fact," after completing the Steps, "is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves."

- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 25.

Trusting Infinite God vs. Our Finite Selves

"Courage is the first requirement of spirituality. A coward can never be moral."

-- Mahatma Gandhi --

In the discussion on the Fourth Step in the 'Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, we read (at page 68) the following passage on self-reliance, self-confidence, fear and faith in God:

"Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse."

"Perhaps there is a better way - we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would haves us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enables us to match calamity with serenity."

The ego, "self" in its many manifestations (such as self-reliance, self-confidence, self-centeredness, even self-esteem ), is the root of the alcoholic addict's problem. The raw fuel that feeds the ego are our fears that can never be allayed and our desires that can never be quenched. Thus, to move beyond the limited "self" of the ego, we must move toward the unlimited "Self" of God. It is essential, therefore, that we establish and maintain a conscious contact with a Power greater than ourselves so that we may truly "trust infinite God rather than our finite selves."

"(D)eep down in every man, woman, and child," we read in the 'Big Book,' "is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there." In establishing a conscious contact with God, and learning to rely upon Him, God "enables us" to strip away all these coverings and to truly "match calamity with serenity."

Such serenity is the hallmark of our deeper God-consciousness that is utterly devoid of fear and desire. Thus, the simple prayer that has been widely adopted by A.A. (and its sister organizations) is a prayer for serenity, courage and wisdom - all of which are aspects of the higher Self but wholly unavailable to the smaller self of the ego.

In The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (at pages 40-41) we read: "(I)t is really easy to begin the practice of Step Three. In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done."

God is the "serenity" we seek. Asking for "courage" (from the French cour meaning 'heart') is to move from lower, egoic self-consciousnes' to the higher Self of God-consciousness. And "wisdom" is to know that there is within us both the lower self and the Higher Self of God. In affirming and invoking this Power that is greater than ourselves, we move from our reliance on, and our narrow identification with, the ego to a realization of, and a reliance upon, the God of our understanding.

In the end, we find and access this "Great Reality" deep down within our Being. "In the last analysis it is only there that He may be Found." ("Big Book,' page 55.)

Eckhart Tolle: On Resentments

"The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion."

-- Eckhart Tolle --
("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose")

The Twelve Steps are designed to bring about "ego deflation at depth" and, thereby, a spiritual awakening which will solve the alcoholic addict's problem - "self" - in all its manifestations, selfishness, self-centeredness, egocentrism etc. One of the first concrete steps we take in this process of ego deflation is to list all of our lingering resentments, the lingering anger that we hold against people, ideas and even circumstances.

Why the importance in reconciling our resentments? The answer is that unless we do so they fester as an underlying anger that blocks us off from the spiritual resources that are buried within us. It is impossible for us to be honest, patient, understanding and loving while we harbour the lingering coals of the grievances we have towards others.

"Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego," notes Eckhart Tolle, a renowned spiritual teacher. "Resentment," he observes, "means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved or offended. You resent other people's greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn't have done."

"The ego loves it," he points out. "Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who," he asks rhetorically, "is doing that?"

"The unconscious in you," he answers, "the ego."

"Sometimes the "fault" that you perceive in another isn't even there," he notes. "It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At ohter time, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometines to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it, and what you react to in another, he cautions, you strengthen in yourself."

[Tolle, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," p. 62.]

Examining the "Harms" Caused to Others

"We might next ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have "harmed" other people. What kinds of "harm" do people do to one another, anyway? To define the word "harm" in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people. If our tempers are consistently bad, we arouse anger in others. If we lie or cheat, we deprive others not only of their worldly goods, but of their emotional security and peace of mind. We really issue them an invitation to become contemptuous and vengeful. If our sex conduct is selfish, we may excite jealousy, misery, and a strong desire to retaliate in kind."

"Such gross misbehavior is not by any means a full catalogue of the harms we do. Let us think of some of the subtler ones which can sometimes be quite as damaging. Suppose that in our family we happen to be miserly, irresponsible, callous, or cold. Suppose that we are irritable, critical, impatient and humorless. Suppose we lavish attention upon one member of the family and neglect the others. What happens when we try to dominate the whole family by a rule of iron or by a constant outpouring of minute directions for just how their lives should be lived from hour to hour? Such a roster of harms done others - the kind that make daily living with us as practicing alcoholics difficult and often unbearable - could be extended almost indefinitely. When we take such personality traits as these into the shop, office, and the society of our fellows, they can do damage almost as extensive as that we have caused at home."

