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Chapter 16

Defects of Character

Step Six of the Gamblers Anonymous program advises: Were entirely ready to have these defects of character removed.

What are defects of character, and, for that matter, what is character?

Martin Luther King expressed the hope that his children would live in a world where they would be judged by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin. However, one finds almost no reference in the mental health literature to the topic of character. What were once viewed as character defects—shortcomings that the individual should try to correct—are now seen as mental and emotional illness. So, as the mental health professions claimed more authority over the treatment of emotional problems, people began accepting the role of blameless victims of mental illness. We began to turn the responsibility for understanding our misbehavior over to therapists, many of whom have questionable credentials. Psychology, in the view of many, began to take over the territory once claimed by religion. Somewhere along the way, there grew up a strong cultural ethic that encourages people to feel they are the victims, rather than masters, of their own passing emotions.

Ironically, and for some time now, psychologists have been urging people to take more responsibility for their lives, all the while wondering what people into helpless victims.

When the very first drug addiction programs started in the United States back in the 1920s, addiction was seen as a moral problem. Those who became addicted were thought to have psychopathic personalities, and addictions were said to be characterological in nature. Over the years, however, the emphasis on moral development was put aside as mental health professionals psychiatrized addictions by calling them disorders, and classifying them as mental illnesses. People with addictions became patients being treated for disorders. While this may have removed some of the guilt associated with a moral view of addiction, it also removed, in the client’s mind, some of the personal responsibility for recovery.

The founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, of course, adopted the thinking of their own time, the 1930s, in developing a program of recovery. So it is not surprising that Bill Wilson used the language of morality and religion rather than the language of modern psychiatry. But today many people find the whole idea of defects of character offensive, too confrontive, and out of keeping with the disease idea of addiction. Good psychotherapists are not supposed to be judgmental. However, in our Reno program we had a slogan: “Change or die, change or go.” And we saw ourselves as a supplement to, not a replacement of, community Twelve Step groups.

The question is not who is right or wrong, psychiatry or moral philosophy. We need only concern ourselves with what is helpful in recovery. There are important professional, political, and economic reasons to classify addictions as mental disorders. In practice, however, most professional treatment programs do place major responsibility for recovery on clients.

Whatever character may be, and however it can be observed, people do judge us by it, as it is reflected in our behavior. And modern psychology has begun to return to questions of spirituality, values, and beliefs.

In fact, modern cognitive psychology—the psychology of thinking and reasoning—now has concerns that are very similar to those of moral philosophy. ‘Right thinking’ is still emphasized in many religions and cultural traditions, and the individual is assigned the responsibility for leaning and practicing this right thinking. Cognitive psychology seems to have rediscovered this truth, which has been a part of some religions for over 3,000 years.

The psychological sciences have come a very long way over the past century, but although terminology has changed a great deal, our main concerns still revolve around How Man Thinks, the title of the textbook I used as an undergraduate when I took introductory philosophy. Logic and reasoning have been taught in universities for as long as they have existed, and teachers have been teaching thinking skills since before the time of Socrates in Greece.

One of the newer self-help groups called Rational Recovery has begun to use some of the tools and terms of modern cognitive psychology. Gamblers Anonymous, however, has continued to use the older language that incorporated some elements of religion, philosophy, and group unity. Personally, I have always tried to adopt my own technical psychobabble to common language. I choose to accept the traditional Twelve Step philosophy in the belief that modern psychology has been busy rediscovering and redefining some age-old ideas already contained in those Steps.

Many mental health professionals, however, object to the religious overtones of Twelve Step groups such as Gamblers Anonymous. Clearly, there is confusion between religion and recovery when we use terms like God and Higher Power.

Politically, in the United States, we have done well by separating church and state; it has not turned us into a godless society, but has protected us from the possibility of religious dictatorship over secular affairs. Now it may be time to re-examine the language of the Twelve Steps, so as to separate religion and recovery in the minds of those who would avoid recovery on the grounds of their agnostic or atheist beliefs. That is a matter to be taken up at some other time, and certainly those who have deep religious beliefs would object to any further secularization of the Twelve Steps. But if these groups cannot or will not adapt to changing cultural values, they will lose much of their effectiveness. The point to be made here is that recovery from addiction does not demand a religious conversion among those who come to GA for help. In my opinion, Twelve Step programs can and must respect an individual’s right to both freedom of, and freedom from, religion.

