Soulshine

“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 s...

“Folks who have no vices have few virtues.” Abraham Lincoln It’s important to own our vices. In recovery, we refer to them as “character defects,” which seems a bit harsh to me. I’m not sure that there’s a nicer word for them. We could refer to them as “vices” or “flaws,” I suppose. But the truth is that they are the imperfections that emerge from our dark side. Every human being has a “light” side and a “dark” side. We are all part Dr. Jekyll and part Mr./Ms. Hyde. And we need to accept this fact. There is no such thing as a perfect person. No one is all light-- and no one is all darkness. What we often don’t understand is that light and darkness need each other. Think about a flashlight. Flashlights are worthless on a bright sunny day. It’s impossible to tell if the flashlight is on or off in the midst of sunlight. A flashlight is dependent upon darkness to make its light seen—and so are we. When we work Step 4 of the 12 Steps, it gives us the opportunity to r...