-- The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pages 80-81 --

 In Step Four (in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) Bill W. notes that our "desires" or "instincts" - for sex, for material and emotional security, and for companionship - may "far exceed their proper functions." Again, in Step Six he observes that, "(n)o matter how far we have progressed, desires will always be found which oppose the grace of God." Then, in Step Eight, he observes that the "harms" we have caused others are the product of "instincts in collision." For recovery and true emotional sobriety, it is thus necessary for us to examine such instincts - irrespective of how gross or subtle they may be - and make our amends for the instances and circumstances in which our instincts have driven us blindly, resulting in the "harms" we have caused to others.

It is relatively easy to examine our grosser instinctual missteps, the remembrance of which gives us the moral shudders. "How could I have done that?" we wonder, as we recall such instances with a mixture of regret, embarrassment and remorse. It is these instances that, perhaps, formed the bulk of our initial Fourth Step inventory. Examination of the subtler harms we have caused - at least for this alcoholic addict - prove the harder to recognize, face and amend. The fine line between the legitimate protection of those we love and care for and the selfish instinct to control and manage our lives by controlling the actions of those closest to us is indeed subtle. ("Mastery of life," one spiritual teacher observed, "is the opposite of control.")

For example, controlling others through an outburst of anger is both memorable for its intensity and eminently regrettable, while controlling others through our over-weaning anxieties is much more easily overlooked. Yet both these instinctual drives must be overcome if we are to effectively turn our will and our lives over to the care of our Higher Power and, more particularly, if we are to leave it there! And just as it seems that our coarser defects of character are easier to spot and overcome, so our subtler defects seem to be all the more difficult to weed out.

Thus, even when we have made our initial amends, we must take a daily look at our character defects, paying careful attention to subtler manifestations of our self-centered instincts. These subtle shortcomings may seem to be dangerously innocuous when compared, to say, an ugly outburst of anger or a brooding resentment over the actions of others.

"Our basic troubles are the same as everyone else's," Bill points out, "but when an honest effort is made "to practice these principles in all our affairs," well-grounded A.A.'s seem to have the ability by God's grace, to take these troubles in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith."

"Like most people," he observes, "we have found that we can take our big lumps as they come. But also like others, we often discover a greater challenge in the lesser and more continuous problems of life. Our answer," he notes, "is still more spiritual development."

"Only by this means," he points out, "can we improve our chances for really happy and useful living. And as we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward our instincts need to undergo drastic revisions."

[The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 114.]

Reducing Ego at Depth through Accurate Self-Survey

Why the necessity of taking both an initial and a continuing moral inventory? Principally, it is because we manufacture our own troubles and problems. "They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so." Indeed, the troubles and problems of most individuals - alcoholic addicts and so-called "normal" people alike - are mostly self-manufactured.

"It is a man's own internal defects which often contrive against him and which show their faces in many of the external troubles that beset him," observes philosopher and spiritual sage, Paul Brunton. "Yet it is hard for him to accept this truth because his whole life-habit is to look outwards to construct defensive alibis rather than to engage in censorious self-inquisition."

[Brunton, "The Notebooks of Paul Brunton," Vol. 1, p. 137.]

Does this sound familiar?

"(T)he aspirant who is really earnest about the (spiritual) quest," observes Brunton, "should develop the attitude that his personal misfortunes, troubles and disappointments must be traced back to his own weaknesses, defects, faults, deficiencies and indisciplines. Let him not blame them on other persons or on fate. In this way he will make the quickest progress whereas by self-defending, or self-justifying, or self-pitying apportionment of blame to causes outside himself, he will delay or prevent it. For the one means clinging to the ego, the other means giving it up. Nothing is to be gained by such flattering self-deception while much may be lost by it." (Emphasis added.)

"Selfishness - self-centeredness! That we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later place us in a position to be hurt."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62.]

Even for the non-alcoholic to make significant spiritual progress, he or she must first practice a rigorous self-survey, according to Brunton, not seeking to blame others, but instead facing how his or her troubles originate in the egoic, self and its distorted perceptions of the world and other people.

"He must bring himself to admit frankly that he himself is the primary cause of most of his ills, as well as the secondary cause of some of the ills of others. He must recognize that the emotions of resentment, anger, self-pity, or despondency are often engendered by a wounded ego. Instead of reviling fate at each unfortunate event, he should ananlyse his moral and mental make-up and look for the weaknesses which led to it. He will gain more in the end by mercilessly accusing his own stubbornness in pursuing wrong courses than by taking shelter in alibis that censure other people. Like a stone in a shoe which he stubbornly refuses to remove, the fault still remains in his character when he stubbornly insists on blaming things or condemning people for it. In this event, the chance to eliminate it is lost, and the same dire consequences may repeat themselves in his life again.

