A Recent Meeting Enables a Meditation
At a recent meeting on Step Five, from The 12 & 12 someone said, “whatever you do, don’t camp on Step Four!” One, because working the steps always brings us right back to begin again; and two, admitting the exact nature of our wrongs loses it power to scare us or goad us to pick up. So, I got to thinking . . .
Leaving Step Four, and working Step Five is a good tool to maintain recovery. Admitting the nature of my wrongs is not repeating an inventory of my character defects. He knows everything I did, said, and thought. He wants me to understand why.
Alcoholics are sick; we are also willful and wandering souls who want what we want, when we want it, no matter how meek or manic our demeanor.
Recovery flourishes by being honest with God and another human being about the awfulness of our wrongs. Staying isolated, and rationalizing what we have done — what we do — is dumb and dangerous. When admit to God and another human being, it depletes our wrongs of their power.
Working Means Thinking
Working Step Five means thinking about how my moral inventory came to be what it was – through rationalization, self-delusion, and isolation. Today through humility and dependence on God, my moral inventory is different; the nature of my character defects hasn’t changed through.
My pride and self-centeredness can blow up my sobriety. Working the steps defuses their power.
Understanding the nature of my illness and the exact nature of my wrongs, and the power that God is to relieve me is the basis of my daily reprieve. It is why working Step Five frees and heals.
How are you doing dear reader? May the Lord God rule our hearts, comfort our minds, and soothe our weary hearts with His Grace, and His truth. And may He draw truth from us to Him, and to another human being about the exact nature of our wrongs.
Love in Christ,
Sober and Grateful
