Can someone please explain false pride to me?

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

Can someone please explain false pride to me?

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

This was actually a discussion during one of the meetings we had on the cruise ship. I originally did not see myself as having that much false pride because when I came into AA, my self esteem was so low, I could not identify having pride of any kind.

Now I recognize what it is. False pride overlaps with other phrases we have in AA such as terminal uniqueness and also egomaniac with an inferiority complex. For me, I had false pride in that I thought all my problems were worse than yours and everyone elses. I thought that because I was a counselor and had lots of education already, if I could not solve my own problems, it was pretty stupid and futile to go to a bunch of strangers in AA and think they might help. I shot down help that was really out there and isolated myself due to my disease and false pride of being "different" and suffering in ways I didn't believe anyone else was. Again, I believed nobody's experience matched mine and that was was "special" and different. That false pride was my excuse to drink. It's hard to imagine "pride" and "victim" being in the same sentence but I honestly think I took a false sense of pride out of being a martyr and a victim. Alcoholism took root in that and festered.

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

I also thought nothing I did was that bad because I spent my days helping disabled people or counseling kids.....AS IF that was an excuse to drive drunk, be a crappy loud drunk neighbor, a bad partner...and an emotionally crippled person.

The pride I had over my job was false cuz I also used that as an excuse to let myself do immoral things. All I ever was was doing my HPs work and I'm blessed to help others. I had it all wrong. I suffered through helping others and thought that was my prideful excuse for being a screw up.

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Yeppers that simply seems to address false pride regardless if it shows up as self pity or self grandeur...it aint real. ((((hugs)))) smile

Pythonpappy · MIP Old Timer

Hey Tasha, ... Here's what I learned:

Humility is true self-knowledge, the good with the bad. It is being able to be comfortable with who you actually are and not trying to pretend to be what you are not. It gives you pride when you have earned it by your talents and accomplishments and shame when you fall short. It accepts that you are far from perfect and keeps striving. It is honest.

False pride is presenting yourself to others (and yourself) as something you are not - a man without flaws. Joe Cool, always in the know. The smartest guy in the crowd always and never in doubt. It is pride not earned-style over substance. Not honest.

Humility is putting others value equal to or greater than your own
False pride is trying to seem humble in order to gain the attention of others. Many philanthropists suffer from false pride. For example the person who gave a lot of money to my school district for a new elementary school and then complained that they didn't include her middle initial in the name of the school.

Humility is the philanthropist who gave a ton of money to the local boys club with out leaving his name as the giver.

Also:

True pride has to do with acknowledging and respecting who you are and what you can do, without any outside confirmation or approval. False pride has to do with claiming that you are more than you believe you are, and that you know more than you believe you know. This kind of pride almost always requires outside confirmation or approval to cover up an inner feeling of inadequacy. Mind you, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with outside confirmation or approval. It's only a measure of false pride when you cannot feel any self respect without it. Another aspect of false pride is arrogance. This is when you pretend that you are better than others in ways that cannot be measured by skill. It is one thing to be better at a particular skill than anyone else, and it is quite another thing to require others to acknowledge that or to pretend that somehow your level of skill makes you a higher type of human being. You'll notice that I keep saying "pretend." This is because no matter how good a person is at acting superior, to the degree that he or she needs outside validation for the superiority that person is pretending. Someone with true pride may or may not be a superior person, but that doesn't matter to them.

found on the interenet ... it said it a lot better than I could have explained it ...

justadrunk · MIP Old Timer

Great - thanks!

lady eli · Senior Member

Whew! My wisdom-o-meter is all tapped out tonight, and I've got nothing.... I just want to thank you all for always helping me to feel so much better, and stretching my A.A. heart! :)

williamjine · Newbie

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