Alcoholics are not bad people trying to be good but sick people who need to get well.

A fellow said he came to A.A. because of back problems; to get his wife off his back, to get his boss of his back, to get his creditors off his back, etc.

+A fellow searching the internet for “Bill W.” and “Alcoholics Anonymous” when up popped “Horseneck Wines and Liquors.” Turned out to be a package store started in 1934 by a “Bill Wilson.”

CHARACTER DEFECTS

     The following is a list of some of the acquired character defects (not necessarily a dictionary definition) we uncovered while working the Steps as suggested in the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve which enabled us to write the Step Guide:

     1. SELF-CENTEREDNESS--putting myself first; everything and everybody must suit me; I’m the most important person in the world; playing God; I am the chief center of all. It blocks relationships, promotes ego, creates selfishness and self-seeking; causes me to pray for selfish ends; to be obsessed about my needs, and getting my own way.

     2. RESENTMENT--to hold ill feelings against anyone; remembering how others have hurt me and desiring retribution and/or retaliation; judging others; wanting revenge; blaming others; well-nursed grudges.

     3. ANGER OR HATRED--desiring harm for others; not wanting a good life for others; bitterness; refusing help form others; uncontrollable temper; justifying my justified anger.

     4. PREJUDICE--automatically pre-judging; others are inferior; being superior to others who are different; despising others of different race, class, education, addiction, sobriety, etc.; condemn others for their wrongs; maintaining a close mind.

     5. MURDER--gossip, character assassination of others; wanting someone dead.

     6. CONCEIT--insist on things being done my way; critical of authority; always an expert; inpatient with those who do not meet my high standards; expectations exceeding my actual abilities; thinking too highly of my will; giving God orders; putting intellect or vanity first; thinking my judgement is better than others.

     7. GREED--lusts or desire what belongs to others; not content with what I have; collecting more material things for happiness; basing success on material things; possessions becoming my god; unwilling to share with others; lack and limitation; blind ambition; stealing; envy; jealous of people and things.

     8. LUST--adultery; secret lust for someone else; mental whoring; using sex for happiness; using other people for gratification; envious of lovers; think love is the same as sex; rape; sexual fantasizing.

     9. INDIFFERENCE--not caring about other people; not caring about God; choosing to ignore God’s will; being indifferent to desires and feeling of everyone; to desire to understand; not carrying the message; not practicing His Presence in my life; being negative, inconsiderate; taking things for granted; mediocre.

     10. PHONINESS--false pride; lying arrogant dishonesty; a false front; concerned about the impression I make on other people; pretending to be a great philosopher and moralist; trying to give away something I do not have (sobriety, program, spirituality); using alibis to avoid responsibility; putting others down so I feel good; being controlled by the acquired false self.

     11. FEAR--(chief activator of defects)--dread; gloomy pessimism; lack of trust in God; separation from God; not living in the here and now; negative thoughts and attitudes; guilt of the past; not surrendering my life and will over to the care of God; relying on the thinker to solve problems it cannot handle; self-centered fear--primary fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded; fear of people; refection; not living the Steps.

     12. SELF-PITY--feeling sorry for myself; wallowing in my sorrows; magnifying my troubles; thinking that I am different; blaming my problems on others; withdrawing from the world; feeling that no one understands or loves me; feeling hopeless; feeling that I am a victim of circumstances.

     13. OBSESSION TO DRINK ALCOHOL--refusing to ask God to remove the obsession to drink; failure to do the steps. (especially Step 5)

     14. SELF-SUFFICIENCY--lack of faith; attempting to manage my life; relying on my will only; having undue confidence; smug or overbearing; putting material things before spiritual things; not living Steps 1,2, and 3--I’d rather do it myself.

     15. DEFIANCE--anger at God because He has failed to meet my demands, resisting people or God; non-conforming.

     16. INTELLECTUAL--knowledge is all-powerful; intellect can replace God or play God; controlling my life or others; deluding myself into thinking I have it belief only in my self-reliant to the extreme ego and conceit.

     17. SELF-RIGHTEOUS--feeling superior to other people; phony form of respectability; putting my values and ideas first; my way is right.

     18. SELF-DECEPTION--believing my will is God’s will; believing that false ideas of myself are true; being something I am not; not living in reality.

     19. SELF-WILL--blocking the entry of God; in collision with something or somebody, even with good motives; into myself totally; myself regardless of the consequences.

     20. DEPENDENCE—false emotional dependence upon other people; depending on a stronger person for protection and guidance; leaning on others; insisting on being over-dependent on others--I can’t do this myself; depending on people rather than God.

     21. FINANCIAL INSECURITY--hoarding money; fear of losing a job; extravagant in my finances; manipulating; gambling; placing money over God; lack and limitation; they don’t give me what I deserve.

     22. DOMINATION--demanding attention, protection, and love from others; attempting to control others; telling others just how their lives should be lived; unreasonable demands on others; playing God by dominating those around me; forcing others to do my will.

     23. FALSE PRIDE--blind to my liabilities; demands upon me or others that misuse my God-given instincts; hiding defects while blaming others for them; not making amends or a list of all people I had harmed; associated with fear; exaggerated self-importance; feeling superior; braggart; grandiosity; trouble admitting and human weakness at all.

     24. SELF-JUSTIFICATION--continually making excuses for my behavior.

     25. EMOTIONAL INSECURITY--personal relationships which bring continuous or recurring trouble; sex situations that caused anxiety, bitterness, frustration or depression; inability to accept conditions which I cannot change; unworkable relations with other people; over-dependence on people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible; I couldn’t control my emotional nature; instincts and intuition gone wild.

     26. LACK OF TOLERANCE--failing to practice unconditional love; intolerant of others not allowing others to have different ways of thinking or living.

     27. DISHONESTY--not being honest with God, myself, or other people; lying; cheating; depriving others of not only their worldly goods, but of their emotional security and peace of mind; justifying my behavior; alibis.

     28. SELF-DESTRUCTION--obsession for alcohol; attempted suicide.

     29. SLOTH--procrastination; laziness; continually putting off things that need to be done now.

     30. GLUTTONY--excess eating or drinking; taking or comfort; compulsion to overindulge.

     31. RATIONALIZATION--imagining that I had good motives and reasons when I really did not.

     32. PERFECTIONISM--unwilling to accept human mistakes--mine or other people’s; I set unrealistic standards for me and others, then become frustrated if they are not met; believing my standards are equal to God’s.

     33. IMPATIENCE--I want what I want, and I want it now; not living in the now; my timetable--not God’s timetable.

  Source unknown