Step Six

"THIS is the Step that separates the men from the boys." So says a beloved clergy member who happens to be one of AA's greatest friends. He goes on to explain that any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try Step Six repeatedly on all their faults—without any reservations whatever—has indeed come a long way spiritually, and therefore deserves to be called someone who is sincerely trying to grow in the image and likeness of their Creator.

Of course, the often-debated question of whether God can—and will, under certain conditions—remove character defects will be answered with a strong yes by almost any AA member. To them, this won't be theory at all; it will be about the biggest fact in their life. According to AA literature, they'll usually offer their proof in a statement like this:

"Sure, I was beaten, absolutely defeated. My own willpower just wouldn't work on alcohol. Changing locations, the best efforts of family, friends, doctors, and clergy got nowhere with my addiction. I simply couldn't stop drinking, and no human being seemed able to do the job for me. But when I became willing to clean house and then asked a Higher Power, God as I understood God, to give me freedom, my obsession to drink vanished. It was lifted right out of me."

In AA meetings all over the world, statements just like this are heard daily. It's obvious to everyone that each sober AA member has been granted freedom from this very stubborn and potentially fatal obsession. So in a very complete and literal way, all AA members have "become entirely ready" to have God remove the addiction from their lives. And God has proceeded to do exactly that.

Why Other Defects Are Different

Having been granted perfect freedom from addiction, why then shouldn't we be able to achieve the same kind of perfect freedom from every other difficulty or defect? This is a puzzle of our existence, and the full answer may be known only to God. Nevertheless, at least part of the answer is clear to us.

When people pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they're committing a very unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation, they seem bent on self-destruction. They work against their own deepest instinct. As they're humbled by the terrible beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession. Here their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their Creator's desire to give them new life. For nature and God alike reject suicide.

But most of our other difficulties don't fall into this category at all. Every normal person wants, for example, to eat, to reproduce, to be somebody in their community. And they want to be reasonably safe and secure as they try to achieve these things. Indeed, God made them that way. God didn't design humans to destroy themselves with alcohol, but gave humans instincts to help them stay alive. It's nowhere evident, at least in this life, that our Creator expects us to fully eliminate our instinctual drives. As far as we know, it's nowhere on record that God has completely removed from any human being all their natural drives.

Since most of us are born with plenty of natural desires, it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or appropriate, that's the point where we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That's the measure of our character defects, or, if you prefer, our sins.

If we ask, God will certainly forgive our mistakes. But in no case does God make us pure as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. That's something we're supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves. God asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in building character.

The Meaning of "Entirely Ready"

So Step Six—"Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character"—is AA's way of stating the best possible attitude we can take to begin this lifetime job. This doesn't mean we expect all our character defects to be lifted out of us like the drive to drink was. A few might be, but with most of them we'll have to be content with patient improvement. The key words "entirely ready" emphasize that we want to aim for the very best we know or can learn.

How many people have this degree of readiness? In an absolute sense, practically nobody has it. The best anyone can do, with all the honesty they can summon, is to try to have it. Even then, the best of people will discover to their dismay that there's always a sticking point, a point where they say, "No, I can't give this up yet." And they'll often tread on even more dangerous ground when they cry, "This I will never give up!" Such is the power of human instincts to overreach themselves. No matter how far people have progressed, desires will always be found that oppose the grace of God.

The Hidden Enjoyment of Our Defects

Some who feel they've done well may dispute this, so let's think it through a little further. Practically everyone wants to be rid of their most obvious and destructive handicaps. No one wants to be so proud that they're scorned as a braggart, or so greedy that they're labeled a thief. No one wants to commit the deadly sins of anger, lust, or gluttony. No one wants to be tortured by the chronic pain of envy or to be paralyzed by laziness. Of course, most human beings don't suffer these defects at these rock-bottom levels.

Those who have escaped these extremes are likely to congratulate themselves. Yet should they? After all, hasn't it been self-interest, pure and simple, that has enabled most people to escape? Not much spiritual effort is involved in avoiding extremes that will bring punishment anyway. But when people face up to the less violent aspects of these very same defects, then where do they stand?

What people must recognize now is that they actually enjoy some of their defects. They really love them. Who, for example, doesn't like to feel just a little superior to the next person, or even quite a lot superior? Isn't it true that people like to let greed masquerade as ambition? Thinking of liking lust seems impossible. But how many people speak of love with their lips, and believe what they say, so that they can hide lust in a dark corner of their minds? And even while staying within conventional bounds, many people have to admit that their imaginary sex life tends to be dressed up as romantic fantasies.

Self-righteous anger can also be very enjoyable. In a twisted way, people can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy them, because it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority. Gossip barbed with anger, a polite form of character assassination, has its satisfactions too. Here people aren't trying to help those they criticize; they're trying to proclaim their own righteousness.

When gluttony is less than ruinous, people have a milder word for it too; they call it "enjoying life" or "treating ourselves." We live in a world riddled with envy. To a greater or lesser degree, everyone is infected with it. From this defect people must surely get a warped yet definite satisfaction. Otherwise, why would they spend so much time wishing for what they don't have rather than working for it, or angrily longing for attributes they'll never have instead of adjusting to reality and accepting it? And how often people work hard with no better motive than to be secure and lazy later on—only they call that "retirement." Consider too the talent for procrastination, which is really laziness in five syllables. Nearly anyone could submit a good list of such defects as these, and few would seriously think of giving them up, at least until they cause excessive misery.

Striving for the Perfect Goal

Some people, of course, may conclude that they are indeed ready to have all such defects taken from them. But even these people, if they make a list of still milder defects, will be forced to admit that they prefer to hang on to some of them. Therefore, it seems clear that few people can quickly or easily become ready to aim at spiritual and moral perfection; they want to settle for only as much perfection as will get them by in life, according to their various ideas of what will get them by. So the difference between "the boys and the men" is the difference between striving for a self-determined goal and striving for the perfect goal which is of God.

Many will immediately ask, "How can we accept the entire meaning of Step Six? Why—that is perfection!" This sounds like a hard question, but practically speaking, it isn't. Only Step One, where people made the 100 percent admission that they were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals. They are goals toward which people look, and the measuring sticks by which they estimate their progress. Seen in this light, Step Six is still difficult, but not at all impossible. The only urgent thing is that people make a beginning and keep trying.

If people want to gain any real advantage in using this Step on problems other than alcohol, they'll need to make a brand new venture into open-mindedness. They'll need to raise their eyes toward perfection and be ready to walk in that direction. It will seldom matter how slowly they walk. The only question will be "Are they ready?"

Looking again at those defects people are still unwilling to give up, they should erase the hard-and-fast lines they've drawn. Perhaps they'll still have to say in some cases, "This I cannot give up yet...," but they should not say to themselves, "This I will never give up!"

The Danger of Delay

Let's address what appears to be a dangerous loophole. It's suggested that people should become entirely willing to aim toward perfection. Note that some delay, however, might be pardoned. That word, in the mind of a rationalizing addict, could certainly be given a long-term meaning. They could say, "How very easy! Sure, I'll head toward perfection, but I'm certainly not going to hurry. Maybe I can postpone dealing with some of my problems indefinitely." Of course, this won't work. Such self-deception will have to go the way of many another pleasant rationalization. At the very least, people will have to come to grips with some of their worst character defects and take action toward their removal as quickly as they can.

The moment people say, "No, never!" their minds close against the grace of God. Delay is dangerous, and rebellion may be fatal. This is the exact point where they abandon limited objectives and move toward God's will for them.