From Alcoholics Anonymous
Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
My first year in AA I mostly wanted to hurry up and get through the 12 Steps as though I could then pronounce myself healed and get on with my life. In meetings, when I heard people explaining the folly of their having held this very belief – and agreed with their logic – deep inside I knew it didn’t apply to me. I was different. Terminally unique as we say in the cult.
Early on that first year I was anxious to start Step Four, my personal inventory. This was the first real assignment – a written exam - where I could demonstrate my superior intelligence and understanding of the task at hand. I knew I could excel at this.
My sponsor had to remind me several times that he would let me know when I was ready. Damn control freak. Eight or nine months into my sobriety he finally told me I was ready and I should start writing my Step Four inventory. At that point I put on the brakes. I had thought it all out in my head. It was as good as done, and I had done a terrific job of it – in my head. Why should I have to take the time to write it down? Of course I didn’t tell my sponsor this, but it’s the closest I can come to describing the process of being anxious to complete the task until I was actually told to complete it, then being almost incapable of making myself complete it. A pattern which was, and continues to be, very common in my life.
A couple of months later my sponsor gave me a hard and fast deadline for Step Four completion – which only had to be extended once.
The morning after completing Step Five (an excruciating review of the Step Four inventory with my sponsor) I set aside an hour or so to sit peacefully near a quiet duck pond near our house. I reviewed my written Step Four and what had transpired during Step Five. Being a good analyst I made a list of my character defects. A shortcomings hit list, if you will. Next I read Steps Six and Seven then looked back at the hit list. Well, of course I was entirely ready to have those defects removed. What a grotesque collection of attributes. There was absolutely no problem humbly asking the god of my (mis)understanding to remove those shortcomings. I said the Seventh Step prayer*. And I really meant it…to the best of my understanding…
In retrospect, if there had been a flash of lightning and my character defects had all been completely removed at that moment, it would have been like having all of my bones removed. I would have fallen to the ground into a quivering, shapeless mass of humanity. My character defects were just about all that was holding me together.
It is now a year and a half later. I have still not done Step Eight. But in the meantime, as has been partially catalogued on this blog, I have continued to enjoy, wallow in, and even refine, some of my character defects. At the same time I have put forth a concerted effort to eradicate many of those same defects. But I have not progressed to Step Eight. My sponsor stands ready to go over the list with me, but he has left it up to me to make the appointment. It has been made once then cancelled by me.
Over the past month or so at least three quarters of the AA meetings I have attended have been Step Six and/or Step Seven meetings…a coincidence I’m sure. A fact also coinciding with my developing a much deeper understanding of Six and Seven…particularly the word “entirely” in Step Six and the fact that these steps do not require me to work tirelessly to eradicate my character defects. They only require me to be honestly, completely...entirely...and humbly ready to have them removed. Not work really hard to remove them, but have them removed. Of course it probably wouldn’t hurt if I put forth a little effort – but the key is willingness not relentless action. And it's up to me neither which ones are removed nor when or even if they are removed.
Sometimes it’s a lot easier to hammer away at life frantically and desperately than it is to wait, contemplate, ask sincerely then let go and be patient. OK, for me not “sometimes.” Always. Up until now.
Have a great day.
Flip
* Seventh Step Prayer, page 76, Alcoholics Anonymous:
"My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen."
