title: Humility and 12-Step Recovery: A Prolegomenon for the Empirical Investigation of a Cardinal Virtue in Alcoholics Anonymous.
abstract: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) offers a live stage to study how humility is worn by thousands for another day of sobriety and more freedom from the bondage of self. It has been the coauthors' intent to emphasize the significance of humility as a cardinal virtue across the 12-Step program and as essential to all its key elements. The coauthors have placed this emphasis in the context of a wider theological history of thought as this converged on Bill W. and AA. In addition, the coauthors have offered a constructive developmental interpretation of the 12 Steps that relies on a model of four modulations of humility. Finally, the coauthors have reviewed in brief some approaches to the measurement of humility in this context, and suggest several aims for future research.
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, Stony Brook, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Post
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: Maria E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Pagano
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Program for Prosocial Behavior, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Byron R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Johnson
keywords: 12-Step recovery; Alcoholics Anonymous; humility; virtue