Secular Step Seven

HUMILITY has become a foreign concept to many of us, especially those who have built our identities around self-reliance, intellectual achievement, or professional success. The word itself may conjure images of self-deprecation, weakness, or submission that feel antithetical to the confidence and assertiveness we've worked to develop. Yet Step Seven asks us to humbly request help in changing the character defects we identified in previous steps, and this humility turns out to be not a weakness but a profound strength.

True humility, as understood in Step Seven, is neither self-degradation nor false modesty. It is accurate self-assessment combined with openness to growth. It means seeing ourselves clearly—neither inflating our capabilities nor minimizing them—and accepting that we need guidance and support to become who we are capable of being. For those who struggled with alcohol, this represents a fundamental shift from the grandiosity and self-sufficiency that often characterize addictive thinking.

For those preferring secular language, Step Seven represents our humble request for help from all available sources: community wisdom, evidence-based practices, therapeutic relationships, trusted friends, and our own deepest values. The word "God" in the traditional phrasing can be understood as whatever sources of wisdom and support we have found trustworthy. The key is not the source of help but our willingness to seek it humbly and accept it gracefully.

Understanding Humility in Recovery

Humility in recovery context does not mean thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less often. It does not require self-deprecation or the diminishment of our genuine capabilities and achievements. Rather, it involves right-sizing our ego—seeing ourselves accurately in relation to others and to the larger context of life.

This right-sizing process helps us recognize several crucial truths: we are neither superior nor inferior to other people, but simply human beings with strengths and weaknesses like everyone else; our individual efforts, while important, are insufficient to solve all our problems or create lasting happiness; we can learn valuable lessons from others regardless of their background, education, or apparent status; our character defects and mistakes do not define our ultimate worth, but they do require attention and change; and we are capable of growth and contribution when we stop defending our current limitations and start working to transcend them.

Humility also involves recognizing the interconnected nature of human existence. We did not create ourselves, educate ourselves, or achieve our successes entirely through individual effort. We have been supported, taught, and influenced by countless others. This recognition naturally leads to gratitude and service rather than pride and self-centeredness.

The Nature of Character Defects

Before we can humbly ask for help in changing our character defects, we need to understand what they are and how they function in our lives. Character defects are patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that consistently create problems for ourselves and others. They often begin as protective mechanisms that helped us cope with difficult circumstances, but they persist long after their protective function has ended.

Common character defects include selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear, pride, envy, anger, greed, and laziness. These patterns share several characteristics: they operate largely below conscious awareness; they serve our immediate emotional needs while creating long-term problems; they involve self-centered thinking that prioritizes our comfort over our values; they create barriers to authentic relationships and genuine happiness; and they resist change through individual willpower alone.

Understanding character defects as learned patterns rather than permanent personality traits is crucial for Step Seven. If these patterns were unchangeable aspects of our nature, asking for help in removing them would be pointless. But since they are learned responses, they can be unlearned and replaced with healthier patterns through appropriate help and consistent practice.

The Paradox of Humble Action

Step Seven presents an interesting paradox: it requires humble action. We must actively seek help while maintaining humility about our own efforts. We must work diligently to change our character while acknowledging that we cannot accomplish this change through willpower alone. We must take responsibility for our growth while remaining open to guidance from sources beyond our individual understanding.

This paradox resolves when we understand that humility and action are not opposites but partners. Humble action means taking all appropriate steps to promote our growth while remaining open to correction, guidance, and help from others. It means working as hard as we can while accepting that results are not entirely under our control.

In practical terms, this might mean attending therapy while acknowledging that we cannot heal ourselves entirely through self-analysis. It might mean practicing new behaviors while remaining open to feedback about our progress. It might mean reading and studying while accepting that knowledge alone cannot change character. It might mean serving others while recognizing that service teaches us more than it teaches those we serve.

Practical Approaches to Character Change

Step Seven requires moving beyond recognition and readiness to actual change efforts. This involves several practical approaches that can be adapted to various secular and spiritual frameworks.

