5th Step PRINCIPLE: Integrity

Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

The steps build on one another, and nowhere is this pattern more evident than in step five.  Honesty, which is the first step principle, is synonymous with integrity, which is the fifth step principle. 

Steps toward integrity

Honesty and integrity, however, are not the same.  One may be honest without practicing integrity, but it is impossible to practice integrity without being honest.  When I was drinking, I did not have a problem being truthful about other people's problems; I had difficulty being truthful about mine.  

Another difference between honesty and integrity is that honesty is practiced (or not) in any given moment; integrity is earned over time.  When I came into the program, I lacked integrity, and as I sat in those first meetings, I often thought about how wonderful it would be to accumulate time.

The respect and self-respect cultivated in the fifth step is the result of a process to which a recovering alcoholic returns again and again.  Taking this step calls one to practice the courage championed in the step four, to be as hopeful as one is when taking step two and to speak frankly to the God whom one trusts in step three.

Say it out loud.

American humorist Will Rogers says, "Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip."  For me, and for everybody whom I have ever met in AA, it is too late to follow Rogers' advice in some situations. 

One of my problems in the beginning was that I blamed my problems on the parrot and the town gossip rather than on the one who is ultimately responsible for my life: me.

Sure, there are good explanations for why I was, and sometimes still am, angry.  I have been wronged.  I have followed bad advice.  I have had a series of bad breaks, and yet nothing that has appeared on any resentment list that I have ever made justifies acting out in public or lashing out toward another person.  Nothing on this list is made better by ever drinking again.

One of the objectives of the fifth step for me is to be able to look at myself in the mirror and at other people in the eyes again.  Another objective is to leave the past in the past and to live in the present as Rogers advises.

Speak openly and honestly.

The phrase that I trip over every time that I read the fifth step is "the exact nature of our wrongs."  At first, the gravity of this statement frightened me, but eventually, I arrived at a place in which I am rarely afraid, because I am not haunted by the past in the ways that I used to be.

Swiss poet and novelist Hermann Hesse says, “You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself.”  Until one admits the exact nature of his wrongs to God, to one's self and to another human being, how will this person be at peace?  This person will not.

Confession is good for the soul, and for many who are taking the program seriously for the first time after decades of active alcoholism, this is especially good news, because they did not know, or had forgotten, that they had souls that could be filled with warmth and assurance after years of stone cold bitterness.  

Relate.

The warmth that the fifth step brought into my life was first and foremost in relationships.  Once I accepted responsibility for the wreckage of my past, I began to feel more and more comfortable in the presence of God and other people.  With comfort came confidence, which differs from arrogance in that  confidence invites company, arrogance pushes people away.

American poet Samuel Johnson writes that,  “There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."  

Think about how many people come into AA feeling sad and lonely.  Think about how virtues like honesty, hope, faith, courage and integrity contribute to one's ability to love one's God, one's neighbor and one's self.  Confidence comes from understanding who one is, past and present, and not from pretending to be anything that one is not.  

There is freedom in this confidence that begins with honesty and is achieved, over time, through integrity.

INTRO: Fifth Step

The longer I drank, the more I often drank alone.  I sat at bars by myself and would drive home from them almost every night.  When I went out with other people, I would drink as they did, at least in the early years, and drink more after we said "goodnight".  Often I would stop on the way home to purchase more alcohol to drink before I went to sleep.  At some point, I stopped going to sleep and started passing out night after night.

I do not remember much about the accident that led to my incarceration.  When I attended my first AA meeting upon my release from jail, I was not feeling much but fear.  Alcohol does that to a person.  It takes away  his or her ability to remember; it takes away his or her capacity to feel.  

Statements like "alcohol does that to a person" make less sense after the fourth step than they do after the first one.  Even though I knew that I was powerless over alcohol, I chose to take the first drink hoping that alcohol would numb senses and calm fears.  Irrationally, I thought that it would help me to forget the past and set me up to succeed in the future.  It did neither one, because I insisted on dwelling on the past and fearing the future, and in so doing, found it impossible to live in the present.

Looking at myself honestly and sharing this story with another person helped me to accept myself as I was without beating myself up or blaming all of my problems on alcohol.  The moral inventory helped me to recognize how much I lied to myself about who I was and how my drinking affected others.  It helped me to start being honest with myself so that I would eventually be able to trust my thoughts and feelings.

The fifth step opened me to the possibility of trusting God and other human beings.  It is about practicing the honesty that the fourth step demands with somebody other than one's aggrandizing and loathing self.  There were few surprises when I did my personal inventory.  In my gut, I remembered how I wronged others.  The challenge was being honest enough to write down these wrongs.  Then, once they were written, the challenge became speaking them aloud.

The fifth step says that we "admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."  Notice that the audiences are God, ourselves and another human being.  The God of my understanding was familiar with my offenses, as was I, so what I was doing in the first part of this step was simply acknowledging what was already known, and there is power in knowing.  Admitting the exact nature of my wrongs to another person was the bigger problem, because one of the problems that I was admitting was how I struggle with pride.

The word "admitted" appears in the steps for the first time since the step one in which "we admitted we were powerless over alcohol".  For me, this language serves as a reminder that all of the alcoholic's problems are related.  Both the first step and the fifth step are about letting go of that which stands in the way of being who we are and of being well.  

Taking the fifth step with another person is an intimate act (which is not to be confused with a romantic one).  It establishes faith in the possibility of a mutually affirming relationship with another person.  It help one begin to trust again.  It empowers one to set his or her sights on life on the other side of the consequences of alcoholic behavior, and about this much I am sure: this life in relationship with God and neighbors is far, far better than drinking alone.