Through cognitive psychology and comparative religion, we are beginning to have a better understanding of what is meant by spirituality. We may be on the brink of being able to define, measure, and teach important aspects of spiritual life. Spirituality without mysticism or miracles is a definite promise held out to us now by new insights into mind and thinking.

Can we avoid psychobabble on the one hand and religiosity on the other in our efforts to help people with the problems they bring to recovery? I think so. In my opinion, religious leaders without additional special training are unqualified to supervise recovery, and yet treatment by mental health professionals should go on in the language of the world in which clients will live when they finish their brief encounters with professional helpers. If I parrot the technical language of psychology, my clients will not be ready to accept the language of community self-help groups. These groups are, after all, the primary support systems clients will have for the rest of their lives. So, as I always hope my patients will do, I choose to work in harmony with Twelve Step groups by strongly supporting those elements that seem to work well, by trying to change those features that unnecessarily turn people away, and by accepting with humility what I cannot change.

At some point during my time in Reno, I decided to begin using the term character defects rather than personality disorders in conversations with clients. I had the very good fortune to be able to work with an outstanding young lady, Janice Vitale, who was a counselor on our ADTP staff. Janice was a smart, practical, and completely dedicated professional who was a stickler for detail. She told people what they needed to hear in a way that got their attention rather than their resentment. Over several years, Janice and I worked together to develop what we called Assessment Group. It became a daily part of our treatment program, in addition to regular group psychotherapy, lectures, and Twelve Step meetings.

Assessment Group meetings were based on several important assumptions:

1. We cannot see for ourselves our own character defects as clearly as people around us can see them.

2. As long as the study of individual character defects remains shrouded in shame and privacy, significant change is impossible.

3. Members of our own circle of friends can learn to judge and articulate individual character defects with accuracy and consistency.

4. The list of important character defects resulting from a peer analysis can be offered to the individual as a token of loving care, and can become the focus for the individual’s efforts to grow and change, if that individual will accept them.

Here’s how the group worked.

In a starkly bare, institutional classroom, 14 chairs make up a semicircle facing the writing board on the front wall of the room. Beneath the board is a single chair facing the semicircle. In the back of the room are a small table and a chair.

Promptly at 2 p.m., our 10 inpatients file in. They are gathering, as they do every day at this time, to assess the character defects of one of their members.

It would be nice if people could learn about their own character defects through a gentle process of self-discovery, but we found it necessary to push things along a bit. Treating addictive disorders is like parenting, but now we only had two weeks to be good parents; that’s all the government would allow at that time for an inpatient residence. So we had to work as rapidly as we could.

Usually, the last man to enter the room was the one whose turn it was to be assessed for character defects on any given day.

Bill slouches in last, his feelings a mixture of fear and anticipation. Head back and grinning, however, he assumes a casual posture in the lonely chair at the front of the room.

At last, the staff enters. There is a somewhat formal, even ritualistic, tone in these proceedings. The psychologist goes to the table in the back of the room and spreads out his test results and other records on the table. Two other staff members, a nurse, and counselor Vitale, take places in the semicircle of chairs. They will only help when needed as referees. It’s up to the men to follow the familiar format.

An awkward silence settles over the group. The elected chairman is new, and soon one of the more senior clients reminds him to call the meeting to order.

“Assessment Group will come to order,” mumbles the chairman. “Today we will assess the character defects of Bill here. Bill, you begin by giving us some details about your life.”

In his hand Bill has a blank life history form, and he begins to read each question and give his answer. He has previously completed this form and returned it to the psychologist, who now studies the completed form as Bill answers the questions for the group.

“How old are you? Forty-two.

“Where were you born, and when? I was born in Windblown, Nebraska, on July 3, 1946, but we moved around a lot when I was growing up.

“What kind of person was your father? Well, Pa, he got back from World War II and I was his first kid. He’d seen lots of action in Europe and got himself all shot up in the Battle of the Bulge.” Bill almost sounds like he’s apologizing for his father, trying to explain and defend him. “He and I, we weren’t too close. He drank all the time and would go off by himself in the woods a lot. I’d just never see him for days, but he always turned up.”

Bill moves quickly to other questions, but we all know we will be coming back to his father for more information.

“What kind of person was your mother? A real sweet lady, always cooking and working for us kids. She made sure we got to church every Sunday. She was always working for neighbors, sewing, baking, and stuff. She really raised us by herself as long as she could, but she got cancer and died when I was twelve.”

