Character Defects & Shortcomings with Spiritual Remedies
Definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and page references drawn from the first 164 pages of Alcoholics Anonymous (4th ed.) — including definitions of all parenthetical terms and the spiritual remedies the Big Book prescribes for each defect.
Each entry defines the main word and its parenthetical companion, gives an extended explanation of how the defect operates in the alcoholic's life, lists synonyms and antonyms, and identifies the spiritual remedy — with its corresponding page references — as taught in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. Page numbers are keyed to the standard 4th edition. Dark badges are defect references; green badges are remedy references.
Synonym tag
Defect page ref
Remedy page ref
Antonym / virtue tag
Carelessness
(negligence)
noun · character defect
Negligence
noun · parenthetical definition
Negligence is the failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in the same circumstances. It is not necessarily malicious — it is the absence of appropriate attention, diligence, or caution toward the people and responsibilities in one's life. In the AA context, negligence means failing to consider how our words, actions, and omissions affect others.
Carelessness in the Big Book describes a heedless disregard for the consequences of one's actions on self and others — the reckless momentum of a life driven by self-will. The alcoholic consumed by his own desires does not look where he is going; he barges through relationships, finances, and obligations, leaving damage in his wake without fully registering it. Carelessness is not merely absent-mindedness — it is the fruit of a self-centered life that has never cultivated the habit of asking "how will this affect the people around me?" The text's Step Four inventory process directly targets carelessness by asking us to examine precisely where we had been inconsiderate and how that affected others.
The Big Book's answer to carelessness is the discipline of pausing to consider others before acting. Step Ten's daily inventory asks us to catch careless behavior as it happens and promptly correct it. The practice of seeking God's will each morning — "Thy will, not mine, be done" — orients us outward and cultivates the attentiveness that carelessness destroys. Service to others is the practical school in which this virtue is learned.
Self-admiration is an excessive and uncritical appreciation of one's own qualities, talents, or appearance. Unlike healthy self-respect, which is grounded in honest self-assessment, self-admiration is a distorted mirror that magnifies our virtues and minimizes our faults. It produces a person who is difficult to correct, unwilling to accept feedback, and incapable of genuine growth.
Conceit is an inflated, unrealistic opinion of one's own abilities, importance, or worth — a grandiosity that the Big Book identifies as one mask of the alcoholic's deeply insecure ego. The text describes the alcoholic as alternately a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," capable of extraordinary self-importance in one moment and crushing self-loathing in the next. Conceit drives us to present ourselves as more capable, more moral, or more important than we are, and to resent or dismiss anyone who sees through the performance. It is pride weaponized against reality — a defense mechanism that keeps us from the humility that genuine recovery requires. The inventory process exposes conceit by asking us to honestly list our character defects without editing or excuse.
The Big Book prescribes humility — not self-deprecation, but an accurate view of oneself in relation to God and others. Step Seven's prayer asks God to remove defects of character so that we may better do His will — placing us in right-sized relationship to a Power greater than ourselves. "We had a new Employer" (p. 63) — and working for that Employer naturally deflates the ego that conceit inflates.
Faultfinding is the habitual, often compulsive, act of identifying and pointing out the errors, flaws, and shortcomings of others. It is criticism as a personality orientation — a default mode in which one's attention goes automatically to what is wrong rather than what is right. Faultfinding is frequently a projection of the finder's own unexamined defects onto those around them.
In the Big Book, criticism is the outward projection of our own defects — a habit of cataloging the shortcomings of others so we can avoid examining our own. When we criticize, we appoint ourselves judge over other people's behavior, motives, and character, a role the program reserves for God alone. The Big Book notes that the alcoholic's inclination toward faultfinding feeds directly into resentment: first we notice the flaw, then we dwell on it, then we resent the person for it. The text directs us to "sweep our own side of the street" (p. 77) — to confine our inventory to our own behavior rather than managing the accounts of others. Criticism also isolates us: when we become identified as someone who tears others down, we lose the ability to be useful to the very people we might help.
The Big Book prescribes restraint of tongue and pen — pausing before speaking critically and asking whether what we are about to say is true, kind, and necessary. The Tenth Step's daily inventory turns the searchlight inward: "When we retire at night, we constructively review our day." We are instructed to be "helpful, tactful" and to practice "love and tolerance" as our code. Step Four's personal inventory trains us to keep our own side of the ledger without auditing others.
Procrastination is the habitual or intentional delay of necessary action — putting off until tomorrow what ought to be done today, typically to avoid discomfort, responsibility, or change. Unlike genuine prioritization, procrastination is driven by avoidance: of pain, of confrontation, of the effort change requires. It is self-will expressing itself as inertia.
