7th Step PRINCIPLE: Humility

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

American author Ernest Hemingway says, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

Hemingway was an alcoholic, who committed suicide in 1961.  He struggled with depression and with drinking to excess, which, in my experience, may go hand-in-hand.

Alcohol is a depressant (I am surprised how many men and women who are in AA do not know this fact when they arrive).  I do not know which comes first: alcoholism or depression.  By the time that a person suffers enough to step into that first meeting, it does not matter.

Admitting that one has a problem takes time.  So does arriving at a place in which one is willing to change and to be changed.


Now that one is entirely ready...
Step six prepares the way for step seven.  While I am not sure if anyone is ever entirely ready to have God remove one's defects of character, I do think that one comes to a place in one's sobriety in which one has to decide whether to open one's self to the future or to be haunted by the past.

For the clinically depressed person, opening one's self to the future is easier said than done, and yet for those who ask for help, especially those who ask for professional support, there is hope.

Knowing one's self and the God of one's understanding helps one to understand his or her place in the universe.  By this point in the steps, one usually has enough experience, strength and hope to know that the God of his or her understanding, who is more powerful than alcohol, is more powerful than his or her shortcomings.  


Ask.
Why would any of us be reluctant to ask God to remove our shortcomings?  Because many of us are naturally fearful.  We would rather be afraid than free, because fear is all that we know.

Fear of drinking again kept me sober for a while, but fear of drinking again is not enough when I bulge with self-pity or pride.

For me, it is helpful, when taking this step, to think about the alternatives to the shortcomings that I am asking God to remove, because when the shortcomings are removed, something has to be planted, watered and nurtured in place of them.  For example, I pray that I will be more fulfilled than self-pitying and more humble than proud.


Welcome balance.
Humility, in my experience of the program, is that the heart of AA.  Without an ounce of humility, one is incapable of taking the first step, much less the next six.

Hemingway's quotation applies here: humility is about striving to be superior to one's former self not to any other human being.  My former self (and sometimes current self), my drunk self, is self-pitying and proud.

When I am pumped up with pride, I think of myself more highly than I ought to think.  When I am caught in a web of self-pity, I look for someone other than the God of my understanding to lift me out of despair.

Since I have been in AA, I am becoming more balanced, because I am beginning to understand, practice and remember that the highs are not as high as they seem initially; neither are the lows.

I am better able to place life in perspective, because I am less likely to exaggerate the significance of any given day.  If I stay sober through whatever problems that I face today, then I will have a chance at being happier, more joyous and freer tomorrow.

INTRO: Seventh Step

The wisdom that other alcoholics share at meetings is essential to recovery.  In the beginning of my AA experience, I was desperate, which, among other things, meant that, for the first time in a long time, I was at a place in which I was willing to listen.  Almost all of my adult life, I thought that I deserved more than I had, and yet by the time that I crawled into AA, hoping against hope for a better life, I recognized that I did not know everything, and I wondered if what I did know would help me to feel good about myself and the mark that I was making in, and on, the world.

To quote another alcoholic, who spoke eloquently in one of the first meetings that I attended, "I felt like a piece of shit in the center of the universe."  I felt badly about myself and judged myself by standards that would not allow these feelings to change, and yet I craved the spotlight and believed that if people really knew me, they would be able to find something amazing in me that I could not, or would not, find in myself.

I was humiliated when I came into AA, and the distinction between humiliation and humility may be helpful here.  Humiliation is not just feeling like a piece of shit; it is knowing that others share one's low opinion of one's self and fixating on this knowledge.  Being handcuffed, bailed out of jail and appearing before a judge confirmed that I was not better than anybody else.  The law that applied to people that I dismissed as less sophisticated than me also applied to me, and I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not any better at obeying the law than I was at moderating my drinking.  Something had to change.  I had to ask for help.

Humility, which is one of the objectives of the seventh step, enables a person to be comfortable in his or her own skin without having to set himself or herself apart as better than the rivals that he or she manufactures out of thin air.  Being set apart leads to feelings of loneliness.  Humility allows one to be part of a group without establishing a place in the hierarchy.

A humble person is comfortable on stage and working behind the scenes.  He or she finds value in everything that he or she does and in the world around him or her and is fulfilled by whatever it is he or she is doing.  A humble person is not weighed down by guilt or shame.  This person is open-minded and opened-hearted enough to accept whatever the God of his or her understanding gives to him.

The action called for the seventh step is to "humbly ask God to remove his (or her) shortcomings."  This step assumes that the person in recovery is increasingly comfortable with the God to whom he or she was introduced step three and that this person is no longer in denial about the guilt, pride, shame, arrogance and fear that led to the consequences that led him or her into the program.  The trust that one places in another person in step six is extended to God in step seven.

In my experience, one's faith in himself or herself grows in proportion to his or her faith in God and in other human beings and vice versa.  This faith is made possible through self-awareness, the beginning of which is the searching and fearless moral inventory in step four.  For me, saying what I had to say to the God of my understanding was not as difficult as saying what I had to say to another person, because the God of my understanding was with me in the past, is with me now and will be with me in the future.  Plus, I did not worry about the God of my understanding saying anything to anybody about what I confided in this God.

Obviously, I was only beginning to trust again, and yet by this stage in recovery, it seemed as if life was beginning again, which signaled a drastic change in my thoughts and feelings.  I was not as anxious as I used to be.  When I came into AA, it seemed as if life was crashing around me, but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, though I am sure that it was by virtue of the steps, I started believing that something beautiful could be built from the wreckage of the past.

    

INTRO: Sixth Step

One of the first places that I found myself clearly described in The Big Book was in the phrase "restless, irritable and discontent".  I was never satisfied with anyone or anything.  I liked having options.  I thrashed around in search of a better job, a better relationship and a better city.  Of course, it is impossible to know what "better" is when one is unsure of who one is, where one is going or what he or she really wants.  I lacked direction but was highly motivated to chase whatever opportunity presented itself with reckless abandon, because I did not do anything in moderation.  When I came into AA, drinking was not my only problem.

Steps four and five helped me to understand why I did what I did and felt what I felt.  I suffered because of what I did to myself and to others.  I noticed patterns of destructive and self-destructive behaviors that were often fueled by pride, on the one hand, and self-pity, on the other hand.  I specialized in self-sabotage.  Until I was willing to change and be changed, I would not have a chance at being satisfied with who I am, where I am or what I am doing.      

The sixth step calls for two disciplines with which I did not have much experience when I came into the program: focus and patience.  This step requires a person to be "entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."  I do not know that I ever considered myself entirely ready to do anything, especially something that would eliminate one or more of the many options that I cherished.  I worried that giving up dishonesty would adversely affect my ability to survive, and maybe thrive, professionally and personally, even though I knew that dishonesty contributed to the past that I was only beginning to remember without grimacing.  Giving up wicked emotions and the irrational behavior that accompanied them was difficult enough without submitting to someone's timeline, namely God's, but in the end, I determined that God's plan may be better mine.

Being entirely ready and actually taking the next step are distinct actions.  Both require patience.  Sometimes I sense a big difference in my thoughts and feelings immediately after taking a step.  Often the changes take time.  As I accumulate years in the program, I gain a deeper and deeper appreciation of the value of time.  Life is not about rushing somewhere; it is definitely not about rushing nowhere.  Life is to be savored soberly, according to the rhythm of God's life, not mine.  Of this truth, I cannot be reminded enough.