There is a person we imagine we might become who seems to have everything figured out. They have the right career, the right relationship, the right body, or the confidence we have always admired in others. Perhaps they are successful, desirable, spiritually mature, or finally comfortable with themselves. We may have spent years working toward some version of this person, believing that when we arrive, something about our lives will settle. We will no longer wonder whether we are good enough or fear that someone might discover something less appealing about us. Yet no matter how close we come to the person we hoped to become, the certainty we expected seems to remain just beyond our reach.

We commonly interpret this disappointment as evidence that we have not gone far enough. We need to become more accomplished, more attractive, more disciplined, or more desirable. Perhaps another achievement, another relationship, or another opportunity to demonstrate our worth will finally provide what the last one could not. The things we pursue may be genuinely valuable. Success can bring satisfaction, relationships can offer love, and developing our abilities can improve our lives. But these things become complicated when we begin expecting them to answer a question they cannot finally settle.

We do not simply want the thing. We want what having the thing will allow us to believe about ourselves.

This wish begins within our earliest relationships. We discover who we are through the people whose affection and recognition matter most. We begin imagining the person we would need to become to occupy a secure place in their desire. Perhaps being responsible brings approval, being agreeable protects affection, or being successful promises the admiration we have long wanted. We may eventually come to believe that this is our truest self precisely because it seems to be the self another would most completely desire.

But another person's desire is never entirely transparent to us. We can imagine what they want, and we may organize our lives around that imagination, but we cannot finally become the answer to everything they desire. Even when they love us deeply, their love does not eliminate the contradictions, disappointments, and uncertainties that belong to being human. We may be loved while feeling unlovable, admired while doubting ourselves, or successful while fearing that the next disappointment will expose us.

The second Step of Alcoholics Anonymous concerns coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. In 12 Steps: Do They Go Up or Down?, I approach this through the question of where we have located power. We may attribute extraordinary power to a relationship, accomplishment, substance, institution, reputation, or spiritual identity. If this person loves me, I will be lovable. If these people respect me, I will be respectable. If I finally become this person, I will be whole.

The image begins promising something it cannot deliver.

Addiction can become entangled with this search for relief, although addiction cannot be explained solely through the desire for recognition. Substances affect the body and brain, and dependence often requires medical care, treatment, and recovery support. Yet we can also become curious about what a particular substance has come to mean within someone's life. What does it temporarily quiet? What experience becomes easier to tolerate? What happens when the person who has spent all day appearing capable, desirable, or dependable can no longer maintain that familiar image?

Recovery itself can become involved in the same difficulty. Someone may imagine that sobriety will finally make them the person they were meant to be. They picture themselves as dependable, wise, healthy, and free from the contradictions that once troubled them. These aspirations may be encouraging, but the recovering person remains human. They may still experience anger, loneliness, envy, and disappointment. If sobriety has been asked to produce a completed self, ordinary difficulties can become frightening reminders that the hoped-for transformation has not arrived.

The second Step offers a different possibility. The help we receive need not become another image that establishes our worth. A sponsor, therapist, recovery community, spiritual relationship, or medical treatment may sustain our lives without providing a final answer to who we are. We can receive help without becoming helpless and depend upon others without requiring them to complete us.

The image is powerless to save me because it cannot give me the fullness I have been asking of it. It may help me imagine possibilities, recognize something about myself, and pursue meaningful changes. But it cannot guarantee that I will be completely loved, finally understood, or permanently secure in another person's desire.

Perhaps sanity begins when we stop asking the image to accomplish what it cannot do. We can continue wanting love and recognition without demanding that they provide a completed self. We can live meaningfully without waiting to become the ideal person whose arrival we have anticipated for so long. The image may remain part of our experience, but it no longer needs to carry the impossible responsibility of making us whole.