We all had questions now. Who took over the family? How did Bill react to her death? But we let him continue without interruption. He went on to answer questions about his past employment, marriages, children, treatment goals, and so forth.

In one way, his answers were not important, because the group had been living with Bill 24 hours every day. But now they were trying hard for real understanding, trying to weave all their impressions of Bill into one meaningful picture. What is Bill really all about? He’s telling an interesting story, and a few of the newer members seem to be forgetting their own problems as they become absorbed in Bill’s. Therapy is starting to happen for the members of the group, as they find themselves getting lost in the details of Bill’s life. It is an exercise in learning to care about others as well as a journey of self-discovery.

For Bill, this rather frightening experience of total self-disclosure is going to be one of the more memorable events in life.

Bill’s answers, and the way in which he approaches each question, help us to understand how personality and character that were developed early in life. We begin to see how experience creates vulnerabilities to addiction, and to other problems. His answers are profoundly revealing of the dynamics that shaped his personality, and he is painting a picture of his life for anyone willing to see it and share it with him, a picture at which he himself has never had a chance to look.

“Describe your military experience, giving some of the best and worst experiences.” There is a long pause. Bill stares at the floor. Finally, “Shit! I’d rather not get into this, if you don’t mind.”

Another awkward pause. “Just tell us what branch of service you were in,” suggests Janice calmly, knowing that an easy-to-answer, practical question can often unfreeze an emotional overload.

Very slowly, Bill continues. “United State Army. I was in a Special Forces unit. My Pa would tell me about his Army days sometimes when he was being friendly. His time in World War II was the high point of his life, I guess. I really think he was sorry it ended, but he couldn’t make a career of the Army because he was injured too bad.”

Bill pauses again and now seems far away. We had somehow come back to father, and father’s ghost was somehow tangled up with Bill’s own military career. It was easier to talk about father than about himself.

Finally, one of the other men asks, “Were you in Nam?”

Again, slowly, “Sure. Two tours. I lost friends there (pause) and no matter what we did we couldn’t win the damn thing. I mean, I thought I was going to be such a great soldier. Soldier! That’s a joke. When we weren’t just trying to stay alive in the bush we were kicked back getting stoned and drunk.”

We were hearing a classic soldier’s lament: Battle for the man had been very different from the glory projected in the dreams of the boy child. But there must have been much more in memories of Vietnam for Bill. On top of the dehumanization of battle and the pointless no-win war had been added our civilian resentment of all things military, and the humiliation of his country’s first defeat in war. From what Bill went on to say, it seemed as if he had taken on the whole war and its outcome as his personal responsibility.

Irrational guilt and feelings of responsibility at such a personal level almost invariably suggest severe depression.

Bill is talking now, telling about landing zones, shelling, the slaughter of civilians, drugs, booze, the loss of friends, the bureaucratic thinking of officers; the whole Vietnam experience came pouring out.

The psychologist makes a note to refer Bill to the Vietnam Veterans Outreach Center, following discharge. It will take a long time to put the effects of these experiences out of his life. Maybe he never will. We may have been 20 years too late in trying to help him.

We had heard similar war stories from veterans of Korea, and we had listened to long-buried experiences recalled in surprising detail from men who fought in World War II. Only a minority of our inpatients were combat veterans; all of them, however, bore the scars of some kind of traumatic experience: parental abuse, trauma, accident, impulsive acts, and chaotic, unplanned living.

Bill reports he has been married three times, but he seems angry with all women. They never seem to be able to give all that he expects of them; it’s as if he expects perfection and takes some peculiar satisfaction in being disappointed when he does not find it.

We usually develop our basic impression of women by generalization from our mothers. When Bill’s mother died it must have felt to Bill like abandonment, but of course, he could not express his anger, or even anxiety, at the time. He was left to the mercies of an alcoholic father and indifferent relatives, who placed him and his sisters in a Catholic orphanage within a year of the mother’s death. There he learned to survive the hazing and the institutional restrictions, eventually becoming a high school sports hero and a lady’s man. He began to gamble in high school, and serious alcohol use began then as well.