Delay, or procrastination, is the deliberate postponement of necessary action — particularly those actions that require honesty, humility, or courage. The Big Book is blunt: "half measures availed us nothing" (p. 59). The alcoholic who delays getting honest, making amends, or seeking God finds that the disease moves faster than his willingness. Delay is especially dangerous in recovery because the alcoholic's mind will use the interval between intention and action to manufacture reasons why the action is unnecessary. Every day of delay between recognizing a wrong and making it right is another day the wrong festers into resentment — on both sides. Procrastination also masquerades as caution or prudence, making it one of the more self-deceiving defects.
The Big Book calls for immediate, decisive action: "we move quickly" when making amends, "we do not avoid these responsibilities" (pp. 76–77). Step Three's decision is meaningless without the action of Steps Four through Nine. The text makes clear that willingness is the key: "we had to quit playing God" and act on God's direction rather than waiting for our own comfort. Daily Step Ten work trains the habit of prompt correction.
Lyingis the deliberate communication of what one knows to be false, with intent to deceive. It may be outright falsehood, misleading half-truth, or significant omission — any form of speech designed to create a false impression in another's mind. Stealingis taking what belongs to another — property, credit, time, or affection — without right or permission, and often without acknowledgment. Cheatingis gaining an advantage through deception or rule-breaking, violating the fair terms under which people cooperate and trust one another. All three violate the same foundation: the trust that makes human relationships and a spiritual life possible.
The Big Book places rigorous honesty at the very foundation of recovery — not as a moral nicety but as a survival requirement. The famous words of page 58 state that those who do not recover are "people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves." Dishonesty in all its forms — lying, stealing, cheating — is the primary tool of the self-will that keeps the alcoholic sick. We lie to cover our drinking, steal to fund it, and cheat to maintain the illusion of normalcy. But dishonesty extends far beyond alcohol: we lie to avoid consequences, steal the emotional labor of others, and cheat our way through relationships and obligations. Until dishonesty is confronted in inventory and amends, it remains the invisible wall between us and God and between us and genuine human connection.
The Big Book demands "rigorous honesty" as the price of admission to recovery. Steps Four and Five require that we be "honest with ourselves" and with another human being about our entire past. Steps Eight and Nine translate that honesty into action by making direct amends. The daily Tenth Step asks us to catch dishonesty as it arises and correct it promptly. The text promises that those who practice these steps "will know a new freedom" — a freedom built entirely on the foundation of truth.
Self-importance is the exaggerated belief that one's own opinions, needs, feelings, and presence deserve more weight and attention than those of others. It is not confidence — it is the assumption that the world ought to revolve around oneself, that one's preferences should prevail, and that others exist primarily to serve one's needs or validate one's views.
Egotism is the habit of placing oneself at the center of all things — viewing every situation through the lens of personal advantage, personal slight, or personal significance. The Big Book gives its most direct diagnosis on page 62, describing the alcoholic as "self-centered in the extreme" — the actor who demands that the entire play rearrange itself to his liking, then blames the other players when things go wrong. This is not merely excessive pride; it is a fundamental orientation of the self that makes genuine relationship with God or others nearly impossible. Egotism masquerades as confidence, ambition, or leadership, but at its core it is the refusal to accept that other people and a Higher Power have legitimate claims on our attention and obedience. The ego, unchecked, will rationalize any behavior to preserve itself.
The Big Book prescribes a complete psychic reversal: from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. "God makes that possible" (p. 62). Step Three's decision to turn will and life over to God's care is the beginning of the ego's deflation. Service to others — working with alcoholics, practicing the Twelfth Step — is the practical discipline that keeps egotism at bay. The Big Book notes that "nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics" (p. 89).
Covetousness is a strong, consuming desire for something belonging to another — not merely to have what they have, but specifically to possess what is theirs. It is one of the oldest recognized moral defects, named in ancient codes of conduct precisely because it poisons the covetous person and destroys the fabric of community. Covetousness treats another person's good fortune as an offense against oneself.
Envy is the painful or resentful awareness of another's advantage — their sobriety, their relationships, their prosperity, their talents — combined with a desire to possess the same, often with the wish that they would lose it. In the Big Book context, envy is closely tied to resentment and operates through the same mechanism: we make a comparison, find ourselves lacking, and then blame the other person for the gap. Envy is particularly dangerous in recovery because it can disguise itself as righteous indignation ("they don't deserve what they have") or motivation ("I just want what they've got"). But underneath, it is a refusal of gratitude — an insistence that God has dealt us an unfair hand while favoring others.
