Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FOUR

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 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 unwar-
ranted pride. We had to see that every time we played the
big shot, we turned people against us. We had to see that
when we harbored 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 disclo-
sures 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