[Brunton, supra.]

For those who have done multiple Fourth Step and Tenth Step inventories, and particularly for those who have been on the receiving end of another alcoholic addict sharing his or her Fifth Step, it soon becomes clear just how universal and impersonal the human ego is. Indeed, it can rightly be portrayed as a "false self" - an attitude and identity that is manufactured and/or adopted rather than developed organically. It is only by painful yet accurate self-survey that we may confront and overcome both the supposed "realities" the ego presents to us, and the power its distorted way of "seeing" things holds over us.

"The faith of the lower ego in itself and the strength with which it clings to its own standpoint are almost terrifying to contemplate," Brunton observes. "The (spiritual) aspirant is often unconscious of its selfishness. But if he can desert its standpoint, he shall see that his miserable fate derives largely from his own miserable faults. He is naturally unwilling (at first) to open his eyes to his own deficiencies and faults, his little weaknesses and large maladjustments. So suffering comes to open his eyes for him, to shock and shame him into belated awareness and eventual amendment."

"But quite apart from its unfortunate results in personal fortunes, whenever the aspirant persists in taking the lower ego's side," Brunton notes, "he merely displays a stubborn resolve to hinder his own spiritual development. Behind a self-deceiving facade of pretexts, excuses, alibis and rationalizations, the ego is forever seeking to gratify its unworthy feelings or to defend them. . . . The aspirant must choose between denying his ego's aggressiveness or asserting it. The distance to be mentally travelled between these two steps is so long and so painful that it is understandable why few will ever finish it. It is only the exceptional student who will frankly admit his faults and earnestly work to correct them. It is only he whose self-criticizing detachment can gain the upper hand, who can also gain philosophy's highest prize."

[Brunton, supra.]

Remember! "At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 58.]

Thus, despite the oft-time bitter and painful nature of radical self-survey, those who persist in taking a fearless and thorough moral inventory are those who overcome the egoic self, and those for whom the full promises of Alcoholics Anonymous become a reality. Beyond the ego, lies true emotional sobriety.

The Ego and Its Resentments: Anger, Anguish and Angst

"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcoholism returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die."

"If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things were poison."

-- Alcoholics Anonymous, page 66 --

"Anger," according to a Chinese proverb, "is a corrosive poison, that eats away the vessel that holds it from the inside out." In Buddhism, it is recognized as one of "the three poisons," along with lust and ignorance, that produce dukkha (i.e., suffering), and thus blocks the individual from the higher consciousness of nirvana. And, the great Roman philosopher, Seneca, observed that "anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it."

Thus, we see that in virtually all traditions, the destructive force of anger has long been recognized; Nonetheless, looking out at the world around us  - from the frustrations of the traffic jam, to road rage, to the seemingly unending wars, terrorism and ongoing strife that are regular features on the nightly news - we seem to see an evermore impatient, fearful and angry world. Thus, we see that the "dubious luxury" of anger is not working out very well for so-called "normal men," and we can be forewarned that it is even more perilous for us.

Anger, anguish, and angst - our distemper, suffering and fears - are all symptomatic of a life lived in the throes of the egoic self, rather than in "the sunlight of the Spirit." Inevitably, if unchecked, these symptoms of our deeper soul sickness will lead the sufferer back into the throes of active addiction. "The spiritual life is not a theory, we have to live it." And we cannot live a spiritual life while harboring anger and deep resentments. Thus, the imperative need to move into the action steps - Steps Four through Step Nine - to strip away the resentments that mask our true nature as spiritual beings.

The inner thought stream of the ego - what Bill once called the "painful inner narrative" of self - will not be gotten rid of (or, at least, deflated "at depth") without our effort. Identifying our resentments, seeing how they affect us, determining our part in them, and then making amends for the hurtful actions that caused or arose from them, are thus essential if we are to live consciously in this spiritual life.

The alternatives to not facing the anger, anguish and angst of the ego may, indeed, prove fatal.

On Overcoming Remorse and Self-Loathing

In the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the most prominent but least discussed aspects of the alcoholic addict's dilemma is the crushing shame and remorse that he or she feels for their actions when they are not tied directly to another person. Of course, Steps Five through Step Nine deal minutely with the whats, whys, whens and hows of making amends for harm done to others, but little is said about the "free-floating" remorse and self-loathing generated by years of alcoholic addiction.