The Big Book prescribes gratitude as the antidote to envy — an active counting of the gifts already received rather than a tallying of what others have. Acceptance of God's will includes accepting the circumstances and possessions God has provided without comparing them to another's portion. Praying for those we envy — as the text directs for resentment — dissolves the bitterness that envy breeds.
Antonyms / Virtues
gratitudecontentmentacceptancegenerosity of spiritgoodwill
Self-justification is the process of constructing reasons — after the fact — that make our harmful behavior appear reasonable, necessary, or defensible. Unlike genuine explanation, self-justification is not concerned with truth; it is concerned with the preservation of a favorable self-image. The self-justifying person is not trying to understand what they did — they are trying to make sure they don't have to feel bad about it or change it.
Excuse-making is the alcoholic's most refined art form. The Big Book describes a "remarkable unanimity" among alcoholics in their ability to construct seemingly logical reasons for every destructive behavior. We did not merely drink — we had reasons. We did not merely harm others — circumstances forced our hand. This self-justifying pattern is a primary obstacle to the moral inventory, to amends, and to genuine change, because we cannot fix what we refuse to see as broken. Excuses are the mortar that seals the ego's fortress against the light of honest self-examination. They feel like truth from the inside and like transparent rationalization from the outside — which is precisely why a sponsor and a group are essential in recovery.
The Big Book's remedy is unflinching self-examination: Step Four asks us to list our resentments and then — crucially — to identify our own part in each situation, setting aside the faults of others entirely. "We resolutely looked for our own mistakes" (p. 67). This discipline, practiced daily in Step Ten, trains us to respond to conflict with self-examination rather than self-defense. The sponsorship relationship also provides an outside check on the rationalizations we cannot see in ourselves.
Antonyms / Virtues
personal responsibilityaccountabilityself-honestyownershiptransparency
Self-deception is the act of misleading oneself — holding beliefs about oneself that are false, usually in order to protect oneself from painful truths. It is the most intimate form of dishonesty because it operates without an external target: the person deceiving and the person deceived are the same. Self-deception is often unconscious, which makes it especially resistant to correction.
False pride is pride rooted not in genuine accomplishment or honest self-knowledge, but in image management — a desperate need to appear capable, important, or virtuous to others and to ourselves. It is pride as a defensive structure rather than a healthy sense of dignity. The Big Book identifies false pride as one of the chief reasons alcoholics resist asking for help, admitting fault, and making amends: to do so would threaten the constructed self-image that false pride has built and maintained, sometimes for decades. False pride tells us we are too good to need a Higher Power, too smart to need a sponsor, and too important to apologize. It is the direct opposite of the humility the program prescribes as essential for recovery.
The Big Book prescribes honest self-appraisal — looking at ourselves without the distortions of either inflation or deflation. Step Five, sharing our inventory with God and another human being, is the specific tool for dismantling false pride: it is impossible to maintain an inflated self-image while honestly confessing our wrongs to someone else. "If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking" (p. 72). True humility, the text suggests, is not thinking less of ourselves — it is thinking of ourselves less.
Anxiety is a persistent state of apprehension and worry about uncertain future events — diffuse, objectless, or poorly defined fear that creates a chronic background tension. Unlike acute fear, anxiety may have no clear trigger; it is the nervous system's anticipation of danger that hasn't arrived yet. Dread is anticipatory fear with a more specific object — the heavy, oppressive sense of foreboding about something approaching that we believe will be bad. Both are future-oriented, and both signify a failure to live in the present moment under God's care.
Fear occupies a central and explicitly examined place in the Big Book's diagnosis of the alcoholic condition. The text states that the inventory of fears reveals that they "touch about every aspect of our lives." Fear is the great motivator of self-seeking behavior: we lie because we fear exposure, we manipulate because we fear losing control, we drink because we fear feeling. Fear underlies nearly every other defect on this list — resentment is fear that we will not get what we want or will lose what we have; false pride is fear that others will see through us; jealousy is fear of loss. The Big Book is not sentimental about fear — it treats it as a spiritual malady rooted in self-reliance: "we were depending on ourselves, the wrong dependency" (p. 68).
The Big Book's answer to fear is faith — not as a vague feeling but as an active, practiced trust in a Higher Power. "We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be" (p. 68). Step Three's decision to turn will and life over to God's care is the structural antidote to the self-reliance that generates fear. The program promises that "we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us" (p. 84) — a promise predicated on maintaining the spiritual condition that faith produces.
Hostility is a sustained attitude of opposition, antagonism, and ill will toward a person or group — an aggressive orientation that is ready for conflict. Unlike a single angry reaction, hostility is a disposition: a readiness to perceive threat, assume bad faith, and respond with aggression or coldness. In the alcoholic, hostility often operates as a chronic defensive posture, a way of staying on guard against a world that has repeatedly disappointed or wounded.