“I’ve had a child by each of my first two wives,” says Bill. “I never see the kids, though, haven’t in years. I owe support payments, but I get pissed off because those women, all they want is money, and they don’t care about any problems I run into. My third wife was a woman I brought over from the Philippines, sight unseen. I heard they were good, hard working women who took care of their men. But all she wanted to do was send money home to her family. Then, after she sent every penny she could get home, she when out on me and turned tricks for more. I got drunk and beat her up and left town. I hit the road, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”

At last, Bill finishes answering the questions on the form, and the group begins to ask their questions. The other men are gentle and caring as they probe. They seem to have a kind of natural ability to go right to the psychological heart of Bill’s problems. When a member does speak harshly and without sensitivity, the rest of the group sets him straight and overrules the question. The group becomes protective of Bill; they are getting to be a family.

“Bill,” says one of the men, “I have to ask you for more information about your Pa. Was he beating on you just once in a while or was it pretty regular?’

“Every time he got drunk, and that was at least once a week. He’d start beating on Mom, and that’s what I really hated. I’d try to get between them, and once I even grabbed the shotgun and stuck it in his neck. He never batted an eye, just knocked me across the room. But when Pa was sober he could be the nicest guy. We fished and camped. He used to tell stories around the fire and help me with stuff.”

Moments pass as Bill reflects. The group knows more is coming and they remain silent.

“I cared about the old bastard. When he didn’t turn up, I’d go looking for him. Sometimes I had to drag him in off the fields or off the road when he was drunk. But when Mom died, Pa really went to pieces. He turned real cold, and finally he agreed to put us in the orphanage. After that I only saw him when he came around at Christmas time, and he didn’t always do that.”

“Bill,” asks one of the men, “When your mother died, what was it like for you? Can you talk about that?”

“Mom was the one good thing in my life. I always wanted to help her out, to make her life better. I never got the chance. In the orphanage I used to curse her memory; I hated myself for that ‘cause it wasn’t her fault she died. But there I was putting up with the crap from the sisters and the priests. They love to beat on certain kids, and it took me a long time to figure out how to get by them. I always hoped that Pa would come for us. When I first got there, I used to imagine that somehow Mom would come back for us, too.”

Part of the psychologist’s notes now read: “Bill seems to have formed a positive identification with his father in spite of the father’s alcoholism and abuse. He has taken on many of his father’s values, attitudes, and personal characteristics. He tends to see things idealistically and in black and white. There is underlying bitterness and pessimism. As devoted as the mother may have been, her example has somehow convinced Bill that the lure and promise of women will only lead to bitter disappointment. He blames his wives and cannot see his own hand in destroying his marriages. He now has a pervasive anger at all women, which he fails to recognize and which he assumes is common to all men. There have been no rational, reasonable, or credible authority figures in Bill’s life; he learned that his teachers and the priests had to be obeyed for as long as it took to get out of their control. There are few internalized restrictions and, thus, little self-discipline. He responds to immediate, external controls and does poorly on his own. The Army, which was to have given Bill a solid place and something to identify with, was a major disappointment.”

The nurse writes a note to herself as a reminder to suggest that Bill be encouraged to attend at least one Al-Anon meeting, a group attended mostly by the adult children of alcoholic parents.

The group is quiet now, thoughtful. From the back of the room comes an invitation from the psychologist. “Bill, would you like to take a look at what the psychological testing tells us?”

“Sure,” says Bill, knowing the routine. “What the hell, they all know I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” comes the reply. “If you were, we’d probably know better how to help you.”

The question of psychological test results is a very sensitive one. Most psychologists prefer not to discuss test results in any detail even in the privacy of the office, and to review a patient’s results in front of a peer group would be seen by some psychologists as a breech of professional ethics. Certainly, we know that each individual has the right to privacy when it comes to sharing important personal information. Therefore, it is essential to obtain informed consent from the individual before sharing these results with his therapy group. Even then, however, the discussion must be kept in the language of the nonprofessional and restricted to only information that could be helpful to the group in their efforts to encourage change.

Bill was present when others were assessed, and he knows that his personal test results will be presented in a brief, objective, and caring way.

“Your personality profile seems rather typical of our kind of guys,” says the psychologist. “Your high points are typical of other people with advanced addictions, even people who are just prone to addiction. We see here poor impulse control; you want what you want, and you want it now. There’s an indication of anger with any kind of authority, particularly female authority. And yet there’s a surprising degree of dependence upon others. I think it’s possible that you may buy love and acceptance by submerging your own preferences and trying to please others. You may be something of a people-pleaser, but that never works for very long, and it wears you down. When it doesn’t work or when it gets too burdensome, you lose it, get angry, and then act impulsively.

