We saw we needn’t always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility. It could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering (12&12 75).

Before working the Steps, I thought humble meant humiliated. I thought it meant being embarrassed, feeling less than, angry, and losing my self-respect. If a task was too big for me, I was too small to be worthwhile. I learned that I was less than I should be, that there was something wrong with me.

I didn’t see any point or advantage in being humiliated. My shame drove me to construct an inflated self-image to counter my negative self-image. I couldn’t be wrong or imperfect or normal without being totally worthless. I had an overwhelming fear of being human.

Working the Steps helped me see that it was okay to be me. There were many things that I couldn’t do under my own power, and that was not only okay, it was the way things worked—the way it was supposed to be. I learned that humble meant seeing things as they really are, that some things in life really are too big for me; that I need to rely on a Higher Power, that I need to be open to learning.

This gift of humility that I got from working the Steps and that I try to live one day at a time, frees me to be who I am, rather than who I thought I should be. I am a person who has some strengths, some weaknesses, some likes, some dislikes, and some desires. Ultimately I am worthwhile and worthy of respect because I am a person.

My Higher Power is willing to teach me to see the world in a different way, and to make me useful. All I have to do is ask.