Hate, as the Big Book treats it, is resentment carried to its most intense and consuming expression — a sustained, corrosive loathing of a person or group that has come to dominate one's inner life. The text warns that "the grouch and the brainstorm were not for us" (p. 88) — that prolonged negative emotions are incompatible with the spiritual condition necessary for sobriety. Hate is spiritually self-destructive: the person who hates believes they are punishing the object of their hatred, but in reality they are poisoning their own serenity, their relationship with God, and their ability to be useful. The Big Book's treatment of hate is direct: "The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it." There is no room in a lived spiritual life for sustained hate.
The Big Book's prescription for hate mirrors its prescription for resentment: we ask God to help us show the hated person "the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend" (p. 67). We pray for those we hate — not because they deserve it, but because our hatred is killing us. Step Twelve's call to love and service actively replaces hate's isolation with connection. "Love and tolerance of others is our code" (p. 84).
Anxiety here refers specifically to worry as a cognitive and emotional habit — the mind's tendency to rehearse feared future scenarios repeatedly, as though thinking about them hard enough will control them. Irresolution is chronic inability or unwillingness to make and commit to decisions — the paralysis of the person who sees all possible options, fears making the wrong choice, and therefore makes no choice at all. Both anxiety and irresolution are expressions of the attempt to control outcomes that lie beyond one's power.
Indecision and worry are twin expressions of fear projected into the future. The Big Book identifies worry as a failure of trust — an insistence on managing outcomes that belong to God rather than releasing them. The alcoholic who worries is attempting to pre-solve problems that may never materialize, consuming present-moment serenity in exchange for the illusion of control. Indecision is often worry's practical partner: so many scenarios are envisioned and feared that no clear path emerges, and the person stalls. The text's remedy is not less thinking but a different kind: action directed by God's guidance rather than paralysis directed by self-will. "Into action" — the title of the Big Book's central chapter — is the prescription for the paralysis of worry.
The Big Book's prescription for worry is prayer followed by decisive action: "we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision" and then "we relax and take it easy" (p. 86). Step Eleven's practice of prayer and meditation builds the habit of consulting God rather than the racing mind. The Serenity Prayer — embedded in the program's culture — provides a practical framework: accept what cannot be changed, change what can, and develop the wisdom to know the difference.
Antonyms / Virtues
serenitydecisivenesstrustpresent-mindednessreliance on God
Two-facedness is the practice of presenting a different face — a different personality, set of opinions, or apparent values — depending on one's audience, in order to gain approval or advantage. The two-faced person tells each person what they want to hear, agrees with contradictory positions in different conversations, and is ultimately loyal to no position but their own self-interest. It destroys trust when discovered and makes genuine intimacy impossible.
Insincerity is the gap between what we say and what we actually feel, intend, or believe — the performance of emotions and commitments we do not actually hold. The alcoholic becomes skilled at insincerity because the life of concealment that addiction requires demands constant performance: performing sobriety, performing normalcy, performing remorse after each episode. This habitual performance gradually erodes the alcoholic's ability to be genuine even when they want to be. The Big Book calls for an "honest desire" to stop drinking and insists that this desire — and all that follows — must be sincere. Insincerity in amends, in inventory, or in prayer renders these tools useless and leaves the recovering person with a spiritual practice that is all form and no substance.
The Big Book calls for an earnest, whole-hearted engagement with every Step and every relationship. The Fifth Step — admitting "to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs" (p. 59) — is inherently an exercise in sincerity; there is no performing it. The daily practice of prayer and meditation cultivates an inner life that is not dependent on external approval, freeing the person from the audience-management that insincerity requires. "We became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs" (p. 84).
Bigotry is an extreme, unreasonable attachment to one's own opinions, beliefs, or group identity, combined with an equally extreme hostility toward those who hold different views or belong to different groups. The bigot is not merely intolerant of difference — they are actively contemptuous of it, treating different views not as wrong but as unworthy of consideration. Bigotry closes the mind entirely to the possibility of learning from those who think or live differently.
Intolerance is the refusal to accept or respect views, beliefs, behaviors, or people that differ from one's own expectations. The Big Book names intolerance explicitly as a defect that closes us off from the very people we are meant to help and from the forms in which God may appear. The alcoholic's intolerance often focuses on the beliefs of others in spiritual matters — the text addresses this directly, warning against letting contempt for religious institutions or God-concepts keep us from the open-mindedness essential for Step Two. Intolerance in human relations takes the form of impatience with others' faults, unwillingness to accept people as they are, and a chronic sense that the world around us is falling short of our standards.
