Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Yesterday, I would have told you I’ve completed four or five Fifth Steps. Now, I believe I am about to embark on the Fifth Step for real for the first time.
In AA rooms, you often hear stories of people walking away from their Fifth Step feeling lighter. They speak of the freedom discovered through sharing their most shameful secrets with another person and receiving unconditional love and acceptance in return.
So many finding relief and welcome after revealing "the exact nature of their wrongs" is a testament to the power of a community without leaders, where we all acknowledge we are just one drink away from where someone else just was. I've heard more Fifth Steps than I’ve said; people have confessed truly awful things – criminal activity, boundary-crossing, violence – yet I've never thought, "I could never do that." I've done some truly awful things myself. I know that under the influence, I'm capable of worse.
However, the high others describe upon completing their Fifth Step has escaped me. I've felt incremental relief, let's say. A "Whew, got that out of the way" kind of relief. But shame has never left me; it has shriveled up around the edges. The shame covered me less completely and more unevenly, like someone with an inexpert bang trim.
I’m currently working the steps in Adult Children of Alcoholics. ACA folks are even worse perfectionist co-dependent control freaks than regular alcoholics, so they deliver a lot more instruction on how to do them. The ACA steps’ complexity has prompted me to reflect on what might be hiding between the lines of the original form and what I may have missed.
It's simple, really: "To God, to ourselves, and to another human being." Perhaps for most people, the power of the Fifth Step comes from connecting with another human being—a real, live person who hears your whole story and then assures you they love you anyway.
I believe those who heard my Fifth Step love me.
I don’t know if admitting one’s wrongs to God is important, though I have. I think God is perfectly aware of them. I also think God loves me anyway. This brings less relief than I’d like most of the time. It’s God’s job to love me.
What I've never done is fully admit my wrongs to myself. I had written them down as part of my Fourth Step. I had searched for some grace to put the list together and then tried forgiving myself. I tried and tried and tried, only to come to the point where I knew it would be really good if I could forgive myself. I wanted to. I want to. I have long believed that my inability to forgive myself is what stands in the way of truly loving myself.
But when I listened to the lists that others made, did I try to forgive? No. Forgiveness isn’t the point, and it’s not usually the listener’s to grant. When I hear someone else’s list, I simply try to love them through it. Who cares if their partner/mom/friend/boss never forgives them? I know they’re lovable. I know I love them and that my Higher Power loves them, even if they don’t love themselves.
“We love you until you learn to love yourself.” I have said that a million times. I have heard it a million more. I have believed it.
I have been sober for twelve years, eleven months, and, as of now, twenty days.
And I still walk around with a pack of self-loathing in my back pocket; it’s my favorite drug of choice.
Where was that inexhaustible reservoir of love when it came to me? Why did I attach love to forgiveness when it came to me, and only me? Now, I wonder: What if I stopped trying to forgive myself and focused on loving myself instead? What terrifying miracles might occur?
I want to find out. Today, I think I will.
If you want to tell your own recovery story, check out my offering, the Third Story Workshop. The next 11-week session begins on April 23. With the code EARLYBIRD, you can get 25% off the full price ($1500). More than you might want to know here. If you want a scholarship or want to know more, you can write me here.
NEW PODCAST ALERT: Pete Dominick kindly offered to produce a pop-up podcast for me, celebrating my thirteen years and all things recovery. It’s called “Getting Better,” and it goes beyond sobriety to chronic illness, trauma, divorce, disordered eating… whatever it means to get better. The first episode is an interview with my friend Chris Marshall. It covers the tricky truth that sober people keep screwing up even after we stop drinking. Ugh. Listen here.
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