Step Five
ALL of AA's Twelve Steps ask us to go against our natural impulses—they all challenge our ego. When it comes to deflating our ego, few Steps are harder than Step Five. But hardly any Step is more essential for long-term sobriety and peace of mind.
Experience in AA has shown that people can't live alone with their pressing problems and the character defects that cause or worsen them. If you've shined the searchlight of Step Four across your life and it's revealed those experiences you'd rather forget, if you've come to understand how wrong thinking and actions have hurt you and others, then the need to stop carrying these tormenting ghosts by yourself becomes more urgent than ever. You have to talk to somebody about them.
But the fear and reluctance to do this is so intense that many AA members at first try to skip Step Five. People look for an easier way—which usually means making vague, relatively painless admissions that they were sometimes bad when they were drinking. Then, for good measure, they add dramatic descriptions of drinking behavior that their friends probably already know about anyway.
But about the things that really bother and burn them, they say nothing. Certain distressing or humiliating memories, they tell themselves, shouldn't be shared with anyone. These will remain their secret. Not a soul should ever know. They hope they'll go to the grave with them.
Yet if AA experience means anything at all, this is not only unwise—it's actually dangerous. Few confused attitudes have caused more trouble in recovery than holding back on Step Five. Some people can't stay sober at all; others will relapse periodically until they really clean house. Even AA old-timers, sober for years, often pay a heavy price for skimping on this Step. They tell how they tried to carry the burden alone; how much they suffered from irritability, anxiety, remorse, and depression; and how, unconsciously seeking relief, they would sometimes accuse even their best friends of the very character defects they themselves were trying to hide. They always discovered that relief never came from confessing other people's sins. Everyone had to confess their own.
This practice of admitting defects to another person is, of course, very old. It's been proven valuable in every era, and it's characteristic of all spiritually centered and truly religious people. But today, religion isn't the only advocate of this healing principle. Psychiatrists and psychologists point out the deep need every human being has for practical insight and knowledge of their own personality flaws, and for discussing them with an understanding and trustworthy person. As far as addicts are concerned, AA literature suggests going even further. Most AA members would say that without a fearless admission of their defects to another human being, they couldn't stay sober. It seems clear that the grace of God won't enter to remove destructive obsessions until people are willing to try this.
The Benefits of Step Five
What are people likely to get from Step Five? For one thing, they'll get rid of that terrible sense of isolation they've always had. Almost without exception, addicts are tortured by loneliness. Even before their drinking got bad and people began to avoid them, nearly all felt like they didn't quite belong. Either they were shy and didn't dare get close to others, or they were loud attention-seekers craving companionship but never really getting it—at least not in their minds. There was always that mysterious barrier they couldn't overcome or understand. It was like being actors on stage suddenly realizing they didn't know their lines. That's one reason they loved alcohol and drugs so much. They let them improvise. But even substances backfired on them—they were finally knocked down and left in terrified loneliness.
When people reach AA and for the first time in their lives stand among people who seem to understand, the sense of belonging is tremendously exciting. They think the isolation problem has been solved. But they soon discover that while they aren't alone anymore socially, they still suffer many of the old feelings of anxious separation. Until they have talked with complete honesty about their inner conflicts, and have listened to someone else do the same thing, they still don't belong. Step Five is the answer. It's the beginning of true connection with others and with God.
This vital Step is also how people begin to feel that they can be forgiven, no matter what they had thought or done. Often it's while working on this Step with their sponsors or spiritual advisors that they first feel truly able to forgive others, no matter how deeply they feel they had been wronged. Their moral inventory had convinced them that all-around forgiveness was desirable, but it's only when they firmly tackle Step Five that they inwardly know they'll be able to receive forgiveness and give it too.
Humility and Honesty
Another great benefit people can expect from confiding their defects to another human being is humility—a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in AA, it means a clear recognition of what and who they really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what they could be. Therefore, the first practical step toward humility must involve recognizing shortcomings. No defect can be corrected unless people clearly see what it is. But they have to do more than just see. The objective look at themselves they achieved in Step Four was, after all, only a look. All saw, for example, that they lacked honesty and tolerance, that they were sometimes attacked by self-pity or delusions of personal greatness. But while this was a humbling experience, it didn't necessarily mean they had actually acquired much real humility. Though now recognized, their defects were still there. Something had to be done about them. And they soon found that they couldn't wish or will them away by themselves.
