Selfishness in the Big Book

Best of all, I met a kind doctor who explained that though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill, bodily and mentally.

pride.

No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity.

Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes.

It meant destruction of self-centeredness.

Almost none of us liked the selfsearching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.

The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.

On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest.

Our actor is self-centered—ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays.

Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

Selfishness—self-centeredness!

Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.

They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so.

Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power.

Misunderstands and Pride—Personal nags.

Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?

We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him.

We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past.

We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves.

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

Self-seeking will slip away.

Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?

Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.

running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.’’ We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.

We have had long rendezvous with hurt pride, frustration, self-pity, misunderstanding and fear.

We have told innumerable lies to protect our pride and our husbands’ reputations.

If, on the other hand, they took nothing, their self-pity made them killjoys.

We wives found that, like everybody else, we were afflicted with pride, self-pity, vanity and all the things which go to make up the self-centered person; and we were not above selfishness or dishonesty.

Husbands and wives have sometimes been obliged to separate for a time until new perspective, new victory over hurt pride could be rewon.

These family talks will be constructive if they can be carried on without heated argument, self-pity, self-justification or resentful criticism.