Sometimes one hears that "the first amends I had to make were to myself," or worse, that "the 12 Steps are a selfish program." Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. The basic problem of the alcoholic addict is that he or she is utterly self-absorbed and self-centered to the extreme, and a radical process of "ego-deflation at depth" is needed if he or she is to recover.

"Selfishness," we read, "self-centeredness! That we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred different forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we step on the toes of others and they retaliate. . . . So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us!"

[Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62.]

How then, are we to be rid of the remorse and self-loathing for the seemingly horrible things we have done that did not directly, or even indirectly, affect others? How do we account for those actions at which we shudder when we remember: "Yes, I did that?"

The solution to this dilemma is found in taking and then sharing our Step Four inventory. "Being convinced," we read, "that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations."

 [Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63.] 

In regards to our "moral inventory," we read: "The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong." But, we continue reading, "(t)o conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got."

"The usual outcome" of this, we read, "is that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived." (Emphasis added.)

[Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 64-65.]

Thus, rather than making amends to one's self, one takes a moral inventory of one's self, highlighting the remorse we feel for our actions that did not affect others as resentments we hold against ourselves. We are told that "an alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature," and we need highlight those most unlovely incidents not affecting others that we have nonetheless come to abhor.

The other place where we deal with remorse is in listing our fears, for each of us holds memories of what we have done unwitnessed that we live in dread of ever having exposed. Who, at first, has not thought, "if only they knew . . ."?

Rather than holding some vague and fallacious idea that somewhere in Step Nine we need to "make amends to ourselves," it is rather in Step Five where we admit "to ourselves, to God and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs" that we earn freedom from our remorse and self-loathing.

Most often, we will find that are personal peccadilloes are not so unique, and that they vary only in kind rather than in quality to those "wrongs" committed by others. That, at least, has been my experience.

Moreover, such personal and dreadful incidents, once shared, lose their power over us. If we think of them at all, we are no longer filled with remorse, but rather we are in a position to use them to demonstrate to another alcoholic addict that they, too, are not as "bad" or "unique" as they may believe themselves to be. Our most shameful memories, are thus turned into assets we can use to help others.

Character Defects: "The Seven Deadly Sins"

As at best an agnostic by natural temperament, I was taken aback (as I suppose many others were) when I first read the characterization of my defects of character as "sins" in Step Four of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Not surprisingly, of course, my objection was one that had been anticipated by Bill W.

With foresight in writing the Step Four essay, Bill presciently observed that "(s)ome will become quite annoyed if there is talk about immorality, let alone sin. But," he reasoned, "all who are in the least reasonable will agree upon one point: that there is plenty wrong with us alcoholics about which plenty will have to be done if we are to expect sobriety, progress and any real ability to cope with life."

Thus, in writing the Step Four essay he settled on the "the Seven Deadly Sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth" as "a universally recognized list of major human failings" that could be used as a yardstick by which we could measure our "shortcomings." (Bill observed elsewhere that there was no distinction in meaning between "character defects" and "shortcomings," stating simply that he did not like to have adjoining sentences ending with the same words.)

Meanwhile, I remained quietly and silently opposed to this characterization of my "shortcomings" as "sins" until it was explained to me by an old-timer, who unbeknownst to me was a retired nun with a Ph.D., that the word "sin" had its origin as a term of art in archery, denoting when an archer missed his target. Thus, when I was beset with one or more of these "deadly sins," it was explained to me, it was a most definite indication that my thoughts rather more than my morals were askew.

Later, in reading "The Gnostic Gospels," by acclaimed biblical historian, Elaine Pagels, I came across the following explanation:

"The New Testament term for sin, hamartia," she notes, "comes from the sport of archery; literally, it means "missing the mark." New Testament sources teach that we suffer distress, mental and physical, because we fail to achieve the moral goal toward which we aim: "all have sinned, and fall short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23).

 Thus, when prideful, greedy, angry, etc., it is a clear indication that once again I have lapsed into and identified with my egoic, "self-consciousness." My thinking, centered in "self" or ego, has once again "missed the mark," so to speak.

Note, however, that these "Seven Deadly Sins" are all associated with feelings, emotions and sentiments, rather than with thinking per se. One doesn't think angry, one has thoughts that arouse feelings of anger, which is a subtle but important point.

