We use some business analogies in AA.  We have our personal, moral inventory; we call our positive traits assets and our negative ones liabilities; we refer to bankruptcy and a “rapacious creditor.”  We read lines like:

“A continuous look at our assets and liabilities….”

“Here we cast up a balance sheet, crediting ourselves with things well done, and chalking up debits where due.”

If y’know a little about bookkeeping, you know even folks outside AA take some liberties with the metaphor.  You know credits aren’t necessarily good or debits bad—it depends on the account.  And you know the “accounting equation” is usually missing one vital part: equity. 

If you don’t know about bookkeeping, equity is really everybody’s favorite part of the equation, whether they know it or not.  The real-life equation goes: assets = liabilities + equity.

When you list—inventory—all the stuff you have—your assets—you might find things on that list you still owe for—like your car.  The car is your asset; you can drive it most anywhere you want, anytime you want.  As long as you keep up the payments.  Stop payin on it, and pretty soon you stop drivin it, too, cause they take it away.  Even though it’s your asset, it’s also your liability.  That car loan, the amount you owe on it, is your liability.  You’re liable to pay it, or you’re liable to lose your ride. 

Once you pay the car off, it’s all your equity.  Whatever you sell or trade it for is all yours; it’s money—equity—in the bank.  Well, money on the street, really, which isn’t quite as safe, but that’s another story.  Anyway, it’s still your asset.  Asset before you paid it off—when it was liability—and asset after you paid it off—when it’s equity.

Four of the Steps (Five, Six, Seven, Ten) mention our character liabilities—that’s one third of the whole Program.  Zero of the Steps mention our character equity, what some folks call “character E-fects:” the parts that are effective, as opposed to the ones we have to make amends for.  This focus is only proper considering the state our “business” is in when we start the Program: swimming in red ink—bankrupt—broke.  Each day more loss.

I heard a silly rhyme about the inventory process: “name it, claim it, tame it.”  If I just say I got a closet fulla stuff, that ain’t naming.  But if I look inside, and deny some things are in there, I’m not claiming.  Whatever I don’t claim ownership of—equity—is a liability.  It’s gotta be one or the other; that’s how assets are.

Once I claim it, I have a hold on it (equity); it doesn’t have a hold on me (liability).  It’s tame.  I get to sell it, trade it, give it away, and I’m not liable to anybody for it.

The word equity comes from Latin for fair or even.  Turns out, I’m much more even-tempered and fair-minded about the character traits I claim, than the ones I reject.  Liable comes from Latin ligare, to bind.  One way or another, it seems I’m always bound to and by the parts of my character I refuse to claim.

None of this is to say, of course, that addiction or recovery can be reduced to a financial statement.  Words and numbers are just ways of describing the world.  They’re already once-removed from the actual thing; when we use the description of one thing to help describe something else, we’re twice-removed; go too far down analogy road and we end up in Ridiculousville: What’s the price-to-earnings ratio of your shortcomings’?  Your character defects’ amortization schedule?

Nah, it’s got nothin to do with business.  It’s just when we take stock of ourselves, we figure out we profit by a spiritual awakening.  That’s the bottom line.