Seeking Professional Help: Many people find that character change requires professional support from therapists, counselors, or life coaches trained in evidence-based approaches to personal change. This might include cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness-based approaches, or other therapeutic modalities that address the specific character defects we want to change.

Community Support: Recovery communities, support groups, personal development organizations, and other communities of practice provide models, accountability, and encouragement for character change. The experience of people who have successfully made similar changes offers both hope and practical guidance.

Developing New Habits: Character change often requires replacing old behavioral patterns with new ones. This might involve developing regular practices of gratitude, service, honest communication, or conflict resolution. Consistent practice of new behaviors gradually creates new neural pathways that support character change.

Environmental Changes: Sometimes character change requires changing our environment to support new patterns and discourage old ones. This might mean changing social relationships, work situations, living arrangements, or daily routines that support our character defects.

Mindfulness and Self-Awareness: Many character defects operate below conscious awareness. Developing greater mindfulness and self-awareness helps us catch these patterns earlier and choose different responses. This might involve meditation, journaling, regular self-reflection, or working with others who can provide feedback about our behavior.

The Role of Service in Character Change

One of the most powerful tools for character change is service to others. Service naturally counteracts the self-centeredness that underlies most character defects. When we focus on helping others, we temporarily forget our own problems and experience the satisfaction that comes from contributing to something larger than ourselves.

Service also provides opportunities to practice character assets. Helping others requires patience, compassion, generosity, and humility. Regular service work gradually strengthens these positive qualities while weakening the self-centered patterns that cause problems.

For those in recovery, service often takes the form of helping other people who are struggling with alcohol or other addictions. This might involve sponsoring newcomers, sharing our experience in meetings, participating in recovery organizations, or simply being available to support others who are facing similar challenges.

For those preferring secular approaches, service might involve volunteering for causes we care about, helping colleagues or neighbors, participating in community organizations, or contributing our skills and resources to benefit others. The specific form of service matters less than the regular practice of putting others' needs before our own immediate desires.

Working with Specific Character Defects

Different character defects may require different approaches for change. Understanding the specific nature of our predominant character defects helps us choose appropriate methods for addressing them.

Selfishness is perhaps the most fundamental character defect, underlying many others. It involves prioritizing our immediate desires over our long-term wellbeing and the needs of others. Service to others is the most direct antidote to selfishness, as it trains us to consider others' needs and find satisfaction in contributing to their wellbeing.

Dishonesty involves distorting truth to protect ourselves from consequences or to gain advantages we have not earned. The antidote is practicing rigorous honesty in all areas of life, starting with small, low-stakes situations and gradually extending to more challenging areas.

Resentment involves holding anger and bitterness toward people or situations that have disappointed or harmed us. Forgiveness—understood not as condoning harmful behavior but as releasing our attachment to anger—is the primary tool for addressing resentment. This often requires professional help or spiritual guidance.

Fear underlies many other character defects and involves anticipating future harm or loss. Addressing fear often requires gradually facing the situations we fear while developing better coping skills and support systems. Courage is not the absence of fear but action in spite of fear.

Pride involves inflated self-regard that prevents us from learning from others or acknowledging our mistakes. Humility, honest self-assessment, and willingness to admit when we are wrong are the primary tools for addressing pride.

The Spiritual Dimension of Character Change

For those who include spiritual elements in their recovery, Step Seven represents a humble request to God or a higher power to remove character defects. This spiritual approach recognizes that character change involves forces beyond individual effort and that spiritual resources can provide guidance, strength, and transformation that human effort alone cannot achieve.

Spiritual approaches to Step Seven might include prayer for guidance and strength in changing character defects, meditation to develop greater awareness of our patterns and motivations, reading spiritual literature that provides wisdom about character development, participation in religious or spiritual communities that support growth, and service understood as spiritual practice rather than merely good works.

For those preferring secular approaches, the spiritual dimension of Step Seven can be understood as our connection to values and purposes larger than immediate self-interest. This might involve commitment to family, community, social justice, environmental protection, or other causes that provide meaning and motivation for character development.

Common Obstacles and How to Address Them

Perfectionism: Some people expect immediate and complete transformation of character defects and become discouraged by gradual progress. The solution is developing realistic expectations and celebrating incremental improvements rather than demanding dramatic change.

