Like others have mentioned, I too was raised with Western male, independent to a fault, don't need nothing from nobody, stand up for yourself, blue collar work ethic, work hard play hard, etc ideas.
None of them are necessarily bad ideas or beliefs. But after being beaten down by alcohol to the point of surrender, I got to look at some of those beliefs in a 4th step and beyond.
One great gift of my recovery is knowing that I'm not perfect, that I'm not all that good at some things, that I don't have to be the best at everything I do, that I get to be a member of the human race instead of standing outside and apart from it.
I thought I knew what being a man was, but really I was like a scared little boy, and I didn't even know I was scared. AA made a man out of me.