“I suspect that you’re an idealist, always dissatisfied with the past and with the present, yearning for some better tomorrow that never comes. And your depression level seems very high, as measured on several different scales. It’s even higher than I’d expect for someone with advanced addictions. You and I may talk about that later. Your self-worth and self-esteem—out the bottom. You don’t have any. You thought the Army was going to give you some identity, and look what happened. I want the group to give serious thought to how we can help Bill with his depressed feelings and low ego-strength.”

So far, in hundreds of group confrontations, no group member has been very upset or offended by anything related to test results. Like Bill, most have been uncomfortable, but not damaged in any way. Reactions among individuals range from disinterest and poor understanding to acceptance and, sometimes, mild disbelief. The limiting factor in a group setting is time, not personalities. Later, in the office, the psychologist can take more time to explain the strengths and limitations shown in the test results. For now, in the group, the need was to get the group talking about personality features or, in their language, character defects that may not be too obvious. As accurate as the group may be in discovering character defects, traits like anxiety and a depressed mood are often missed because they are common, and are so easily masked in ordinary, day-to-day living.

In my own opinion, it is the group, not the psychological tests, that offers the best insights. The members see themselves in Bill, and they can share their insights with him. However untutored they may be, people who care about others are always far better judges of human nature than tests.

“If that’s all,” says Janice, “we’ll ask Bill to take a break in the hall while the group gets to work.”

It’s now the group’s job to isolate Bill’s major defects of character. At this point, Bill would only get in the way. He waves on the way out, and we know he’ll probably sneak a smoke.

When we first started the group, Janice and I depended upon the men to come up with names for different character defects, but we soon found that they needed help. Often they used slang words like fruit loops, horny, and wet and wild. What we needed was a more objective and consistent source of ideas. We did not want to limit or control the choices available to the group, only to provide a wider range of useful alternatives. So, over a number of sessions, Janice recorded the suggestions coming from the group. We made a list of sensible-sounding character defects, adding some terms of our own. Our list eventually ran to 101 different terms and included, as examples, lazy, envious, indecisive, aloof, reckless, timid, and so forth. However, even with that list in the hands of each group member, we were willing to accept other terms when they seemed particularly appropriate to the individual.

Character defects are habitual ways of behaving, ways in which people try to cope with their lives, and portray their basic assumptions and values. We are what we do. Character defects are not things apart from personality; they are the behavioral evidence others use in judging character. Only the individual can remove, change, or let go of a character defect; we cannot remove it from another’s personality. A character defect is not a disease. We worked on the belief that only the owner can change a mind. Therefore, each defect of character on our list was written as an adjective, not as a noun. Angry, instead of anger, for example. Nouns are things, but adjectives are describers of people and their actions. When behavior changes, the adjectives used to describe behavior will change.

On that last point, we eventually ran into trouble. Our list of character describers—of defects—pinpointed the behavior we hoped would drop away, but it did not tell exactly what should take its place. We’d hear, “If you don’t want me to be anxious all the time, what should I be? Give me something to practice.”

Also, all those negative terms were depressing. They even seemed to create a feeling of hopelessness, which we did not want to encourage. So, we eventually came up with positive alternatives, or, as they could be called, target behaviors.

Janice and I began to list something we called character assets. We were in dangerous water now, because nobody really wants to be told what to do, or what kind of personality to have. Everyone lives in fear of having their individuality taken from them, even when that individuality has caused life-threatening problems. We all have the freedom to act in any way we like, as long as we are willing to live with the consequences.

Mental health professions do a good job describing abnormal behavior, but it’s a much more ambitious and controversial task to describe normal, mature behavior. And that is what we were trying to do. It was, and is, our faith that one can be normal without sacrificing individuality.

As the men of Assessment Group get ready to offer their suggestions for the final, brief list of Bill’s main character defects, they take from their notebooks our list of 101 items.

