"If temperamentally we are on
the depressive side, we are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We
wallow in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of
it. As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point
of despair that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution. Here, of
course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For
this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very
process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and
extinction."
1952, AAWS, Inc.; Printed
2005;
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pg.
45