What Are Character Defects?
The phrase ‘character defects’ is often used in 12 Step Recovery, unfortunately not in the context that it was originally intended. This often leads to a more judgmental approach by people of themselves as they move forward in their sobriety, often making a real level of peace and self-acceptance much more difficult.
- Step 4 – A Moral Inventory
- Hurt People Hurt people
- Step 3
- Alcoholism as an Illness
- You Are Not Your Behaviour
- Other People
- Character Defects
- Staying Sober
- Self-Acceptance not Self-Improvement
- Character Assets
- Summary
Step 4 – A Moral Inventory
In the book Alcoholics Anonymous, Step 4 of the AA programme is called a moral inventory. This is really the first point where someone begins to take a serious look at themselves and tries to get some understanding of their own emotional state.
This is primarily focused on people’s resentments, fears and sex conduct. The section that deals with resentments has a detailed guide on how to write these down and get some context for why they might feel so angry.
It is in this context that character defects are identified but are not referred to as such. Instead, the book suggests, that having made a list of resentments, having put them in context of whether other people are to blame or not, suggests that the person looks again at the resentment list to see where they may have been selfish, self-seeking, dishonest or frightened.
This is really important, because these four words and phrases are primarily about behaviour, driven by people’s emotional state.
Hurt People Hurt People
This again is another phrase often used in recovery, to put into context that people’s behaviour, drunk or sober, is often a way of lashing out at other people because they are in so much emotional pain inside themselves.
Again, this is about context, and understanding, in a general sense, why someone behaves and feels the way that they do.
This is not an article about Step 4, more about identifying that the process of self-examination that begins, or continues, in Step 4, is really about helping people to understand their own behaviours, how much these behaviours have damaged themselves as well as possibly other people, and understand some of the reasons for these behaviours.
Step 3
Whilst many people will have different interpretations of Step 3, both before and after doing it, there is one aspect that is really important to emphasise here.
Step 3 identifies the problem of alcoholism in a specific context. This is a context of self will, of someone effectively trying to force life to work.
It uses the analogy of an actor on a stage, trying to control all aspects of a production, and effectively reeking some degree of havoc as a result.
Perhaps the easiest way to relate this to alcoholism is to understand that it is saying an alcoholic will desperately try and control life or the external world, in order to try and give themselves some degree of peace or stability in their inner world.
The need to control life, and other people, is usually fueled by their self will, a belief, normally subconscious, that if they can control the world around them they will feel safe inside themselves.
This is obviously an illusion, but in the context of alcoholism one that drives many if not most alcoholics to point of self-destruction. This really is what self-will means, and is behind the fears and resentments that are looked at in Step 4.
An understanding of this need to try and control life is really crucial to understanding what is meant by the four questions referred to above, and by the term character defects themselves.
Alcoholism as an Illness
The understanding that alcoholism is an illness is identified early on in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and is generally accepted by most people in recovery.
People will generally get to a point in their own recovery where they get some sense or understanding of what this means to them, and this is a big part of being able to get sober and stay sober.
The nature of the illness is unique to any individual in many ways, although there are commonalities within AA that make identification a big part of understanding it.
It is probably fair to say that this understanding refers both to drinking, but also the emotional instability or chaos that comes with both the drinking and often the recovery aspect as well.
Putting emotional instability in the context of alcoholism as an illness, again relates to people’s behaviour rather than them as individuals, and any moral inventory or development of self-awareness should really be in this context.
You Are Not Your Behaviour
Any behaviour by anyone, for better or worse, is an expression of their inner world, and for many alcoholics, is driven by the phrase used above of hurt people hurt people.
Identifying these behaviours and what is behind them in terms of someone’s inner world can be a lifelong process, but real freedom in sobriety can come from understanding this baseline.
That basically what are referred to as character defects in recovery are people’s behaviours, driven by internal pain, they are not about the individual themselves.
This may seem a subtle distinction in one sense, but it really isn’t. It’s crucial to the idea of self-acceptance, and a lack of judgement of self, which is the real meaning of unconditional love.
