No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others (AA 84).

Before recovery, I tried to appear squeaky clean. I tried to hide my mistakes and my whole shadow side. Nothing was ever my fault. I would point out someone else’s weaknesses as a smokescreen, but I never drew attention to my own. I was alternately in denial or in despair about my character defects and the hopelessness of my life.

When I entered recovery, I found something in meetings which sustained me and felt good. It was only later that I identified this as honesty. People were actually leading with their weakness and it was a healing force. I discovered that I more strongly identify and bond with people through common weakness than through common strength. This has been shown to me repeatedly in Fifth Steps, in amends, in newcomer meetings and in Twelfth Step calls. I am much more useful in this world as a broken human being than I ever was as a “perfect” one.

God, help me to see and believe that my faults do not make me worthless.