Don't Confuse Symptoms and Camouflage Symptoms with Root Causes

Don't Confuse Symptoms and Camouflage Symptoms with Root Causes

A fundamental principle of an AA-led recovery is the concept of taking a personal inventory of yourself. It’s so central, I’ve built it into one of the three tactical eyes of the Trinity Lens I use to view the Twelve Steps.

The three eyes are:
1.     Powerlessness – Steps 1 and 2
2.     Inventory – Steps 4 and 10
3.     Surrender – Steps 3, 5–9, 11–12

Inventory covers two AA steps:
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step 4 is the deep dive. Step 10 is the continual scan—a concept I call “for the term of your natural life.” Deep, wide, continual inventory has been one of the key success factors in my recovery. Because if you do it properly, it uncovers the primary root cause that drives the drinking.

AA doesn’t use that phrase—root cause. AA was born in 1939. That same year, Kaoru Ishikawa was building root cause frameworks for the Japanese Navy. Akron, Ohio and New York weren’t taking advice from Japanese naval engineers. And the Japanese weren’t offering it either. They were building aircraft carriers to launch Zero fighters into kamikaze missions—awakening the largest tiger the world had ever seen, sleeping in Pearl Harbor.

AA was still using the word defects—a term that appears in other steps, though not explicitly in Steps 4 and 5.

Inventory isn’t just about listing sins. It’s about identifying defects—yes—but also strengths. And those double-edged sword strengths that, if left unbalanced, become liabilities. But for now, I want to talk about a common inventory analysis trap AAers fall into: the symptom trap.

We’re not trying to inventory symptoms. We’re trying to inventory weaknesses—or defects, in AA speak—that point to the underlying root cause of why people drink.

Drinking isn’t the disease. It’s the loudest, most punished, most misunderstood symptom. The rituals like lying, omitting, and hiding aren’t the root cause either—they’re camouflage systems designed to protect the drinker from confronting the deeper fracture. The real root cause defect lives upstream. And unless you name it, you’ll keep treating smoke while the fire burns on.

Todd drinks 30 cans a night in the RV. That’s the visible symptom. But the rituals—watching ESPN alone because his wife prefers Bridgerton, lying about how much he drinks, cleaning the RV to justify being there, dodging social invites, drinking on the commute, hiding empties, withdrawing cash to avoid bank trail visibility, mowing the lawn at 11am just to drop six cans from the shed fridge—those are tactical evasions. They’re the smoke patterns. Not the fire.

I’m not naming your root causes. Because I can’t. You do you. I’ll do me. I won’t give you root cause ideas to emulate. Because if I do, you’ll twist them into borrowed profundity—just enough to get your wife and your mother off your back until your next blackout drinking session. You’ll say things like “It’s because Dad left when I was seven” or “It’s because I was bullied in Year 9.” Maybe those are true. Maybe they’re not. But if you didn’t excavate them yourself, they’re just emotional cosplay.

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember one of the biggest character emulators of the ’80s. Forty minutes after watching Rocky, there were guys running up city hall stairs in hoodies, praying for sweat to flick off their face just as they passed the blonde girl. Trying to emulate Rocky Balboa. But Rocky had a mission. Most don’t. They weren’t chasing transformation. They were performing transformation.

If you don’t find your own root cause, you’ll also be performing transformation—like a severely overweight guy treating 15 burritos a day with Ozempic and calling it recovery. You’ll keep hiding hamburger takeout containers, Googling thyroid disorders, and blaming low testosterone—when the real issue is that you haven’t exercised in nine years and you’ve been intravenously feeding on estrogen via Chick-fil-A. Recovery isn’t a rebrand of symptoms. It’s a rebuild of emotional architecture to prevent recurrence of root causes.

AA’s use of “defect of character” is a semantic landfill. It’s not their fault—remember, the phrase root cause didn’t exist in 1939. But it flattens the cause and symptom hierarchy. Primary root cause. Level 2 root causes—stress, anxiety, trauma, control complexes. Level 2 symptoms—rituals, evasions, camouflage. Level 1 symptom—drinking. Even top-tier minds get trapped. Because the language doesn’t separate the cause layers from the symptom layers.

Surgeons don’t treat symptoms. They cut out the defect. They ask: What part failed? What caused the failure? What can be repaired, replaced, or removed? They’re mechanical engineers with scalpels. GPs? Often stuck in Western symptom management—using medication to treat depression, anxiety, pain, skin conditions, and blood markers like cholesterol. All of these symptoms have a root cause somewhere, but many doctors have given up looking. Write a script and make the symptom disappear. Recovery needs surgical thinking, not stage director coaching to fine-tune drinking and camouflage optics.

When I came to AA, I said I drank because of stress and anxiety. That was true—but those weren’t the primary root cause. They were Level 2 causes. The primary root cause was my Master of the Universe complex. I believed I could bend reality to my will. That hubris worked in chaos. At home, it was nuclear. Morning vodka wasn’t a choice or a cause. It was a system response to a broken belief system—about what I could actually control and what I thought I could control.
And yes—I had Todd’s symptoms and camouflage rituals. Just dressed in upper-middle-class logistics. Whiskey instead of beer. Airport lounges and hotels instead of an RV out the back. Seven bottle shops a week to avoid recognition. Covid lockdowns removed the ability to control the camouflage. No travel. Everything was on full display.

Love him or hate him, Trump has clear language. I never offer advice to my fellow AA travellers unless I’m asked. But there are many AAers who, if they asked me “What am I not getting?”—I wouldn’t give them a lecture. I’d give them the Trump line: Lying and hiding your wine bottles in the shoe cupboard isn’t a root cause defect. It’s a camouflage symptom. That’s not oversimplification. That’s strategic clarity. Because only 20% can hold the full diagnostic tree that makes up the layered causes and symptoms used by 1.25 million successful companies worldwide. So I speak to the 80% with clean logic and tactical language.

AA wasn’t wrong in using the word “defect.” It was pre-root cause thinking. The phrase didn’t exist. And if the phrase doesn’t exist, it’s almost impossible to think about the concept. Try this: ทำไมสุนัขจึงเห่า? Unless you speak Thai, you’re clueless. You don’t have the language to even think about the question, let alone answer it.
But if I say, “Why did the dog bark?” You picture a dog. You imagine it barking. Then you scan the surroundings to work out the potential root causes—was it a stranger, a storm, a knock at the door?

Language unlocks logic. And AA didn’t have the language to unlock root cause thinking. So they couldn’t write it into the Steps.

But now?
We have the tools.
We have the language.
We have the DeLorean.
Put the Steps in the car.
Drive them to 2025.
Let’s upgrade the operating system.

A strong advocate for freedom, limited government, and enterprise-driven progress, Jason also draws deeply from his personal recovery journey—an experience that reshaped his life and fuels his commitment to growth, contribution, and principled living. Through writing, speaking, and service, he continues to learn, share, and speak with purpose.

I can be engaged (on a remunerated or volunteer basis) to sit on Boards, Committees, Advisory and Reference Group Panels, and to speak to Business, Community, and Youth groups. I’m also open to providing comment to media on topics where I have relevant experience or insight. Please feel free to make contact.