Assigning labels to his behaviors helps an AA to change
I took a Fourth and Fifth Step several times. Everytime, I rationalized my behavior, saying to myself: Yes, I did some bad things–but I am basically a really nice guy, so no further action is necessary.
In 2001, I was doing the Steps again with my sponsor. Reading the Seventh Step essay from Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, I suddenly had a powerful insight.
I realized for the first time that the things I wrote and discussed in the Fourth and Fifth Steps described what I had done. I was doing the same things over and over again (people call that insanity). Why?
I found the answer in Steps Six and Seven. I did the things that I did because of who I was, and the nature of my character defined my behavior. When I lied, I did so because I was dishonest. When I acted like a coward, I did so because of my fear. When I stole, I did so because of my dishonesty, greed, and envy. Suddenly, I realized if I wanted different behavior, my character would have to change.
I went back and assigned a character defect to everything in my Fourth Step inventory, using words from the Big Book (fear, resentment, selfishness, dishonesty) and the “Twelve and Twelve” (pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth). Next I looked for the defects that stood out–ones that occurred most often and caused the most pain. Then I had a list that I could ask for help with, as described in Steps Six and Seven.
Having labels for my behavior helped me understand why I did what I did. Then I could take responsibility and experience real healing and change.