Dangers of Self Reliance – Practice These Principles By Ray A.

Ray A uses an unusual word we may not be familiar with multiple times in this article: self – construal. Here’s the definition which may be quite foundational to a key point of the article: “Self-construal refers to how individuals define themselves: as independent from others or as interdependent with others”

Self-centered Fear: Self-sufficiency and Self-reliance

This generally unconscious tendency to build our lives independently of God is what the Big Book means by self-reliance, and it drives the manifold aspirations and ambitions we pursue through work. For work is not always about money and the financial independence it can buy. It is just as much about the less tangible and less material valuables we referenced earlier: image, status, respect, reputation, influence, and, again, power. We can make the satisfaction of any and all of these things—rather than God—the ground of our emotional security and of our happiness. The same is true of the satisfactions we seek outside our work: in family, friends, and romance; in social, political, and religious causes; and in a variety of other, to us meaningful pursuits. We come to depend primarily on them as opposed to God—and sometimes in opposition to God.

Such self-reliance is based implicitly on a particular self-construal, on a certain view of ourselves which we referenced earlier in connection with human freedom. This is the view that we are self-sufficient. We are a power unto ourselves, masters of our fate and captains of our soul. We seek independence in all areas of life. We seek complete moral autonomy. We wish to be the sole and sovereign arbiters of what is right as it pertains to the things we have and want and of the rightful means to secure them. We alone can decide what has value, for in our worldview all value is subjective and relative to the self. Things have only the meaning that we ourselves attach to them. Good and bad and right and wrong are matters of individual choice. Ultimately, we can only depend on ourselves, on our own personal judgment and effort. 

Self-reliance is ambitious. It projects a great deal of self-confidence and involves a lot of self-assertion and self-will. That is not surprising. Self-reliance is a form of self-centeredness. It is what turns fear from a normal into an abnormal, self-centered emotion. It makes everything revolve around us: what we have and what we want, what we possess and demand. It makes our success a go-it-alone proposition, an outcome that is completely dependent on us. This turns out to be more bravado than bravery. It saddles us with a heavier burden than we can reasonably bear. The result is that we become inordinately focused on the possibility of loss and failure. 

But there is another reason why self-reliance is counterproductive and tends to heighten our fear. Why is this? Because while we may think we are depending on ourselves—our intelligence, ingenuity, creativity, talent, skills, drive, energy, and hard work—in the end we are really depending on others: on their assessment of those things, their recognition, their approval, their reward. Like Bill, we are resting our emotional security on the shifting sands of people and circumstance. 

People are fickle and fallible. Even those we love and trust the most will fall short; even when they have the best of intentions, they will disappoint us; they will fail us; they will not always give us what we need. Circumstances too are, well, circumstances. They change with the ebb and flow of life. We have no control over them. The most solid company may collapse; rising stock markets and home values will fall; there will be accidents, natural disasters, epidemics and pandemics, wars, illness, and death. Any gains we make and any security we achieve are at best fragile, partial, and temporary. Eventual loss and failure are not only possible, but likely, and not only likely, but inevitable. Whatever we have and whatever we get sooner or later we will be forced to forfeit. The very personal strengths on which our confidence rests will erode with time and age. Indeed, the day will come when they will fail us along with everything else. We will lose it all. 

That is why the Big Book declares that self-reliance will fail us and result in what the 12& 12 describes as self-centered fear. The extent to which we can rely on ourselves alone is limited. We are inherently dependent beings. We are not in charge. We are not in control. Our human resources are not sufficient to deal with the challenges, the complexities, the vicissitudes, the risks and dangers inherent in life. 

Besides, we are inconstant. We are constitutionally unreliable creatures. The self on which we claim to rely is an unruly jumble of changing and conflicting views, interests, desires, drives, instincts, plans, goals, and ambitions. Our inventory will reveal instances of things we once desperately wanted for reasons we cannot even fathom now. Why did we want that graduate degree so badly, or that job, or that relationship, or that apartment, or that car? Why were we so intent on expanding our business, doubling its size, opening up in still another location? Why was it so crucial that we move to this or that city? Who is “our” selves anyway, who is the self that we put so much faith in if not a product of circumstances over which we did not have, and ultimately will not have, any control? 

If there is an illusion connected with fear, self-reliance is definitely it. It is based on a self-construal that fosters self-deception. It creates a false sense of independence that backfires and ends in a false dependence, the kind of dependence Bill W. writes about in “Emotional Sobriety.” Why does being overly dependent on people and circumstance lead to becoming possessive and demanding of them, as Bill suggests? Because such dependence creates a “dependency” that works as an addiction. If we are addicted, the object of our addiction is an absolute necessity. We must have it at all costs. We must literally possess it. People become the suppliers and circumstances the conditions which make the supply possible. They simply must not fail us. Hence our attempt to control and dominate them; hence the demands that we impose on them to deliver and come through for us, on our terms and timetable.

But as we have already observed, addictions cannot be satisfied. This is true whether the addiction is a craving for alcohol, drugs, sex, food, or gambling, or whether it is for achievement, approval, status, money, power, prestige, or any other thing on which we come to depend as the thing we must absolutely have in order to feel good about ourselves. Because the fix won’t fix us, we will always demand still another fix. 

Overdependence is the flip side of domination and possession. Either we persist in dominating those we know, says the 12& 12, or we become far too dependent on them (S4, p. 53). We try to dominate them precisely because we depend on them too much. For that very same reason, we become demanding of them. Dependence, domination, and demand are futile attempts at emotional security, as we are further told in the 12& 12 (S12, p. 116). They are about having our way. The result is that we are constantly being thrown into “unworkable relations” with people. Leaning “too heavily” on others and expecting too much attention, protection, support, and love from them can only ensure their eventual failure, for they too are human and limited and can in no way meet our ceaseless demands (S4, p. 53). Some will fail us; others will distance themselves from us; still others will abandon us altogether. There will also be those who resist our impositions and push back in anger. Such attempts at security can only backfire They set us up for more insecurity and fear.