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: Third Step

Years ago, I asked for help, but as I became an adult, I stopped asking and started demanding that I be given what I thought that I deserved.

One's understanding of faith and life begins at home, I think, because home is the place where one first experiences everything from authority to autonomy.  On the one hand, my parents provided me with food, shelter and educational opportunities.  On the other hand, they were prone to emotional outbursts, which led to feeling unsafe and unsure of how to pursue thriving relationships. 

Looking to protect myself, I retreated into books.  With this education, I distanced myself from faith and life and expected good things to happen by virtue of my accomplishments.  When life did not meet my expectations, I drank, and then I drank some more.  Now I attend meetings with other men and women who sabotaged their lives with lofty expectations.

AA's third step calls for a decisive action: to turn one's will and one's life over to the care of God as one understands God.  This statement assumes: 1) that one knows what one's will for his or her life is; 2) that one is able to experience God's care; and 3) that one's understanding of God allows for a meaningful relationship to exist between this person and God.

As an adult, I have changed cities and jobs often.  Every time that I transitioned from one situation to the next, I was abundantly clear about why I was making this change.  I have pursued different career paths and seem to prefer whichever one I am not pursuing at the time.  Since becoming a member of AA, I am clearer about the nature of the work that I find fulfilling, but I am less certain about what this work looks like in everyday life.  By understanding who I am, I am better able to be in a relationship with anybody, including God, and to follow wherever God leads me in recovery.  

It is difficult to understand why I was reluctant to turn my will and my life over to anybody or anything, especially God, before coming into the program, because, as an active alcoholic, I was never in control.  I was controlling in professional and personal relationships, but I was not disciplined enough to achieve, much less sustain, meaning, magic or success in any area of my life.  

Because I was unable to meet the expectations that I set for myself, feelings of failure haunted me.  I looked to others to help me in ways that I was unwilling to help other people.  When they could not, or would not, help me, then I began to think of the world as a cruel and harsh place.  I did not trust anybody, especially myself, because I assumed that everybody was as selfish as me.  I felt abandoned by God and neighbor and that nobody was willing to give me a second or third chance.  I was not willing to forgive myself or anybody else and assumed that everybody else was as unforgiving as me.

I was raised in a home where Christmas is celebrated and the line between Jesus and Santa is often blurred.  As an adult, I have come to think of Christ as compassionate and God as forgiving, although I was taught from an early age that God gives commandments to an imperfect people and then judges them for being imperfect.  Christmas seemed like a time to pay off the emotional debts of the past year.  All was to be forgiven if the parents spent enough money on gifts.  In the end, I believed in asking for presents but not in forgiveness.  Now I believe in humility, which asks for nothing but peace.

The God of my understanding is forgiving and empowering, and I am finding that the more that I trust this understanding of God, the better I feel about myself and about other people.  I feel safe more often than I feel threatened.  I am more forgiving, because I feel forgiven.  Even though the third step seems to emphasize understanding God, I am finding that the third step is actually about experiencing God as a peaceful presence in one's life, work and relationships, especially those circumstances in which peace is brought about only through forgiveness.