The Big Book calls tolerance "our code" alongside love (p. 84). Open-mindedness is listed as one of the essential spiritual principles — indeed, Step Two requires enough open-mindedness to entertain the possibility of a Power greater than oneself. The text directs us to practice "maximum tolerance" with those who suffer (p. 83) and to accept that God may speak through people whose views differ radically from our own. "Live and let live" is the practical expression of tolerance in daily relationships.
Possessiveness is the excessive desire to own, control, or exclusively claim another person — treating a relationship partner, friend, or family member as property rather than as a free individual. The possessive person monitors, controls, and restricts those they love out of fear of loss. Possessiveness destroys the very intimacy it is trying to protect because genuine love and control cannot coexist.
Jealousy is the fear-based response to the perceived threat of losing something we have — a relationship, status, position, or affection — to a rival or competitor. The Big Book addresses jealousy extensively in the context of marriage and sexual conduct, where it is identified as one of the great destroyers of family life and sobriety. Unlike envy (which wants what others have), jealousy guards what it already possesses through suspicion, interrogation, and control. In recovery, jealousy can also operate around sobriety itself — the jealous recovering person resents those who seem to get well faster or to be better liked in the group. At its root, jealousy is the ego's terror of being displaced, devalued, or abandoned.
Trust, Unselfishness & Respect for Others' Freedom
The Big Book prescribes unselfishness as the foundation of healthy relationships: "In all these situations we need self-restraint, honest analysis of what we want, a willingness to accept God's help" (p. 69). Jealousy's antidote is a trust in God's provision that frees us from needing to control other people. The text's sex inventory asks us to examine where we have been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate — behaviors that jealousy amplifies — and to cultivate their opposites.
Rationalization is the cognitive process by which the mind constructs logically plausible but ultimately false explanations for behaviors that are actually motivated by self-interest, fear, or desire. The rationalization feels like genuine reasoning from the inside; it uses the language and structure of logic while serving the purposes of the ego. Rationalization is the mind's way of letting us do what we want while maintaining the belief that we are acting reasonably.
Justification, or rationalization, is the construction of post-hoc reasons that make our harmful behavior appear logical, necessary, or defensible. The Big Book describes how the alcoholic builds an elaborate system of justifications for drinking — reasons that seem airtight to the drinker and transparent to everyone else. But rationalization extends far beyond alcohol: we rationalize every lie, every act of selfishness, every resentment we nurse, every amends we defer. The genius of rationalization is that it mimics honest reasoning so closely that the person engaging in it rarely knows they are doing so. This is why the program insists on the outside perspective of a sponsor and a group: the rationalizations we cannot see in ourselves are often immediately visible to someone who loves us and knows the disease.
The Big Book's antidote to rationalization is the combination of rigorous self-examination and outside accountability. Step Four asks us to look at our "resentments, fears, and harms to others" honestly, "without alibis" (p. 64). Step Five — sharing that inventory with another human being — exposes the rationalizations that survive solitary self-examination. The sponsor relationship is specifically designed to provide the loving, informed outside view that cuts through the alcoholic's self-justifying thinking.
Antonyms / Virtues
honestyaccountabilityself-examinationopennesswillingness to be wrong
Unbridled desire is appetite without restraint — the state in which a natural human drive has been freed from the governance of reason, consideration for others, or spiritual principle. The word "unbridled" evokes a horse without a bridle: capable of great speed and power, but without direction or control, and therefore dangerous. Any natural desire — for food, sex, comfort, recognition, security — becomes destructive when it overrides all other considerations.
In the Big Book, lust refers primarily to sexual desire that has become consuming and self-serving — desire that uses other people as objects for gratification rather than treating them as full human beings deserving of care and respect. The text, however, frames this within a broader principle: all of our instincts — including the sex drive — are natural and God-given, but they cause "a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity" (p. 62) when they exceed proper bounds. The sex inventory of Step Four asks not whether we have desired but whether our desires were selfish, dishonest, or harmful. Lust in its broadest sense includes any appetite — for power, recognition, or comfort — that has escaped the discipline of spiritual principle.
Synonyms
unbridled desirelicentiousnesscarnalityobsessionappetite run riot
Right-Sized Desire & God's Guidance in Relationships
The Big Book does not prescribe the elimination of desire but its right ordering. "We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct" (p. 69), but it asks us to apply a spiritual test: "We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed" (p. 69). Prayer and inventory are the tools for examining and redirecting misdirected desire.
Laziness is the unwillingness to expend the effort that a situation, relationship, or responsibility demands — not inability, but unwillingness. It is the preference for ease over growth, comfort over contribution. In recovery, laziness takes spiritual forms: the reluctance to pray when prayer feels pointless, to make an amends that would be embarrassing, to call a sponsor when we fear what they might say, or to work with a newcomer because it is inconvenient.
