Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP EIGHT

then the great advantages of doing this will so quickly re-
veal themselves that the pain will be lessened as one ob-
stacle after another melts away.

These obstacles, however, are very real. The first, and one
of the most difficult, has to do with forgiveness. The mo-
ment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with an-
other person, our emotions go on the defensive. To escape
looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully
focus on the wrong he has done us. This is especially true if
he has, in fact, behaved badly at all. Triumphantly we seize
upon his misbehavior as the perfect excuse for minimizing
or forgetting our own.

Right here we need to fetch ourselves up sharply. It
doesn't make much sense when a real tosspot calls a kettle
black. Let's remember that alcoholics are not the only ones
bedeviled by sick emotions. Moreover, it is usually a fact
that our behavior when drinking has aggravated the defects
of others. We've repeatedly strained the patience of our
best friends to a snapping point, and have brought out the
very worst in those who didn't think much of us to begin
with. In many instances we are really dealing with fellow
sufferers, people whose woes we have increased. If we are
now about to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why shouldn't
we start out by forgiving them, one and all?

When listing the people we have harmed, most of us hit
another solid obstacle. We got a pretty severe shock when
we realized that we were preparing to make a face-to-face
admission of our wretched conduct to those we had hurt. It
had been embarrassing enough when in confidence we had
admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another