dbh

So I have this new found desire to finish my step work. A couple years ago I pretty much stopped at Step 4.

As I start thinking about making a "searching and fearless moral inventory" I'm realizing how much I dislike the term "Character Defect".

It's sort of similar to how I initially felt about working the steps in general. I remember thinking, "My dad is the alcoholic, he should be working the steps not me!"

I have since accepted that alcoholism is a family disease and that growing up in a dysfunctional home has affected me in a negative way. However, calling my ACA Characteristic/Traits character defects just doesn't sit well with me.

Some of these traits keep me safe as a child. In a dysfunctional home "people pleasing" sometimes keeps you from getting abuse. Being hypervigilant and aware of the emotions/moods of others is also a necessity. Stuffing my feeling was required in my family. Expressing emotions often got me punished or labeled as the difficult children.

I agree that many of these traits are not useful in my current life and I would gladly humbly ask my HP to remove them.

I just don't want to call them defects, flaws, shortcomings, ...

Does anyone else feel this way?

Have you thought of a better term to use?

Thank you for letting me share.

db

cymbal

I try to look for patterns in my behavior that no longer work.

My childhood coping patterns don't work well for me as an adult.

I think any trait has positive and negative qualities.
Take people pleasing as an example. Trying not to get along
in extreme could turn to bullying??
I try to think of things on a scale rather than extremes of
black and white. Gray means give and take in either direction.

I don't think of feelings with "charge" (positive or negative).
They are neutral. As a child I was not allowed to have feelings
which I have learned is emotional abuse. I have tried to model
better to my own children.

I have tried to have more self-control. I am the only one that
I have any control over. My reactions are mine.

Good question!
Thank you for letting me share!

twilli59

I agree, and in the end, I think the terminology is irrelevant. The steps look a bit punishing, but the truth is they are intended to help us find peace. The tone of the language, to me, is to promote our own responsibility for ourselves. Anyway - the key is that if there are things we're doing that make life harder for us, let's dump that crap so we can get free!

mattparadise

I don't like it either. The steps are poorly worded. Very poorly worded. Basically, you just need to take it for what it's worth.

Kind of like calling alcoholism a "disease".
Oh my god I have a "disease". Still makes me laugh.

Kialua

Very well put, I don't like the onus on me either labeling it my character defect. I couldn't agree more.

Discernment. We are highly tuned into peoples motives, trained from birth. Sometimes it served me well in childhood as you stated and sometimes as an adult. I really don't know how to function without it. I would be a blank slate and not know how to cope. I would have to be raised by someone all over again. And I guess that goes back to re-parenting myself. That is so hard. I think I did a great job with raising my daughter but re-parenting myself leaves me frozen with inaction. How can I 'unlearn' those ingrained traits and not leave me an easy mark for society.

I think we should be called Survivors.

langkah

Know what you mean. There are many terms that strike me the wrong way too, but other people seem to have no problem with them.

Travelling around Greece some years ago it seemed every other person would use the term 'tall American'. That got old quickly. The reality is that in some societies I would be medium sized, but the Greeks didn't think of that for a minute. And they could have instead said 'person from the middle part of the New World that makes Greeks feel like we are all misshapen dwarves'. But no, it was always 'tall American' this, and 'tall American' that.

Why wouldn't they consider my feelings?

Just like your deal. Is there any logical reason why you have to call a listing of your character defects a 'defects of character' list?

You could instead use the term 'reoccurring individual flaws displayed in personal interactions with others often over a period of many years that could be improved or eliminated with some time spent in examination and further disclosure to a disinterested third party.'

If you happen to like that alternative, please feel free to use it instead of the old 'character defects' term that is bothersome to you.

There's always a solution.

Praise7

I was sober for 22 years. I never got past my 4th. I never found a sponsor to work the 5,6,7th with. I carried my Defects for 22 years until the bag was ginormous. I do have character DEFECTS and for me not recognizing and addressing them cost me my job, possibly my home, my children and my husband of 27 years. I am defective have given it all away.

dbh

So I've started doing more reading and thinking about Step 4.