Character Defect — Character Asset

Abrasive — Gentle

Aggressive — Peaceful

Aloof — Involved

Angry — Serene

Anxious — Confident

Apathetic — Concerned

Argumentative — Agreeable

Arrogant — Humble

Attention-seeking — Attention-giving

Bitter — Forgiving

Bossy — Cooperative

Careless — Careful

Cold — Warm

Complaining — Accepting

Compulsive — Flexible

Critical — Approving

Cruel — Kind

Deceitful — Honest

Defensive — Open

Dependent — Self-sufficient

Depressed — Cheerful

Dishonest — Honest

Disorganized — Organized

Distant — Sociable

Distrustful — Trusting

Dominating — Permissive

Dramatic — Unassuming

Egocentric — Selfless

Envious — Giving

Evasive — Straightforward

Fearful — Confident

Flighty — Persistent

Forgetful — Considerate

Grandiose — Realistic

Greedy — Spiritual

Guilty — Guilt-free

Headstrong — Flexible

Hostile — Friendly

Humorless — Witty

Immature — Thoughtful

Impatient — Patient

Impulsive — Planful

Inconsiderate — Considerate

Indecisive — Decisive

Indulgent — Controlled

Inhibited — Relaxed

Insensitive — Sensitive

Intolerant — Loving

Irritable — Tolerant

Isolated — Social

Jealous — Content

Lazy — Industrious

Manipulative — Accepting

Negative — Optimistic

Neglectful — Attentive

Obsessed — Free

Opinionated — Open

Overcautious — Venturous

Passive — Involved

Perfectionistic — Realistic

Pessimistic — Optimistic

Preoccupied — Sensitive

Procrastinating — Reliable

Proud — Humble

Quarrelsome — Cooperative

Rebellious — Lawful

Reckless — Cautious

Resentful — Forgiving

Rude — Polite

Sarcastic — Nice

Secretive — Open

Self-centered — Extroverted

Self-doubting — Confident

Self-hating — Self-liking

Selfish — Generous

Self-pitying — Outgoing

Self-seeking — Helpful

Shy — Assertive

Snobbish — Tolerant

Stingy — Giving

Stubborn — Willing

Submissive — Assertive

Superficial — Trusting

Thin-skinned — Accepting

Thoughtless — Considerate

Timid — Bold

Uncritical — Analytical

Undependable — Dependable

Unemotional — Involved

Unfriendly — Friendly

Unrealistic — Realistic

Unscrupulous — Honest

Unstable — Steady

Vague — Specific

Vain — Modest

Vindictive — Forgiving

Vulgar — Considerate

Withdrawn — Outgoing

Workaholic — Moderate

Minutes pass as the members study their lists and write a few notes. There is some cross talk among them, but they are very task-oriented. An occasional joke eases the tension.

Bill’s life had been hard, full of rejection, disappointment, trauma, indulgence, alienation, and desperation. As life stories go, we had heard both worse and better. For hospitalized veterans with severe addictions, Bill is mid-scale in terms of the awfulness of life.

His life had left him with serious psychological handicaps and a form of chronic, gnawing depression that is too mild to demand immediate suicide and too disabling to allow anything like a normal and rewarding life. His only escape from strong negative emotions has been the euphoria of addiction. The hope that he can correct his character defects, that we could in some way help and encourage him to do so—these seem like fragile aspirations indeed. With the optimism of children, we will try. At least we can help him know what to work on; the most important part of learning is knowing what to practice.

It always seems so unfair that the more miserable the circumstances of life have been, the more the individual needs the tough love of the group. The more complicated the history, the longer is the list of character defects. Our children are our most valuable natural resource, but we care and fuss more about a rare breed of minnow or moth than about the millions of children who are neglected, abused, battered and abandoned every year. Many of these children grow up to populate America’s 4,000 plus alcohol and drug programs. I believe strongly in the preservation of the environment and the protection of endangered species, but I think these goals are compatible with the protection of children from physical and psychological abuse.

But now the group secretary is at the writing board, and the group starts suggesting character defects from the list. Each defect is written on the board. Discussion will come later; now it’s simple, uncensored brainstorming.

Finally the group has picked 24 different character defects that seem to apply to Bill. The list has also been narrowed somewhat in a brief discussion.

Now Bill is called back into the room, and asked to check any of the suggested defects he agrees that he has. He will get only one vote himself, and his check marks will be counted later when the final vote is taken. Bill seems fascinated by what he sees on the board, and checks his allotted 10 of the 24 items.

A discussion, skillfully led by Janice, begins. The group now has only about 15 minutes to whittle the list down to 10 or fewer. Bill takes almost no part in the discussion. He knows that if he were to become defensive and argumentative the group would only add defensive and stubborn to the list. The only way to win here is by learning to listen.