Impatience: Character change is typically a slow process that unfolds over months and years rather than days and weeks. Impatience can lead to discouragement and abandonment of change efforts. The antidote is accepting the gradual nature of character development and focusing on progress rather than perfection.

Isolation: Some people try to change character defects entirely through individual effort and become frustrated by lack of progress. Character change typically requires community support, professional help, or both. The solution is actively seeking appropriate help rather than relying only on individual effort.

Intellectualizing: Some people understand their character defects intellectually but resist the emotional and behavioral work necessary for change. The remedy is focusing on action and practice rather than analysis and understanding.

Lack of Motivation: Some people lose motivation for character change when the initial enthusiasm of early recovery fades. The solution is connecting character development to larger purposes and values that provide sustainable motivation.

Integration with Daily Life

Step Seven cannot be completed as a one-time action but must be integrated into daily life through ongoing practices and attitudes. This integration might involve daily reflection on our character defects and assets, regular requests for help from appropriate sources, consistent practice of behaviors that counteract our character defects, service to others as a regular part of our lifestyle, ongoing participation in communities that support character development, and periodic review of our progress and areas needing attention.

The goal is to develop a lifestyle that supports continuous character development rather than hoping that good intentions or occasional efforts will be sufficient. This requires examining our daily routines, relationships, and activities to ensure they align with our commitment to growth.

The Relationship Between Steps Six and Seven

Steps Six and Seven work together as a unit. Step Six creates the readiness for character change while Step Seven initiates the actual change process. Neither step is complete without the other. Readiness without action leads to stagnation, while action without readiness leads to superficial or temporary change.

The humility developed in Step Seven also deepens the readiness of Step Six. As we experience help in changing character defects, we become more willing to release additional patterns that interfere with our growth. As we see the benefits of character change, we become more motivated to continue the process.

Long-term Character Development

Step Seven begins a process of character development that continues throughout life. The patterns we developed over decades will not disappear immediately, and new character defects may emerge as we grow and face new challenges. The humility and help-seeking skills we develop in Step Seven become ongoing resources for continuous growth.

Many people find that character development accelerates over time as they become more skilled at recognizing their patterns, seeking appropriate help, and implementing changes. The tools and communities that support Step Seven work become integrated into their lifestyle, creating conditions that support continuous improvement.

Secular and Spiritual Integration

Whether approached from secular or spiritual perspectives, Step Seven teaches the same fundamental lessons: character change requires help from sources beyond individual effort; humility enables growth while pride prevents it; service to others promotes character development; community support accelerates individual change; and continuous effort over time produces results that dramatic gestures cannot achieve.

For those who combine secular and spiritual approaches, Step Seven might involve both professional therapy and spiritual practice, both community support and religious participation, both evidence-based techniques and traditional spiritual disciplines. The key is finding the combination of resources that provides the most effective support for our particular character development needs.

Conclusion

Step Seven represents our humble recognition that character change, while requiring our active participation, cannot be accomplished through individual effort alone. It requires help from sources beyond our isolated will—whether we understand these sources as God, community wisdom, professional guidance, evidence-based practices, or the accumulated wisdom of human experience.

The humility required for Step Seven is not self-deprecation but accurate self-assessment. We see ourselves clearly, acknowledge our character defects honestly, recognize our need for help realistically, and seek that help actively while remaining open to guidance and correction.

Through Step Seven, we discover that asking for help is not a sign of weakness but of wisdom. We learn that true strength comes not from self-sufficiency but from knowing how to access and utilize all available resources for growth and service. We find that humility opens doors that pride keeps locked, and that character change, while challenging, is both possible and deeply rewarding.

Most importantly, Step Seven teaches us that we are not condemned to remain prisoners of our character defects. With appropriate help, consistent effort, and humble willingness to change, we can develop new patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that serve our highest values and contribute to the wellbeing of others.

Whether we ask God, our community, our values, or our understanding of what promotes growth, the result is the same: we discover that help is available, that change is possible, and that the life we are capable of living is far richer and more meaningful than the life we were living under the domination of our character defects.