Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP TWO

glad that good home and religious training had given us
certain values. We were still sure that we ought to be fairly
honest, tolerant, and just, that we ought to be ambitious
and hardworking. We became convinced that such simple
rules of fair play and decency would be enough.

"As material success founded upon no more than these
ordinary attributes began to come to us, we felt we were
winning at the game of life. This was exhilarating, and it
made us happy. Why should we be bothered with theologi-
cal abstractions and religious duties, or with the state of
our souls here or hereafter? The here and now was good
enough for us. The will to win would carry us through. But
then alcohol began to have its way with us. Finally, when
all our score cards read ‘zero,' and we saw that one more
strike would put us out of the game forever, we had to look
for our lost faith. It was in A.A. that we rediscovered it.
And so can you."

Now we come to another kind of problem: the intellec-
tually self-sufficient man or woman. To these, many A.A.'s
can say, "Yes, we were like you—far too smart for our own
good. We loved to have people call us precocious. We used
our education to blow ourselves up into prideful balloons,
though we were careful to hide this from others. Secretly,
we felt we could float above the rest of the folks on our
brainpower alone. Scientific progress told us there was
nothing man couldn't do. Knowledge was all-powerful. In-
tellect could conquer nature. Since we were brighter than
most folks (so we thought), the spoils of victory would be
ours for the thinking. The god of intellect displaced the
God of our fathers. But again John Barleycorn had other