Other People
Sometimes it is easier to understand this idea when looking at other people rather than looking at oneself.
If you can think of someone you love or have loved who at some point has behaved badly, most people would probably judge the behaviour in some way but not the person.
If you really love someone unconditionally that never changes. It may be hard at times and produce great heartache, but the love never dies.
That doesn’t stop people judging someone’s behaviour and often challenging them on it. Once this is understood in the context of how you might love someone else, then move on to the idea that you can apply this to yourself.
Another way of understanding this may be to look at the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible, which can have many meanings but one of them relation to the above may well help.
Character Defects
Hopefully the above will give some real understanding and context as to how the nature of what are referred to as character defects in recovery should be approached.
Unfortunately, the reality of recovery often means that it is approached in a slightly different way.
Often very specific terms are used such self-pity, self-centred etc. Often people or their sponsors will produce great lists of words that they then use to explain to themselves what is wrong with them!
Unfortunately, this approach often has two really devastating effects. Firstly the person is judging themselves as an individual, not judging their behaviour, and by doing this makes it even more difficult to accept themselves and love themselves unconditionally as an individual.
This approach, especially in AA, can fit into an approach to recovery that can seem very macho, very do or die, and misleadingly very simple.
Often people can find this idea of fitting their life into a series of judgmental defects quite comforting, whilst in reality it is an approach that is working against their best interest, and possibly making it more difficult to stay sober in the long term.
Staying Sober
How anyone gets sober or stays sober and what it means to them can be a very complex, uniquely individual process and understanding. This article is not intended in any way to try and put reasons into that process.
What is important to realize is that for many people who are alcoholics, having a drink is a natural reflex approach to not being able to cope with what is going on inside them emotionally.
Some people have external triggers as well, but for many people most of the triggers are internal. That is why there is so much emphasis in recovery on personal inventory, self-awareness and self-acceptance.
It is probably fair to say that for some people there is a real connection between staying sober and be able to live at peace with themselves. Understanding the context of self-awareness as outlined above can be a big part of that.
Self Acceptance not Self Improvement
Another saying in recovery is self-acceptance not self-improvement. The thinking behind this is that real peace and internal safety comes from self-acceptance, not from a striving to improve oneself, or to become the best version of yourself that you can be.
Whilst there are many different paths to self-acceptance, the main block or obstacle that makes this difficult is judgement of self as a person. That is why it is important to deal with a moral inventory primarily in terms of behaviours and what is driving them.
AA, in the book 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, talks about misdirected instincts. It makes the point that people’s natural instincts are healthy and good, but in active alcoholism often become misdirected, causing the chaos and damage that active alcoholism brings to peoples lives.
These misdirected instincts are again what Step 3 in the book Alcoholics Anonymous is really referring to, when it talks about the actor on the stage. That people misdirect healthy instincts in order to try and control life- people, places and things, in order to feel safe inside, and that recovery is really about reversing that process.
Character Assets
The phrase character assets is often used in recovery, not so much in AA as in other fellowships. Often it is intended as a sort of counterbalance to the idea of defects.
Unfortunately, it can have the opposite effect. Talking about character assets sort of acknowledges that there are defects as well, which again take people away from looking primarily at their behaviours and instead judging themselves as people both in a negative and seemingly positive light.
Part of this may be a societal belief relating to character building and what that means.
The main belief or understanding of many people in recovery is that alcoholism is an illness, and that recovery from that illness can be effective through working the 12 step programme that AA details in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. It is not about character building.
Character building is a separate belief that people are absolutely free to approach or not in any way that they feel comfortable with.
Summary
Al-Anon has a phrase in its opening preamble where it says ‘our thinking became distorted by trying to force solutions’.
While this applies or can apply to anyone who has lived with or been affected by active alcoholism, it fairly clearly summarises the distortion of self will, the idea of trying to force life to work in order to feel safe inside.
Recovery from alcoholism is largely about reversing this process, not using any type of judgement of yourself or other people, which tends to have the effect of deepening any emotional turmoil that may be there, rather than a path out of it, which is what recovery offers.