When entertaining a resentment (which is just the manifestation of a lasting anger), for example, one thinks again of the person or situation that angered him or her in the first place and then re-experiences the same feelings, emotions or sentiments that were aroused before. (Thus, resentment is a re-experiencing or 're-sentiment' of old feelings sparked by entertaining one's old ideas or thoughts.) Similarly, when thinking about how much better or less one is compared to others, one feels pride; when thinking how much one wants something he or she lacks, one feels greedy, etc.

An even more subtle tool for examining our character defects, and one that goes further in helping us understand the root cause of why our thinking "misses the mark," is the list of "the Nine Capital Sins" (sometimes referred to as "the Enneagram") that are compiled in Fr. Richard Rohr's book, "The Naked Now." These consist of:

(1)  The need to be right.
(2)  The need to be needed.
(3)  The need to be successful.
(4)  The need to be special.
(5)  The need to perceive.
(6)  The need to protect self.
(7)  The need to avoid pain.
(8)  The need to be against.
(9)  The need to avoid.

Each of these can breed a fear that the particular "need" will not be fulfilled, thus threatening the ego; and such self-centered fears - "primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded" - are, we know, "the chief activators of our defects."

[The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 76.]

On Humility and Ego

"The average man is not humble; he may appear to be so, but inwardly he sets up mental resistance and barriers, and builds walls of prejudice against the truth. Humility consists in having a perfectly open mind, as though you were a new-born, and being able to receive with complete faith not only the words of those who know, but that which is still more important, that which is behind words, which is Spirit."

[Paul Brunton, "Discover Yourself," p. 68.]

The most leveling, the most humbling experience when we undertake the work of recovery - once we have admitted that life was is and will remain unmanageable -  is most typically taking and sharing a moral inventory.

Yet it is only through this process of self-scrutiny, and sharing its result with another person, that we can begin to deconstruct the root of our difficulty - egoism. We face who we are in front of the God of our own understanding and another person so that we no longer have to keep up the false pretenses we have been living our lives under

"More than most people," we read, "the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 73.]

In the "Co-Founders" pamphlet, Dr. Bob relates how at the very beginning of A.A., when it was just Bill, Bob and Bob's wife, Anne, sitting around their kitchen table in Akron, they found inspiration from the Bible, with the "Beatitudes," I Corinthians 13, and the Book of James being "absolutely essential" as they tried to carve out a life of sobriety and spiritual growth.

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," we read in the Book of James, (James 1:8). Yet, further on, we also find an answer to the double life that we have been leading. "Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you," we read. "Wash clean your hands ye sinners; purify your hearts, ye double minded." (James 4:8).

These passages speak to the process of self-examination that we must go through before we can rid ourselves of the memories, fears and old ideas that are the raw fuel of the ego, the mental clutter which keep us separated and apart from both God and our fellow man.

How can I establish and then improve my conscious contact with a Power greater than my "self," if I am wholly caught up in the self-centeredness of egoic thinking? At that point, when haunted by what lurks in the dark crevasses of my lonely and separated ego, I have conscious contact only with my self and my old ideas and distorted memories.

Being honest, many of us were told, means we no longer have to remember the story. Being truly humbled, I would add, means we never have to remember who to be in any given situation. In this way, and this way only,  can we truly develop and foster a truly "open mind" cleansed from all the "calamity, pomp and worship of other things" that have separated us from our fellow beings and from the perhaps unsuspected Spirit we all have deep down within us.

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 55.]

On Desire, Fear and the Activation of Our Character Defects

In Step Four, we see how the word "fear" occurs again and again in the third column of our resentments list. Then, again, on the last page of the Step Seven essay in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, we read: "The chief activator of our defects of character has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded."

But why are our lives shot through with fear? If we re-examine the fourth column of our Step Four inventory - what our part was in the situations we are still resentful about - we can ask why we have these fears, and the answer will almost inevitably come back that our basic interests or desires are threatened.

In the examples given in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. fear is bracketed three times beside 'self-esteem' and once beside 'security.' This prompts the question: Do we not have overbearing desires to be seen and treated in a certain fashion? Do we not willfully demand that other people see us and treat us in the manner we demand?

Step Six in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions suggests that we do.

"Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires," we read, "it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures that are possible or due to us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That is the measure of our character defects, or, if you wish, our sins."*

Thus, while fear is "the chief activator" of our character defects, it is our desire-fuelled demands upon life and other people that is "the measure of our character defects," that create the mental space for our fear-activated character defects to become operative.

If we do not have a desire about how we wish to be seen by others and stake our self-esteem on it, for example, then we can have no fear that we will not be perceived in that specific light. The same is true for the myriad of other desires about the amount of money we want, the personal and intimate relationships we crave, and the social positions we want to hold. This, of course, is the reason why all of the world's great wisdom and religious traditions identify our desires as the root of our human suffering.

Thus, in the Gospel of Luke, we read:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!"

"And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?"

"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!"

"And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you."

[Luke 12:22-31]

Similarly, according to the Buddha, the cause of our suffereing is our identification with the mind, and just so long as we live in the mind, then the desires of the mind will coninue, and with each desire further suffering. Desire, according to the Buddha, is the root cause suffering, and so he taught the path of witnessing the desires and, thus, going beyond the mind.

To this effect, the Buddha taught:

If you are not awakened, desire grows in you like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest, you jump from tree to tree, never finding the fruit - from life to life, never finding peace. If you are filled with desire, your sorrows swell like the grass after the rain. But if you subdue desire, your sorrows shall fall from you like drops of water from a lotus flower.

And, on fear, the Buddha notes: "The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed."

If we fearlessly face the proposition that God is either everything or nothing (see page 53 of the 'Big Book'), and we answer in the affirmative, then we can begin to realize that there is no other desire that need be filled. And if there are no desires, there is no fear that our desires will not be fulfilled, and therefore no activation of our defects of character through the action of our egoic self-consciousness.

While fear is, thus, the "chief activator" of our defects of character, without our self-centered desires, there can be no fear.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

* Many people shy away from the words "sin" or "sins." The term originates from a Greek archery term for when an archer misses his target, presumably to the left (as the Greeks called the right hand 'dexterous' and the left hand 'sinister'). Thus, the word "sin" is originally a metaphor for when our thoughts miss their mark. Understanding this, helped me to stay open-minded about the concept of "sin" (particularly regarding the 'seven deadly sins' of pride, greed, anger, lust, gluttony envy and sloth, as discussed in Step Seven in The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions), as - like alcoholic addiction - "sin" implies a physical and mental shortfall, rather than a moral failing per se.

Resentment: Digging One's Own Grave One 'Old Idea' at a Time

Resentment  (or 're-sentiment') is to experience all over again the feelings of anger  - towards someone, something, or some situation  - that we once felt in the past each time that we think such "old ideas" anew.  It is, we read in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, the "number one" offender, and that "(i)t destroys more alcoholics than anything else," and that "(f)rom it stem all forms of spiritual disease."

"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. for when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics, these things are poison."

[Alcoholics Anonymous, page 66.]

At the beginning of the "How It Works" chapter of the 'Big Book,' we read that "many of us tried to hold onto our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." We cannot afford, it seems, to entertain (or hold onto) the old ideas about people, things or circumstances that still anger us. That may well be the "dubious luxury" of so-called normal people, but nothing will change for the alcoholic addict in recovery unless he or she at least tries to get rid of such old ideas. That is what Steps 4 through Step 9 are specifically designed to do.

It has been said that anger is a corrosive acid that eats away the container that holds it from the inside out. In Steps Four through Step Nine, we list discuss, forgive and make restitution in order to get rid of, or at least neutralize, those corrosive old ideas that continue to crop up as a large part of the painful inner dialogue that is our ordinary 'self' consciousness or 'ego'.

In describing the type of vital spiritual experience that can enable alcoholics to attain and maintain sobriety, Carl Jung noted that "ideas, emotions and attitudes" that are the "guiding forces" of the alcoholic addict are "cast aside." The thoughts of past, future or imagined wrongs that a person, place or circumstance brings to mind are old 'ideas'. The resentments (or 're-sentiments')  are old 'emotions'. And, our vengeful and obsessive thought patterns that are shot through with righteous (or supposedly righteous) indignation are old ''attitudes. We must be free of all these if we are to lead a spiritually awakened life.

"If a man goes out seeking revenge," the Daoists said, "he had better dig two graves." For us, to mentally turn the thoughts of what and who has offended us over and over again in the mind is to seek revenge, if only mentally. If we continue to do so instead of forgiving and making whatever restitution might be necessary to get rid of such old ideas emotions and attitudes, we are obsessively digging and perfecting that second grave.

Thus, revenge, even the imagined mental revenge that we mental 'blowhards' are prone to obsess over, is therefore not a dish best served cold, but a dish not served (or even prepared) at all. Resentments can and have killed many an alcoholic addict.