More realism and therefore more honesty about themselves are the great gains people make through Step Five. As they took inventory, they began to suspect how much trouble self-deception had been causing them. This brought a disturbing thought: If all their lives they had more or less fooled themselves, how could they now be sure they weren't still deceiving themselves? How could they be certain that they had made a true catalog of their defects and had really admitted them, even to themselves? Because they were still bothered by fear, self-pity, and hurt feelings, it was likely they couldn't judge themselves fairly at all. Too much guilt and remorse might cause them to dramatize and exaggerate their shortcomings. Or anger and hurt pride might be the smoke screen they were hiding some defects behind while they blamed others for them. Possibly they were still handicapped by many liabilities, large and small, that they never knew they had.
It became obvious that a solitary self-evaluation, and admitting defects based on that alone, wouldn't be nearly enough. People would have to get outside help if they were really going to know and admit the truth about themselves—help from God and another human being. Only by discussing themselves completely, holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and accept direction could they start thinking straight, being genuinely honest, and developing real humility.
The Need for Another Person
Yet many still hesitate. They say, "Why can't 'God as we understand God' tell us where we've gone wrong? If the Creator gave us our lives in the first place, then God must know in every detail where we've messed up since. Why don't we make our admissions to God directly? Why do we need to bring anyone else into this?"
At this stage, the difficulties of trying to deal with God alone are twofold. Though people may at first be startled to realize that God knows everything about them, they get used to that quite quickly. Somehow, being alone with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as facing another person. Until they actually sit down and talk out loud about what they've hidden for so long, their willingness to clean house is still mostly theoretical. When they're honest with another person, it confirms that they've been honest with themselves and with God.
The second difficulty is this: what comes to people alone may be distorted by their own rationalization and wishful thinking. The benefit of talking to another person is that they can get direct feedback and advice on their situation, and there can be no doubt about what that advice is. Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times have people heard well-meaning individuals claim God's guidance when it was obvious they were seriously mistaken? Lacking both practice and humility, they had fooled themselves and were able to justify complete nonsense by claiming this was what God had told them. It's worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always check with friends or spiritual advisors about the guidance they feel they've received from God. Surely, then, a beginner shouldn't risk making foolish, perhaps tragic, mistakes in this way. While other people's comments or advice may not be perfect, they're likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance people may receive while they're still so inexperienced in connecting with a Power greater than themselves.
Choosing the Right Person
The next problem will be finding the person to confide in. Here people should be very careful, remembering that good judgment is a valuable quality. They may need to share facts about themselves that no one else should know. They want to talk with someone who is experienced, who has not only stayed sober but has been able to overcome other serious difficulties—difficulties perhaps like their own. This person may turn out to be their sponsor, but not necessarily. If they have high confidence in them, and their temperament and problems are similar, then such a choice will be good. Besides, their sponsor already has the advantage of knowing something about their situation.
Perhaps, though, their relationship with them is such that they'd only want to reveal part of their story. If this is the case, by all means do so, because they should make a beginning as soon as they can. It may turn out, however, that they'll choose someone else for the more difficult and deeper revelations. This person may be completely outside AA—for example, their clergy person or their doctor. For some, a complete stranger may prove the best choice.
The real tests are people's own willingness to confide and their complete confidence in the person they share their first accurate self-survey with. Even when they've found the right person, it often takes great determination to approach them. No one should say the AA program requires no willpower—here's one place they may need all they've got. Happily, though, chances are they'll be in for a very pleasant surprise. When their purpose is carefully explained, and the person they're confiding in sees how helpful they can really be, the conversation will start easily and will soon become eager. Before long, their listener may well tell a story or two about themselves that will put them even more at ease. Provided they hold back nothing, their sense of relief will build from minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their prison and miraculously vanish as soon as they're exposed. As the pain subsides, a healing peace takes its place. And when humility and serenity combine like this, something else of great importance is likely to happen. Many AA members, once agnostic or atheistic, report that it was during this stage of Step Five that they first actually felt the presence of God. And even those who already had faith often become conscious of God as they never were before.
This feeling of being at one with God and humanity, this emergence from isolation through the open and honest sharing of the terrible burden of guilt, brings people to a resting place where they can prepare themselves for the following Steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety.