Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FOUR

liable to suffer severe reactions.

If temperamentally we are on the depressive side, we are
apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We wal-
low in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and pain-
ful pleasure out of it. As we morbidly pursue this melan-
choly 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 genu-
ine humility. For this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral
inventory at all; it is the very process by which the depres-
sive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.

If, however, our natural disposition is inclined to self-
righteousness or grandiosity, our reaction will be just the
opposite. We will be offended at A.A.'s suggested inven-
tory. 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 avoid-
ing an inventory. Our present anxieties and troubles, we
cry, are caused by the behavior 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