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I read Step Six at a meeting the other day. Step Six says “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” I noticed within a few sentences, there is a line that says “any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step Six on all his faults—without any reservations whatever—has indeed come a long way spiritually.”
A few things jumped out at me.
One thing is that “without any reservations whatever” is in italics. Any time in recovery literature that italics are used, I always think, “Holy s**t, they’re serious about this.”
In this case, it’s the idea that you wholeheartedly ask something beyond yourself for assistance in removing all character defects. I fall into the trap of asking my higher power to take away something that is causing me pain… and then I take it back six hours later.
The second thing I noticed is the word “repeatedly.” I actually sat up in my seat a little bit when we read that. I like its honesty. I had this idea—and still have it sometimes—that the steps are like college credits, where you do them and you get a certificate and you move on. You did it! I never contemplated the idea that you do the work and find some relief… and then you do the work over and over again. You have to find the relief repeatedly.
I should have sat with that earlier in my recovery, because I often find many of my character defects and resentments are not new. I have a notebook that I use for Fourth Step work, and I have flipped back and seen that a year ago, or three years ago, I was working through the same issues with my wife or kids or work. I would get disheartened by that because I still cling to the idea that some of my character defects will just… poof!!! away into the universe.
The truth is, that word, repeatedly, is key. I have found that when I work hard on a character defect, I find some serenity and do less of it. But then I start to slide because I let off the gas. I am not remembering the “repeatedly” part of things.
I’ll give you a good example. Once a month, I get overcome by a feeling that I talk too much. I don’t think I am obnoxious—you’d have to ask my friends and family if that is actually the case—but I like to chop it up. I like to hear about your life and tell you about mine. I tell myself that that is good, that I am an open and honest person, that I can’t be as sick as my secrets if I don’t have secrets.
However, I get bummed out about that occasionally because I catch myself losing spirituality the more that I talk. The more I talk, the more likely that I am going to say something I shouldn’t have, to brag, to gossip, to trash talk someone, to get into an argument, to say something that hurts someone (accidentally or otherwise), to step into some issue that I didn’t need to, miss something important that you said to me, and so on. It is a slippery slope from being a chatty person to just being a loudmouth who has spirituality draining out of him like there is a hole in my soul.
So the issue here is, I need to take action every single day, sometimes every single hour, to reverse that. It is not just going to vanish. There is no Genie in a lamp that I can ask to grant me a wish of shutting the hell up. I need to do it repeatedly, and without reservation.
One thing that I find helpful is actually writing it down. I write down on a Post-It that I will see every day that I want my words to be truthful, useful, kind and timely. So every word out of my mouth has to be those four things.
Do I actually nail those four things? No. Do I do better when I attack it repeatedly? Yes, I do. Do I still wish for that Genie to come along and shut me up? Yes… but the Post-It helps for now.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A DRUNK POPPED HIS HEAD into, the Hollywood AA group meeting at the writers' roundtable in the Hollywood hotel.
"Is it true," he hiccupped, "that you guys ain't got any names?"
(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 1946)
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