'Everyone makes an ego or a self for himself, which is subject to enormous variation because of its instability. He also makes an ego for everyone else he perceives, which is equally variable.' (A Course In Miracles)
So I got help. Great! I got out from the Great Giant Thumb of the ego everyone else had foisted on me. Free at last!
So, what did I do? I fostered my own! It was a bit better, admittedly, than the wholly unsuitable hand-me-down one, which was chiefly there to serve others' egos. Now I could serve myself. Yippee!
Except. Wind the tape forward a few years, and whaddayaget? Oh, alcoholism, addiction, multidirectional driven-ness, and riveting self-centredness.
I was actually no better off. In some ways, I was worse off, because now there was no one left to blame. You're really screwed then.
At some point, I gave up. The point is not to learn to work with ego, giving it the occasional haircut and trying to teach it Aristotelian logic. DAT DON'T WORK, BUDDY.
Drop it. Drop it like it's hot. The aim? Forget myself COMPLETELY and dissolve into the world. That's what the Steps are about. Trans-bloody-cendence.