They Got Drunk

Step We Are On: Five 

 

Page: 72

Chapter: 6 “Into Action” 

Subject:   Discussing ourselves with another person

Good morning. Now that we have taken Steps Three and Four and have decided to put the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous to the test, we are ready to go into action. 

Who are "They" anyway?

• Can logical evidence help convince us of the power of this Step?

We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so.

• What is the first, best reason for doing so?

The best reason first: If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.

There are only a handful of places in the Big Book where the newcomer is warned of an imminent relapse unless he does certain things. This is one of them.

• Do many try to keep some secrets about themselves?

Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives.

Notice the word “newcomers”. A reminder that Step 5 is presented in this book as a single step of 12 total in a “Program” design to get newcomers to have a spiritual awakening and to adopt a certain spiritual way of life thereafter. It is a way of life found in steps 10 through 12.

Listening to a 5th step is (hopefully) the job of an already recovered alcoholic who has previously admitted his own faults to another (as well as God and himself) and has already overcome his drinking.

This is not a step to be taken over and over, as an old-timer continues to reestablish new inventories requiring more "admissions." This is not to say it doesn’t happen. Sadly it does. Many folks do not adopt this way of life and must keep repeating steps 4 and 5 over and over and over as they never seem to move out of the newcomer phase of recovery.

• Do they try to find an easier, softer way?

Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods.

•  What almost invariably happens to them?

Almost invariably they got drunk.

There's your logical evidence. That's a pretty good reason.

Invariable - constant, uniform, unchanging, as his invariable habit is to walk home.  ~ The Winston Simplified Dictionary – 1938

Who are "they" who got drunk? 

They are newcomers. They, are not We. We are not “newcomers” in danger of drinking unless we do inventory and a fifth step. We are recovered alcoholics who have already gone through this process and are living in a daily maintenance mode of spiritual living.

For the We's, the obsession to drink has been removed and remains abated, as predicted it would in this book, for having adopted a way of living where resentments do not affect us as they had before.

"They" are becoming "we" before our very eyes, if they stick with this.

There isn’t some 12 step genie in the sky keeping watch over who has done a fifth step and who hasn’t, doling our relapses to those who haven’t completed it or who've withheld secrets

But there are mysteriously spiritual principles underlying an admission to another human being - and in this area of facing and being rid of defects, this is enormously impactful.

What would have had to happen within the heart of a spiritually ill person, having viewed their flawed morals and deterioration of virtues - defects and flaws - who's in the throes of remorse for harms inflicted upon the world – having been freed in conscience, to be able to joyfully discuss this with another person?

Would they not have had to become conscious that God had already forgiven them? Has their guilt fallen away? Yes. This is experiencing God’s forgiveness.

With this experience, the obsession to drink leaves.

We don’t stay sober because we have taken a 5th step. We stay sober because we have been freed from the guilt driving us away from God and toward obsessive drinking. This allows us to take a 5th step.

Thorough completion of a Step Five signifies the completion of housecleaning, initiated through the personal 4th step resentment analysis, that allows the diminishment and removal of the drink obsession, not the fifth step.

Can a floor be polished that hasn't first been waxed?  Can it be waxed if it hasn't been mopped? Can it be mopped before it has been swept. . . swept if it is still cluttered? Each action is but one progressive movement toward a full cleanup.

The shine on the floor indicates the housecleaning has been done. 

A fifth step, thorough and completed, is an indicator of freedom from the alcohol obsession. It does not cause it.

Peace and Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

Real Meditation for Real Alcoholics