Neglect is the failure to give proper care, attention, and effort to our duties, relationships, and spiritual life. The Big Book warns against "a failure to grow in understanding and effectiveness" (p. 83) — a failure that comes directly from neglect of the program's daily disciplines. Neglect operates on a slow timeline: the alcoholic who stops praying, stops going to meetings, stops reaching out to others does not immediately relapse; they gradually lose the spiritual condition that makes sobriety possible. The Big Book's warning about the "bedevilments" — the restlessness, irritability, and discontent that precede relapse — describes the condition of someone who has neglected their program. Recovery, the text makes clear, is not a one-time event but a daily maintenance of a spiritual condition.
Daily Discipline & Maintenance of Spiritual Condition
The Big Book prescribes a specific daily routine — morning prayer, meditation, and review; evening inventory — as the maintenance program for the spiritual condition that sobriety requires. "Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities" (p. 85). Step Twelve's call to service ensures that recovery is an active, outward-directed practice rather than a passive state that can be neglected.
Self-indulgence is the excessive gratification of one's own desires, impulses, and appetites — the habit of giving oneself whatever one wants, whenever one wants it, without the discipline of restraint or consideration for consequences. It is the pleasure-principle untempered by the reality-principle. Self-indulgence is not limited to large excesses; it operates in the small daily choices to take the easy path, to have more than is needed, to avoid discomfort at every opportunity.
Over-indulgence is the excessive pursuit and gratification of one's appetites — in food, drink, sex, spending, comfort, or any pleasure — beyond what is healthy, honest, or considerate of others. The Big Book frames alcoholism as the ultimate expression of over-indulgence, but notes that the alcoholic's tendency toward excess extends across many areas of life. The instincts for security, society, and sex are described as causing trouble when they "run riot" beyond their proper bounds (p. 62). Over-indulgence is not the sin of wanting; it is the failure of the discipline that keeps wanting in right proportion. In recovery, over-indulgence often migrates from alcohol to other areas — food, relationships, work, spending — unless the underlying self-centeredness is addressed.
The Big Book prescribes a life governed not by appetite but by God's will. Step Three's decision to turn our will and lives over to God places our desires under a higher authority than our own pleasure. The practical test for any behavior is the inventory questions: "Was it selfish? Dishonest? Inconsiderate?" (p. 69). Service to others is the most effective counterweight to over-indulgence because it redirects energy from self-gratification to other-centered action.
Self-condemnation is the harsh, unrelenting judgment of oneself for past wrongs — a sustained inner verdict of guilty that offers no possibility of parole. Unlike healthy guilt (which recognizes a wrong, motivates repair, and then releases), self-condemnation is a life sentence. It is the ego turned against itself: still self-centered, still focused on "I," but now in an attitude of punishment rather than pride. Self-condemnation that does not lead to action or change is, paradoxically, another form of self-absorption.
Remorse, as the Big Book uses the term, is the sick, obsessive guilt over past wrongs that does not lead to action or change — a wallowing self-condemnation that feeds on itself and produces paralysis rather than repair. The text distinguishes between genuine contrition (which acknowledges a wrong, motivates amends, and is released) and corrosive remorse (which is a form of self-absorption that keeps the person trapped in the past). The Big Book is compassionate but practical: the Steps offer a specific path out of remorse — inventory, confession, amends, and trust that God can restore what was damaged. Remorse without action is simply suffering without purpose; it wrongs the people hurt a second time by withholding the amends they deserve.
Synonyms
self-condemnationguiltself-reproachshame spiralingcontrition without action
The Big Book's answer to remorse is action: Steps Eight and Nine convert remorse into repair. "We made direct amends to such people wherever possible" (p. 59) — not as punishment but as freedom. The text also prescribes self-forgiveness grounded in spiritual principle: "God will show us how to create the fellowship we crave" (p. 164). The Promises on pages 83–84 specifically address the release of remorse: "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it."
Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure, antagonism, or indignation aroused by a real or perceived wrong. Acute anger — a response to an immediate situation — is a natural human emotion. What the Big Book addresses is chronic anger: anger that is stored, rehearsed, and maintained over time. Chronic anger is the emotional fuel of resentment; it is what happens when we do not release an injury but instead keep returning to it, re-feeling it, and using it to define ourselves and our relationship to the world.
The Big Book calls resentment "the number one offender" (p. 64) — the primary cause of spiritual disease and alcoholic relapse. The word itself comes from the Latin re-sentire: to feel again. To resent is to rehearse an injury — to re-feel it every time we think of the person who wronged us, until the wound becomes our identity and their wrong becomes our obsession. The Big Book is unflinching: "It destroys more alcoholics than anything else" because resentment shuts off the sunlight of the Spirit — the vital spiritual connection without which sobriety is impossible. Resentment is also dishonest: we tell ourselves we are justified in nursing it, but the truth is that it damages us, not the person we resent. The inventory process treats resentment as a disease of perception as much as of feeling: it asks us to look at our own part in each situation.
The Big Book prescribes two specific tools for resentment. First: examine our own part — "We resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?" (p. 67). Second: pray for the person we resent — "We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend" (p. 67). The text promises that if we follow this practice, the resentment will leave. Forgiveness is not condoning the wrong — it is releasing ourselves from it.
Revenge is the deliberate infliction of harm on someone who has harmed us — the attempt to balance an injury by creating an equal or greater one in return. Revenge is the ego's answer to powerlessness: when we feel wronged and cannot undo the wrong, we seek to punish the wrongdoer. The problem is that revenge does not actually restore what was lost or heal the wound; it simply creates new harm while giving the illusion of justice and the temporary feeling of power.
Retaliation — the act of paying back harm with harm — is presented in the Big Book as spiritually fatal and practically counterproductive. The text instructs us to resist what it acknowledges is a "natural" impulse: the desire to fight back, to "be right at any cost," or to see those who have wronged us suffer the consequences of their actions. "Love and tolerance of others is our code" (p. 84). To retaliate is to place ourselves in the position of judge and executioner, to assume a role that belongs to God alone, and to perpetuate the cycle of injury and resentment that keeps both parties spiritually sick. The Big Book is not naïve — it does not say we were never wronged; it says that retaliation does not fix it.
The Big Book prescribes restraint of the retaliatory impulse and a spiritual re-framing: the person who harmed us is sick, as we were sick. "We avoid retaliation or argument" (p. 84). Leaving justice to God — trusting that wrongs will be addressed by a Power greater than ourselves — is the spiritual alternative to the impotent fury of revenge. Step Nine's amends process also reframes the victim-perpetrator dynamic by asking us to take responsibility for our own harms, which loosens the grip of the retaliation impulse.
Antonyms / Virtues
restraintforgivenessforbearancemercyleaving justice to God
Impatience is the inability or unwillingness to wait, endure, or tolerate delay, difficulty, or the pace at which things naturally unfold. The impatient person demands that circumstances, other people, and God operate on their timeline rather than adjusting themselves to the reality before them. Impatience is a form of self-will: the insistence that the world owe us speed, ease, and immediate gratification.
The Big Book's foreword famously identifies the returning alcoholic as one who finds himself "restless, irritable and discontented" — a trio of spiritual symptoms signaling that self has reasserted control and God has been crowded out. Restlessness is the inability to be at peace in the present moment — a chronic inner agitation that makes stillness feel unbearable and drives the person from one distraction to the next. Irritability is a low-level chronic anger at the world and the people in it — a hair-trigger response to ordinary friction that poisons every interaction. Discontent is a pervasive dissatisfaction with one's circumstances, relationships, and life — the sense that nothing is ever quite enough, that what we have is always less than what we need. Together, these three describe a soul that has lost its connection to God and is trying to fill the resulting emptiness with control, distraction, or alcohol.
The Big Book prescribes an active daily spiritual practice as the antidote to restlessness, irritability, and discontent. Morning meditation and prayer set the tone; evening inventory catches the day's disturbances before they fester. "We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends" (p. 87) — the practice of praying for others rather than for our own comfort reorients the spirit away from self-centered discontent. The Promises describe the result: "We will know a new freedom and a new happiness" (p. 83) — the opposite of the RID triad.
Contempt is the feeling or expression that a person or thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving of scorn. It is the most socially destructive of the negative emotions because, unlike anger or disgust, contempt does not desire change — it simply dismisses. The contemptuous person does not want to engage, persuade, or repair; they want to diminish. Research consistently identifies contempt as the single greatest predictor of the breakdown of relationships.
Sarcasm is contempt expressed through wit — the use of sharp, cutting irony to wound, demean, or dismiss without the vulnerability of open confrontation. It is aggression wearing the mask of humor, a way of asserting superiority over others while maintaining the social protection of "I was only joking." In the Big Book's context, sarcasm is incompatible with the love, tolerance, and sincere helpfulness that recovery and the Twelfth Step require. The sarcastic person cannot genuinely help a newcomer, cannot make sincere amends, and cannot build the trust that honest relationships require. Sarcasm is also a form of dishonesty — it says one thing and means another, training the speaker and the listener away from the directness that the program demands.
