True Sainthood Is All About Being Real

“Folks who have no vices have few virtues.”

Abraham Lincoln

We all know people who have no vices, or rather, who pretend to have no vices. These people tend to be self-righteous, overly-critical and extremely judgmental. These are their key defense mechanisms. And these defense mechanisms are necessary because they mask the fact that these Fake Saints do indeed have vices.

Many addicts can identify with being a Fake Saint in one way or another because addiction causes us to cover our tracks through deceit. Codependents, especially those who are accommodators, are usually guilty of being Fake Saints. As Darlene Lancer notes in Conquering Shame and Codependency, “Because love is the highest ideal, an Accommodator strives to be a loving, lovable, charitable and selfless do-gooder—someone flawlessly noble and compassionate.”

In other words, codependent accommodators project a false self-image in order to earn their highest ideal—love. Prior to recovery, and even sometimes after, we feel compelled to put our best faces forward. Mostly we are compelled by our inner-shame over not being perfect. Since childhood so many of us have felt extremely defective. And our inner-shame has been heightened by the fact that adults, usually Mom or Dad, demanded that we be perfect. This left us caught in a trap. We needed to show the world that we were indeed perfect, flawless, selfless do-gooders and yet we were deeply ashamed of all of the personal flaws we were hiding.

This is when we developed the defense mechanism of becoming False Saints. It was necessary for our survival as children. We had to be perfect for Mom and Dad. But as we grew into adulthood, this defense mechanism made us hypercritical of others as a means of protecting our false sainthood. As a result, we lied when we made mistakes and we blamed others for our errors and faults. We looked for ways to belittle other people so that we could feel better about ourselves, and we hurt many people all for the sake of holding onto our false-image of being “folks who have no vices.”

In recovery, the 12 Steps teach us to be honest and truthful with ourselves. We are first forced to admit that we are powerless over ourselves and our own vices, including being overly independent and thinking that we had to suffer through all of this inner-conflict alone. So we learn to hand ourselves and our vices over to a Higher Power, who loves and empathizes with us. This Higher Power then helps us to come clean, to admit to our character defects and to take responsibility for them.

It is in owning our character defects and admitting that we are flawed that we cast aside our Fake Sainthood. We don’t need it anymore because we come to believe that it’s OK to be flawed (EVERYONE IS, right?) as long as we are willing to take responsibility for our flawed behavior and make amends.

It’s in the making of amends that we prove that we indeed have many virtues despite our vices. It is in being REAL—in admitting that we are imperfect and in taking responsibility for our errors-- that we become True Saints.