Step 5

 

I always like to start each of these sections with a quick review because although I wrote each section in one sitting, it may be that you've been reading them each week, so its always a good practice to refresh our memory.

In Step 1 we learned that we had lost the power to choose whether we would drink, use drugs, gamble, or engage in other self-destructing behaviors. We were without power. Power-less.

In Step 2 we saw that we could not recover on our own power and that we would require the help of a Power greater than ourselves. I remember when I was working in a recovery house one of my clients asked me, "What do they mean by a power greater than ourselves?" and I replied, "They mean a power greater than ourselves."

In Step 3 we made a decision to place our will (our thoughts and our feelings) and our lives (our actions and our behaviors) under the care of whatever god we had chosen to believe in. And taking step three is like the learning of any new task, we get our best results by practice, practice, practice.

In Step 4 we learned what our defects of character were. We learned that we had often been selfish or dishonest or angry or inconsiderate or afraid or perhaps a combination of all the above. A point that I did not make in the previous essay but which I will make now is that alcohol does not cause alcoholism. Slot machines do not cause compulsive gambling. A job does not cause workaholism. And even in the case of drug addiction, marijuana or crack cocaine or oxycontin does not cause addiction. It is never the fault of the source, always the fault of the user. I would point out that in the case of an infant born addicted to heroin, that would be the exception to the rule.

It was our defects of character which were the primary cause of our drinking, and of our failure at life. That is a quote from AA literature, but not from the Big Book. That is from the book Twelve Steps Twelve Traditions. I may have started to drink as a result of peer pressure, but I continued to drink because of greed, pride, selfishness, etc.

Once we complete the inventory, we move on to the 5th Step (the second Action step). The step reads Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. The wrongs are, of course, our defects of character, the ones we discovered during the 4th step inventory process. Note that it says "the exact nature of". The nature of a thing is the character of it, not so much "what" we did, but "why" we did it.

I have learned that there are 3 types of relationships I need to build in order to live a happy and purposeful life. I need to establish a relationship with God, a relationship with myself, and a relationship with the people around me. I started to build a relationship with God in the 2nd and 3rd steps and a relationship with myself and the people around me during the 4th step. Now I continue to build these relationships by admitting my findings of the 4th step.

Admitting this stuff to God and to myself is fairly easy. It's the process of admitting it to another person or persons that poses a stumbling block to many of us. I was fortunate in that I met someone I knew I could trust with the deepest darkest parts of my story. It is recommended that you search your acquaintances for someone you can trust. Some people choose their doctor or a member of the clergy. And some people choose to take this step with their sponsor or, as they called them in the old days, their spiritual adviser.

The idea is that we use the information we discovered during our 4th step inventory and although we should disclose the things we did, it is, as previously stated, more important to talk about why we did what we did.

It took me approximately 1 hour to complete the first 3 steps, 1 hour to complete my 4th step inventory, and 2 hours to complete step 5. That's a total of 4 hours to complete 5 steps. I should point out that it took almost 4 years for me to start doing them. Those were not years of sobriety. Those were years of slipping and sliding, making a bit of progress, messing up, drinking, stopping, starting, stopping again. I know today that the reason I could not stay stopped is because I did not do these steps. I was suffering from untreated alcoholism. A common misconception is that all we need to do is stop drinking and everything will be okay. But if we do not identify the causes and conditions of our alcoholism (that we discover in step 4) and do not treat those conditions using the remaining steps, we will drink again. It is not a theory; it is a proven fact.

With that in mind, I suggest to anyone who may be suffering from alcoholism, addiction, or other forms of compulsive behaviors, that you treat your condition with whatever means works for you. For me, it is these steps. For you, it might be some other process.

In closing I would say that if you have admitted the exact nature of your wrongs to God, to yourself, and to another human being, then congratulations, you have taken step 5.