“OK,” says Janice, “we have to get down to those really basic characteristics of Bill’s that will set him up for a relapse if he doesn’t change them. What is it that he does every time that leads him back to addictive behavior? Let’s start with anger and resentment. Which will it be? Can we pick the one word that best fits Bill’s way of living?”

The group quickly agrees that Bill has more brooding resentment than outbursts of anger. They go on to select self-doubting over self-pitying. When they get the list down to 15, Janice tells them to get ready to vote. Each member turns and sits backward in his chair, facing away from Bill. This is so they can reflect inwardly and privately about him and his life. They are now to try to avoid seeing and being influenced by the votes of others in the room. Most of the members rest their foreheads on the back of their chairs and close their eyes as Bill himself reads aloud the list of items left on the board. As each character defect is read, Janice counts the raised hands and writes the vote count next to the word on the board. Bill’s own check marks are included as part of the vote count.

Rebellious - 6

Resentful - 10

Depressed - 9

Manipulative - 4

And so forth.

With the voting completed, the members again face into the circle and study the votes on the board. Any defects with fewer than 50 percent of the votes are quickly eliminated. Now there are 11 left. A short discussion resolves the last issue, and the list is reduced to the maximum of ten.

“I move that we accept this list of character defects for Bill, and resolve to help him begin to work on them,” offers one of the members.

“I second the motion,” says another. The group secretary writes down the motion and the final list of character defects. Two identical cards are filled out, listing Bill’s defects of character, with the corresponding assets in parentheses. The card is signed on the back by all the members of the group, and given back to Bill. The other is signed by Bill and given to the counselor. His results will be included anonymously in our research, and also passed along to the leader of Bill’s primary therapy group.

Below is the card’s contents.

I believe in the principles of the program: Sobriety is the No. 1 priority, along with honesty and responsibility. I agree to follow group conscience, knowing that if I do not change I will die of my addiction. I therefore agree to work daily to correct the following character defects.

Last Name First Name M.I. S.S. No.

By motion, the group is adjourned. Bill lingers to ask for a chance to take a second look at the psychological test results, and an appointment is set. Certain parts of the total test profile were either left out or skimmed over during the group. These include information about intellectual strengths and weaknesses that are not related to learned character flaws, but will be reviewed in a private setting, since they are important factors in recovery.

Our research on the effectiveness of an assessment group could never be completed in a really satisfactory way because we never got enough men in all the different possible groups. Statistics require a relatively even distribution of people falling into the different possible outcome groups. To explain, there are fewer than a dozen recognized personality disorders, and less than half our patients had problems severe enough to diagnose them as having a personality disorder. Those who did, tended to cluster together in just a few different disorders. Although seen frequently among other groups of hospitalized patients, the majority of the recognized personality disorders are extremely rare among addiction patients.

However, our experiences with Assessment Group suggest that our initial assumptions are valid. The reader may remember these assumptions:

1. We cannot see for ourselves our own character defects as clearly as our family and friends can see them.

2. As long as the study of individual character defects remains shrouded in shame and privacy, significant change is impossible.

3. Members of our own circle of friends can learn to judge and articulate individual character defects with accuracy and consistency.

All of these things seemed to characterize the way the group worked. In addition, there was some partial support in our findings for the notion that members of a peer group can be reasonably accurate in diagnosing major personality problems. Here are the formally recognized personality disorders we did frequently find in our patients, along with some of the defects of character often assigned to the men with a particular disorder. If the reader will take the time to study the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, he or she will find that the formal diagnostic criteria are, in fact, very similar to the impression made on the peer group by those who are diagnosed with a particular disorder.

1. Histrionic Personality Disorder: attention-seeking, conceited, dramatic, flighty, etc.

2. Dependent Personality Disorder: anxious, complaining, dependent, indecisive, passive, etc.

3. Antisocial Personality Disorder: abrasive, angry, cruel, dishonest, indulgent, manipulative, reckless, etc.

4. Narcissistic Personality Disorder: bossy, conceited, dominating, grandiose, opinionated, self-centered, etc.

5. Avoidant Personality Disorder: aloof, defensive, isolated, withdrawn, shy, etc.

6. Borderline Personality Disorder: abrasive, angry, bitter, egocentric, irritable, perfectionistic, etc.

So it is, perhaps, that the defects of character so long known in moral philosophy are again mirrored and rediscovered in modern psychiatric diagnoses.