I think my problem with the term "Character Defect" steams from a number of issues.

First, I think of a "defect" as an inherit imperfection. Something that exists at creation (like a product defect). Although I know I'm currently struggling with many things, I don't think I was born defective. It has actually taken me awhile to NOT think that I was permanently broken.

I like the terms ... survival skills, character flaws, and assets & liabilities so much better.

As I thought about it more though, I'm starting to realize that I'm not truly willing to own my behavior. I think there's a part of me that still wants to blame someone else (my alcoholic father).

Growing up, I was called so many things and blamed for so much. I still have a hard time admitting that anything is my fault! I also don't take criticism well (ha, a character flaw! :-)

But, if I want to get better I have to bring all my strengths and weakness to light. I'm never going to be able to gladly give them to my HP if I don't acknowledge them and take responsibility for them in the first place.

Guess it doesn't truly matter where they came from or what I call them. These behavioral traits that I have are mine now and even if they protected me in the past, they are interfering with my life now.

Thanks for letting me share.

db

GingerM

I don't like that term at all. Nor do I like "damaged". My therapist reframes it as "challenges". I like that. Yes, I have challenges in learning a whole new system of relating to people. I am not defective, I am adjusting to a new society.

I liken it to being airdropped into, say, Tibet, where the gender roles are different, the language is different, and people interact following a wholly different set of social mores and norms. Would I be defective because I didn't speak the language or because I didn't know all the social rules? Or would I be challenged by trying to learn them all and assimilate into the culture?

I like the idea of being challenged. After all, I DO find this challenging. Recovery is challenging. It's so challenging that many people fail, and many never even try. This is my challenge in my life. I am not defective or damaged, I am facing challenges and doing everything in my power to meet those challenges and overcome them.

tromboneliness

Some of the terminology is... shall we say, problematic for Al-Anons and ACAs. I mean, come on now -- "defects of character," a "moral inventory," "the exact nature of our wrongs," and so on -- those are really terms that apply more to alkies than us. For that matter, all the "God this" and "God that" gets to be a bit much, for the agnostic or other nonbeliever... so I have to fall back on "Take what you like and leave the rest." Come up with different ways to frame some of these concepts -- my favorite is... I think this is from the ACA Workbook, and it's probably also in the red book... "... the exact nature of our loss." That, to me, gets much closer to the experience of an ACA than "the exact nature of our wrongs." The ACA inventory is much more an inventory of grief and abandonment than any wrongs we committed. Not that I'm playing the victim or anything, but I did not sign up to be an ACA! That is something other people did to me. It may have been the result of a disease, they were powerless, yada-yada, but this sh*t was not my doing. So don't give me "defects of character" -- that makes it sound like "faults," and although we all have them, they're nobody's... um, fault -- certainly not ours.

T

Kialua

Exactly. Something other people did to me. I love this.

My two favored sisters insist being beat bloody was our own fault. To this day the oldest one says it was our own fault and that we were too stupid and got caught and beat. Not to mention that as a preschooler just what is it that I did I do? She won't discuss it just shuts me out with "get over it".

I did get through to the other favored sister once when she said that. I said, no matter what your own daughter would do would you beat her bloody till she was under the bed and being kicked unconscious? That finally broke through and she said No. But I know she thinks it never happened even though she saw it.

So yes, I am leery of others and not trusting. Big deal.

MsPINKAcres

lots of good stuff on this thread ~ thanks to all for posting!

I sometimes use the term "character assets out of balance"

I have a very compassionate nature which is a good thing, but out of balance it can cause me to be very deep in co-dependency, enabling and self-destructive behaviors

So do I need to NOT care about anyone but me?? No I just need to keep myself in balance.

And sometimes I can say that was an attribute that is from my past - I thought I needed it ~ but I have discovered it really doesn't work well for me. I have chosen another way.

Just words that I chose to use that probably say the same thing - it just sounds prettier and healthier for ME!

PINK HUGS & keep taking good care of you!

Rita