Two Kinds of Pride

Two Kinds of Pride

What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This RAW Recovery episode, "Two Kinds of Pride", centres on how pride can either wreck a person’s sobriety or help them grow into someone they actually respect.

Host Dion keeps things casual and honest from the start, joking about his cats’ late-night antics and his own stomach problems before getting into the serious stuff: how Alcoholics Anonymous talks about pride and why he doesn’t believe AA is the only answer for alcoholism. You’ll hear him challenge the idea that AA stands alone, saying flatly, "Aa is not the alpha omega for alcoholism. Sorry.

But it is not," and stressing the importance of therapists, doctors and other helpers alongside one alcoholic supporting another. The heart of the episode is a raw look at ego. Dion talks about the two extremes alcoholics often live in: "We either think we're the shit... or we think we're a piece of shit. And we're neither." He links this to self-righteousness, defiance, and the way people can use religion, intellect or AA itself to feel superior instead of honest.

Pride that shows off, he says, might look virtuous but often hides the need for attention and control. There’s a strong theme of humility as a practical tool, not a buzzword. Dion reads from AA literature on "two kinds of pride" and reflects on his own past, from being labelled a "precocious" kid to using alcohol and revenge as a way to cope with pain and bullying.

Now, he talks about deliberately pulling back those same intense traits so he doesn’t hurt "God’s children" and uses them to help instead. If you’re wrestling with ego, self-righteousness or feeling "less than" in recovery, this episode gives a blunt, funny, and very human look at how pride can be reshaped into character, service and a more balanced way of living. How might pride be showing up in your own recovery story?