Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FOUR

reacted to frustration in sexual matters? When denied, did
I become vengeful or depressed? Did I take it out on other
people? If there was rejection or coldness at home, did I
use this as a reason for promiscuity?

Also of importance for most alcoholics are the ques-
tions they must ask about their behavior respecting fi-
nancial and emotional security. In these areas fear, greed,
possessiveness, and pride have too often done their worst.
Surveying his business or employment record, almost any
alcoholic can ask questions like these: In addition to my
drinking problem, what character defects contributed to
my financial instability? Did fear and inferiority about my
fitness for my job destroy my confidence and fill me with
conflict? Did I try to cover up those feelings of inadequacy
by bluffing, cheating, lying, or evading responsibility? Or
by griping that others failed to recognize my truly excep-
tional abilities? Did I overvalue myself and play the big
shot? Did I have such unprincipled ambition that I double-
crossed and undercut my associates? Was I extravagant?
Did I recklessly borrow money, caring little whether it was
repaid or not? Was I a pinchpenny, refusing to support my
family properly? Did I cut corners financially? What about
the "quick money" deals, the stock market, and the races?

Businesswomen in A.A. will naturally find that many
of these questions apply to them, too. But the alcoholic
housewife can also make the family financially insecure.
She can juggle charge accounts, manipulate the food bud-
get, spend her afternoons gambling, and run her husband
into debt by irresponsibility, waste, and extravagance.

But all alcoholics who have drunk themselves out of