PRIDE

Definition of Pride:
Consciousness of one’s own dignity.

Synonyms of Pride:
Delight, dignity, honour, self-respect, ego, self-regard, etc.

These notes are from recovery in AA and/or related 12 step programs.
Readers are encouraged to click external links for more detail.
We hope you find them helpful.
Love in fellowship.

Pride has two faces: one healthy and one sick. Sick pride fills us with ourselves, and has no room for generosity. Healthy pride is heavy with humility. –Today’s Gift | More…

Each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. Pride is essentially competitive – it is competitive by nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so as to speak, by accident. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone. –CS Lewis/Mere Christianity | More… (p.123)

Pride is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress.
Pride lures us into making demands upon ourselves or upon others which cannot be met without perverting or misusing our God-given instincts. –As Bill Sees It | More… (p.12)

Pride always means enmity – it is enmity. As long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you –CS Lewis/Mere Christianity | More… (p.125)

Pride is spiritual cancer; it eats up every possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense. –CS Lewis/Mere Christianity | More… (p.125)

Pride is an essential ingredient in the receipt of life. It comes from an inner sense of well-being, from knowing we have done the best we could under difficult conditions. –One More Day | More…

Pride can be either sick or healthy. It’s sick pride that keeps us in bondage to alcohol. It’s healthy pride that emerges when we have high self-esteem. –Walk In Dry Places/Mel B. | More…

Pride is still a big obstacle because it keeps me isolated from people.
It emphasizes the difference between me and the world, rather than the commonality.

Pride keeps me a prisoner of my ego and develops that cruel and sadistic streak in my nature that I know exists. Pride stops me being grateful because it keeps me too focused on what I am doing and I miss the beauty and splendour of my life.

Pride keeps my nose pushed against the picture so I cannot see the portrait! –Father Leo | More…

We scarcely need to be reminded that excessive guilt or rebellion leads to spiritual poverty. But it was a very long time before we knew we could go even more broke on spiritual pride.

When we early AAs got our first glimmer of how spiritually prideful we could be, we coined this expression: “Don’t try to get too damned good by Thursday!” That old-time admonition may look like another of those handy alibis that can excuse us from trying our best.

Yet a closer view reveals just the contrary. This is our AA way of warning against pride-blindness, and the imaginary perfection’s that we do not possess. –The Language of the Heart p.255 | More…

Pride always means enmity – it is enmity. As long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you –CS Lewis/Mere Christianity p.125

Meaning well, yet doing badly, how often have I said or thought, ‘I am right and you are wrong, I have God’s guidance, so He is on my side. And so on.

The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified. –AA Co-Founder, Bill W., June 1961/”Humility for Today,”/The Language of the Heart