Me, Myself, and I

"Selfishness - self-centeredness!  That, we think, is the root of our troubles.  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.  Someteimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt."  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous P. 62

Self:  One's own person; your sense of who you are, deep down; used to describe how someone acts or feels.

In that fragment of a paragraph from The Big Book the root "self" is used six times.  Do you get it?  Do you see the truth, the irony of what the problem is?  Do we have to say "self" one more time to get it through your thick head?  It's you.  The problem is you.  The problem is not them or it.  I realize how frustrating this sounds.  I realize that it's hard to change course after a lifetime of looking for the source of your problems outside of yourself.  And to make it worse we propose that the solution is going to be found in a Higher Power or power greater than yourself that exists separately from your own consciousness.   More on that later but first take some duct tape and secure your index fingers firmly to the palm of your hand so that you quit pointing those fingers at someone or something else.

"Whenever I'm unsure as to what the problem is I go find a mirror."  Little Stevie Seaweed