These are not firm research results, but they are our best impressions arising from experience. If nothing else, an assessment group focuses attention on the critical issues of defects of character. But it must be remembered, the assessment group is not a substitute for a Fourth Step inventory, it is only preparation for it.

It is often repeated in Gamblers Anonymous that one must take one’s own inventory. In our opinion, the individual should be encouraged to ask for and accept help in this critical task. Once he or she has gathered all the information available, then and only then is the person ready to take his or her own inventory. In my opinion, what is meant by taking an inventory is really accepting an inventory. Only the owner can change a mind; all we can do is offer information.

When the great Scottish poet Robert Burns wished for the power to see ourselves as others see us, he had been sitting in church, where he saw a head louse crawling on the hat of a well-dressed lady. She obviously did not know how she appeared at that moment in the eyes of the observer. But Burns would never have dreamed of offending her by telling her the truth. And he was not asking for a psychological assessment, just to be able to know about any personal feature that would cause one to look foolish in the eyes of others. Social customs and civility aside, he actually did already have that power himself then and there, but he could never bring himself to use it. He could have told that lady what he saw, and he could have asked her in turn to tell him her impressions of him. Civility, that great social conspiracy of denial, kept him quiet. We fear hurting the feelings of our friends, and that fear hurts us all!

We love to avoid hearing the truth about the most important things in our lives! We are conditioned to be defensive, and to close our ears in the face of what we see as criticism. Character assessment becomes a very specialized task that requires experienced professional help. Character assessment can be either a wonderful tool for change, or a dangerous weapon when wrongly done. Hostile confrontation is completely out of place, but thoughtful analysis and gentle discussion work well.

The social peer group, given a license to speak freely and the grace to do so with gentleness and sensitivity, can become Burns’ magic power, that ultimate psychological mirror that lets us see our personality as the world around us sees it. We saw it happen over and over in our assessment group. We do not know how much real personality change the group produced, nor how long any changes may last. But these questions can be the subject of future research.

No single treatment will cause a magic transformation, and self-study must become a lifelong habit.

Certainly, a peer group assessment is not appropriate early in recovery. There comes a point, however, at which one should write a complete autobiography, a task that can be assigned by a therapist or sponsor. Once the autobiography is finished, the individual is ready for the lifelong habit of doing a critical, daily inventory. Life gradually becomes less impulsive and erratic. It is at this stage in recovery that a peer group assessment can be planned as an organized, effective, and deeply satisfying experience. The personal moral inventory takes preparation, and it may or may not be Step 4 the individual completes. It will happen when it happens.

I believe that maturity and adulthood are really just other words for spirituality, and a spiritual or mindful life should certainly be the goal of recovery. One finally realizes that one serves self best by serving others. To serve without desire for recognition, to care for others without manipulating, to give because it is good for self to give—these seem to be the most profound insights of maturity and of spiritual life.

In any self-help group, under the right circumstances, an assessment group could be of significant help in understanding a member’s character defects. Good sponsors do this all the time, but I have come to believe, when it comes to defects of character, that “all problems are group problems,” that the peer group has a collective wisdom far superior to that of any individual sponsor, therapist, or religious counselor. We need only learn how to tap this collective wisdom.

To any self-help group that might wish to experiment I would suggest the following guidelines.

1. The individual must ask for and want an assessment, and, having provided basic life history information, must agree to be passive and silent as it is done. It should never be forced or coerced, and it should never become a routine or mindless ritual required of everyone. It is certainly not a debate.

2. The assessment should be disciplined, well planned, and formal. There must be a strong chairperson for the group, someone who is willing to rule against insensitive remarks and off-track questions.

3. Absolute confidentiality outside the group must be assured. Only people very well known to the individual may be admitted and, in all probability, family members should not attend.

4. All those present—not fewer than six or more than 10 well-known and trusted friends—should be there by invitation of the person being assessed. Relatives and employers have no special rights here; no one should be allowed to force their way into the assessment situation against the wishes of the individual or the group. Nor does any outside person have the right to know the results of the assessment. Those who might demand to know, or who are persistently curious, may need to have their own assessment done.

5. The results are given to the person in writing, but we found it important to excuse the person while the group works out the final list of defects to be offered.

Warning: if you do ever get the chance to see yourself as others see, be careful. It could change your life.