The Big Book prescribes "helpful, tactful" communication — sincere, direct, and kind. The Tenth Step asks us to avoid "gossip, sarcasm, and unkind criticism" (reflected in the daily inventory of our speech). Genuine helpfulness, the text makes clear, requires that we speak plainly and honestly from a place of care rather than using our words as weapons. "Nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics" (p. 89) — and that work requires sincerity, not sarcasm.
Antonyms / Virtues
kindnesssinceritydirectnessencouragementrestraint of tongue
Victim thinking is a habitual interpretation of one's life events through the lens of being wronged, disadvantaged, or singled out for suffering. The person trapped in victim thinking attributes their problems primarily to external forces — other people, fate, society, God — rather than examining their own contribution. Victim thinking provides a temporary sense of moral superiority (we are innocent sufferers) while relieving us of the responsibility to change. It is ultimately self-defeating because it places our wellbeing permanently in the hands of forces we believe are against us.
Self-pity is excessive, self-absorbed sorrow over one's own troubles — a dwelling on misfortune that produces suffering without action or growth. The Big Book portrays the alcoholic as someone who has refined self-pity into a way of life: the sense of being uniquely wronged, singled out by an unfair fate, deserving of special understanding and sympathy that the world stubbornly withholds. Self-pity is paradoxically a form of pride: it insists that our suffering is more profound, our circumstances more unjust, and our burdens more unfair than those of the ordinary person. It is also deeply self-centered — in self-pity, all attention flows toward the self and its wounds, leaving no room for gratitude, service, or honest self-examination. The Big Book identifies self-pity as a direct precursor to relapse.
The Big Book's most direct remedy for self-pity is service: getting outside ourselves by helping another alcoholic invariably dissolves the self-absorption that self-pity requires. "Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics" (p. 89). Gratitude — actively counting the gifts already received — is the cognitive and spiritual counterweight to self-pity's catalog of grievances. The Promises on pages 83–84 describe the life of a person delivered from self-pity: one who knows freedom, happiness, and genuine usefulness.
Greed is an intense and selfish desire for something — especially wealth, power, food, or advantage — far beyond what one needs. It is selfishness expressed in the material and acquisitive dimension: the compulsion to accumulate, to have more than others, to never have enough. Greed is self-centeredness with a specific object; it converts everything — people, relationships, resources — into means for personal acquisition and hoarding.
The Big Book is unequivocal: "Selfishness — self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles" (p. 62). Selfishness is the orientation of a life around one's own comfort, pleasure, security, and esteem — a life driven by self-will rather than God's will. Every other defect on this list is, at some level, a specific expression of this central problem. We resent because others threaten our self-interest; we lie because the truth is inconvenient to us; we indulge because our appetites are paramount. Greed is selfishness in its most material form: the compulsion to acquire and hoard what we fear we will otherwise lack. The antidote is not willpower applied to individual defects but a fundamental reorientation — from self to God, from getting to giving.
The Big Book's remedy for selfishness is not less selfishness through effort — it is a complete psychic change: "God makes that possible" (p. 62). Step Three's decision is the structural foundation: turning will and life over to the care of God reorients the self away from its own center. "We had a new Employer" (p. 63). Service — working with other alcoholics, practicing the Twelfth Step — is the practical daily expression of the unselfishness that replaces self-centeredness as a way of life.
Mistrust is the absence of confidence in the reliability, honesty, or good intentions of another person — a default orientation toward doubt rather than faith in human relationships. Mistrust may be earned through genuine experience of betrayal, but in the alcoholic it often becomes a generalized stance toward the world, applied indiscriminately to people who have not earned it. Chronic mistrust prevents the open, vulnerable engagement that genuine relationship and spiritual growth require.
Suspicion is a habitual tendency to mistrust the motives and honesty of others without adequate cause — to assume hidden agendas, bad faith, or concealed ill will in the people around us. The Big Book identifies this as a product of the sick, self-centered mind that has been so often betrayed (and has so often betrayed) that it can no longer extend good faith. The alcoholic's suspicion is often partially self-referential: we distrust others because we know what we ourselves are capable of. Suspicion destroys the open trust that is essential to genuine sponsorship, to group membership, and to the relationship with a Higher Power. It also makes amends virtually impossible — we cannot sincerely engage with someone we are simultaneously suspicious of.
The Big Book prescribes faith — in God and in people — as the antidote to suspicion. Open-mindedness, listed among the essential spiritual principles, requires that we approach others without the predetermined verdict of suspicion. The process of making amends — going to people we have harmed and engaging honestly — is itself a trust-building exercise that gradually replaces suspicion with earned confidence. "We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves" (p. 84) — including restoring our ability to trust.
Antonyms / Virtues
trustfaithopen-mindednessgood faithconfidence in God