Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP TWELVE

problem drinkers. The doctors weren't trying to find how
different we were from one another; they sought to find
whatever personality traits, if any, this group of alcohol-
ics had in common. They finally came up with a conclu-
sion that shocked the A.A. members of that time. These
distinguished men had the nerve to say that most of the
alcoholics under investigation were still childish, emotion-
ally sensitive, and grandiose.

How we alcoholics did resent that verdict! We would not
believe that our adult dreams were often truly childish. And
considering the rough deal life had given us, we felt it perfectly
natural that we were sensitive. As to our grandiose behavior,
we insisted that we had been possessed of nothing but a high
and legitimate ambition to win the battle of life.

In the years since, however, most of us have come to
agree with those doctors. We have had a much keener look
at ourselves and those about us. We have seen that we were
prodded by unreasonable fears or anxieties into making a
life business of winning fame, money, and what we thought
was leadership. So false pride became the reverse side of
that ruinous coin marked "Fear." We simply had to be
number one people to cover up our deep-lying inferiorities.
In fitful successes we boasted of greater feats to be done; in
defeat we were bitter. If we didn't have much of any worldly
success we became depressed and cowed. Then people said
we were of the "inferior" type. But now we see ourselves
as chips off the same old block. At heart we had all been
abnormally fearful. It mattered little whether we had sat
on the shore of life drinking ourselves into forgetfulness or
had plunged in recklessly and willfully beyond our depth