Many of us were "introverts" before we drank, that is one of the many reasons we did drink, or me at least, I was a very introverted child for the same reasons as Gonee, alcoholic father and 17 schools in 10 years, I spent much time alone, read, was gifted, when I started drinking I became outgoing and gregarious, I lost my fear of people, Isolating is considered unhealthy in recovery since it's our thinking that is at the root of our "problems" and when we isolate we start believing what our minds begin to tell us, the stories, what other people think of us etc we suffer from resentments that aren't real, fears that haven't happened, we believe what our minds tell us, and that is part of the slippery slope to eventual relapse, because that IS alcoholism, is a distortion of the reality around us.

The steps themselves are a series of socratic events, or questions that is designed to break the denial of the artificial world we create around ourselves that have allowed us to be so self destructive, even suicidal in our quest for relief, hence "the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism", that is why in How it Works it says "Many of us had tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely", unhealthy self justification and rationalization that occurs while we are introverts, even if surrounded by other people, that's why Bill refers to us as "actors", because we do project personas to protect ourselves, one of the most unhealthy "roles" we play in sobriety is the one of the introvert

Introversion comes from a variety of reasons, some healthy, some not-so healthy, one reason is found in the alcoholic family model

Lost Child
- no connection to family; brings relief to family by not bringing attention to the family; feels lonely; does not learn communication and relationship skills
- has much in common with scrapegoat -> neither feels very important
- disappears from the activity of the family
- sees much more than is vocalized
- reinforced for causing no problems
- build quiet lives on the edges of family life and are seldom considered in family decisions
- they hide their hurt and pain by losing themselves in the solitary world of short-term pleasure including excessive TV, reading, listening to music, drugs, object love, eating and fantasy
- favorite places for the lost child are in front of the T.V. as well as in his/her room
- due to the sedentary lifestyle, a lost child tends to have issues with weight
- as adults they feel confused and inadequate in relationships
- may end up as quiet loners with a host of secondary issues such as: sexuality problems, weight problems, excessive materialism, or heavy involvement in fantasy
Lost child's purpose: does not place added demands on the family system; he/she is low maintenance.

The Inner Characteristics of The Lost Child include:

Feels different; 

Feels like an outsider; 

Low self worth; 

Feels forgotten

Part of my recovery was to learn how to interact with others without the alcohol, I was in therapy and the therapist told me I had 2 seperate and distinct personalities, the "inner child" as it were, the quiet, introspective, introverted person, and the loud, gregarious outgoing part, and that I needed to learn how to incorperate the two personalities together because my "alcoholic" personality, my "outgoing" character had all my "power", all my "force of will", and that is one of the things our "fellowshipping" addresses, our "meetings after the meetings" etc, since remember, one of the "promises" in step 9 is "fear of people will be removed"

What is introversion? And how does it differ from extraversion?

Jung (1923) was one of the early leaders in the exploration of personality and is credited with developing the constructs of extraversion and introversion. He saw human behavior or habits as patterns and attempted to understand and explain differences in personality according to those unique and variable patterns. Although he focused primarily on sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling; introversion and extraversion were important components of his mental or psychological traits theory. Most people utilize elements of both introversion and extraversion in their daily lives; however there generally is a dominant personality trait that reflects best how the individual prefers to work or deal with the environment, especially in times of stress. The introvert's main focus is within his/her head, in the internal world of ideas and concepts; the extravert's primary focus is on the external world of people and activities (Myers & Myers, 1980). Such prefernces or personality traits impact many other elements such as perception, learning style, judgement, and sociological preferences (Meisgeier, Murphy & Meisgeier, 1989; Dunn & Dunn, 1978). Myers reminds us however that introverts typically hide their inner worlds and rarely let others into them, which may lead people to make erroneous decisions about them and their needs. Introverts get their energy from themselves and are drained by people; extraverts get their energy from other people and are drained by being alone.

Henjum (1982) sees introverts as belonging to two distinct groups:

Group A: Self-sufficient, confident, hardworking, with firm goals, self-actualizing, reserved, preferring activities that involve inner experience and introspection; and

Group B: Shy, timid, withdrawn with low self-concept, lacking in communication skills, demonstrating fear of people, dread of doing things in front of others, who prefer being left alone.

One can only conjecture whether or not some of the elements in Group B are a result of being constantly criticized for not being more social or more outgoing. Since most individuals belong to the extravert category (3 to 1), being introverted commonly means being misunderstood, just like giftedness!

This is not to say however that introversion cannot be a problem. It is similar to perfectionism in that a little is beneficial and too much is harmful. Some things to look for:
· When the individual has no friends and spends all their time alone but not by choice.
· When the individual is depressed about having no friends.
· When the individual refuses to work with others for any reason.
· When the individual demonstrates marked behavior changes (marked weight loss or gain, sleeps much more or less, physical distress, withdrawal, etc.)

All of these warrant immediate attention by a psychologist, counselor, or another appropriate caregiver. Commonly it is not the introversion that causes these but it may be a general inability to make and keep friends that does it. Social skills can be learned and such training is appropriate even for gifted individuals.

 Today part of my "recovery" is actually embracing both my "inner geek" the one who likes Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings, and my "cool dude" character, the persona that drinking allowed me to adopt to become 2 seperate and distinct parts of my identity, if I drift too far into one or the other, I suffer repercussions, too far "inside" and my reality becomes distorted and I become afraid of others, when I become afraid to talk to others for fear of rejection, or fear of boring them, I know I have drifted too far back into my "old ideas" and I need to get off my ass and get a little more active in my program, because I get to where I am afraid to go outside even, and too far extrovert and I alienate my close friends because I become "the actor" and become disconnected with my inner emotional life, I have to keep a balance

Gonee is from South Africa, just FYI, he's no American, alcoholism and personality traits are there regardless of nationality, and while stereotypes might be true in a broad sense, more often they are wrong, if I started calling Chinese "inscrutable, or mexicans "lazy" or Blacks "dishonest" I would find myself in trouble and wrong pretty fast, people are people generally speaking, with all of us having the full spectrum of personality traits

I made a mistake in trying to explain introversion and it's possible healthy and unhealthy aspects in AA and Recovery both from documentation and my own experience, I have no interest in getting in a debate about cultural differences nor do I have a position to defend, I was simply trying to be helpful and I was kind of trying to save you from yourself from applying "The stereotypical American paintbrush" to a man from South Africa

Gonee Thank you for your share and for sticking to your experience strength and hope and how your childhood and alcoholism affected your introversion and how you recovered from it, it matches my experience exactly, working the steps with a sponsor, incorporating them into my life, working them with sponsees, and then being involved with outside activities such as the meeting after the meeting and getting involved with service work, speaking to newcomers, asking newcomers out to coffee etc helped me with the unhealthy aspects of my introversion and also allowed me to be comfortable with the healthy aspects and develop those further, since selfishness and self centeredness is the root of all our problems, and when I isolate I get to think about me all the time, I get to be the most important thing in the universe, it was clear to me how unhealthy this was for me, reaching out to others and helping others helped me with this very much...when I'm introverted it's "I'm not much but I'm all I think about" and when I am healthy there is a balance, and I think about those around me and my impact on them, and I'm not so incredibly self centered, and as you point out, not so sensitive since I am no longer the center of the universe, but part of it, resentments have much less soil in which to bury themselves, especially those of the imaginary variety

The program works if you work it, thank you for being an example of that Gonee