Drop the Rock: Removing Character Defects - Steps Six and Seven

by Bill Pittman

When I first joined AA, I thought the Big Book’s program of action was saying a thousand things. I slowly began to understand that it is saying a few simple things a thousand times.

two paragraphs in the Big Book on the Sixth and Seventh Steps and then to do the Steps.

“Can He now take them all—every one? If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing. When ready, we say something like this: “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.” We have then completed Step Seven. Now we need more action, without which we find that “Faith without works is dead.” Let’s look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven’t the will to do this[…]” Excerpt From: AA World Services, Inc. “Alcoholics Anonymous.” AA World Services, Inc. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright. Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/iilpV.l

defects.” In recovery, we try to take the opposite of our character defects and shortcomings and turn them into principles. For example, we work to change fear into faith, hate into love, egoism into humility, anxiety and worry into serenity, complacency into action, denial into acceptance, jealousy into trust, fantasy into reality, selfishness into service, resentment into forgiveness, judgmentalism into tolerance, despair into hope, self-hate into self-respect, and loneliness into fellowship.

“progress not perfection.”

In this book, we and all those who have assisted us will attempt to take a real look at the Sixth and Seventh Steps. We must learn to take the intellectual knowledge and turn it into emotional and spiritual reality—into living—so we can continue to change and grow and be useful. To become the person we can become, we must drop the rock—all the

Not only help to stop our addiction but help in living better lives.

I cannot open a flower with a sledgehammer—only God opens flowers.

More, more, and more.

The point of recovery is finding the balance.

We are real alcoholics and addicts. We must stay abstinent. “If you’re a real alcoholic or addict, you will stop using some day; it’s better to be alive when it happens.”

They are not willing to go through the pain it takes to change, even though the pain of staying the same is killing them.

Without emotional and spiritual recovery, you don’t have much. You have abstinence,

There is no magic in recovery. We get what we work for.

Then I was made aware that character defects are like active addiction. I couldn’t keep using and expect God to relieve my disease. Neither could I keep practicing my character defects and expect God to remove them.

This creates a period of grieving, which doesn’t make sense at first. Why should I hurt over the leaving (letting go, removal) of behaviors that only harmed me? So I began really living the principles of the Program, using the support of the fellowship, the daily striving to change, to let go, and receive more. It didn’t happen overnight. It takes years of practice, a lifetime. I am not a saint. But I claim, accept, and am grateful for my spiritual and healthy emotional progress.

I wasn’t just attending meetings anymore to avoid doing what I needed doing outside of meetings.

Finally I was working on the Steps outside of meetings instead of just talking about them at meetings.

here?” The man looked up and said, “No. I dropped them back there—but there it is much too dark.” The police officer asked, “Why are we looking here then?” With all sincerity, the man answered, “Because here is where the light is, and I’m afraid of the dark.” Finished with the story, my sponsor again asked, “What about the Sixth Step?” I was shocked he could ask me such a question. Of course, I was willing to change and have my Higher Power remove my defects of character, wasn’t I—was I? If I was sincerely willing to change, why did I remain so much the same?

You can’t stand around on one foot waiting for applause.

abstinent

to talk with God or our Higher Power or Universal Energy or the collective unconscious or whatever we want to call it.

Release. Let go. Surrender. Peace. Renewal. Surrender. Vulnerable. Open. Surrender. Surrender. Strength. Change. Higher Power. Surrender.”

We take a look at our language and see how it fits in with a spiritual approach to living and to becoming entirely ready.

Are we a workaholic? Do we avoid our family and other issues by working tremendously long hours?

Publilius: “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.”

We learn to become open to relating in a nonsexual manner.

“Hi, my name is _____ and I’m interested in spiritual growth and becoming my potential.”

Sow the seeds, and the plants will grow.

Many of us are addicted to sugar and carbohydrates.

We hear that procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

(desire for material wealth or gain while ignoring the realm of the spiritual). We have a distorted view of coveting in society. Much like envy, coveting (or avarice, or desire, or greed)

(with sexually transmitted diseases being fatal or permanent now, it also is prudent to practice safe sex, under all circumstances)

We are reminded what the Big Book says about sex on page 69. “We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly, nor to be despised and loathed.”

Being spiritual does not mean being celibate or chaste. It may include these elements for different reasons and practices, but our body is as holy as our spirit and can celebrate the gift of love just as fully in harmony with all aspects of the spirit and love.

Anger is emotional drunkenness.

Danger=Drunkenness

One night after a meeting, someone told me resentment is me taking the poison and waiting for them to die. I’m no longer at the “jumping-off place,”

seething. For many of us in recovery, we carry a huge load of anger without realizing it. Many of us stuff anger away like “putting hungry dogs in the basement.” Sooner or later,

🐕 🐩

Being right is a perspective, not a license for angry behavior.

Another view of this is the story about Buddha talking to some of his students about anger. Buddha said anger is like picking up a burning coal with the intention of throwing it at another person. We are the ones who get burned in the process.

Today, I live in a daily state of surprise as Steps Six and Seven work on me. I have surrendered to the spiritual process that neutralizes character defects. Someday, maybe mine will be removed. As I said at the beginning, I move at a caterpillar pace. But that’s okay today. As a slow-moving caterpillar spinning my cocoon to the design of the Twelve Steps, I will emerge free as a butterfly. That’s a promise God always keeps. — We take a look at the part anger plays in our life and how appropriate our expression of anger is. Are we right a lot? Are we upset and judgmental a lot? Are people afraid of us? Do we punish people with our rightness? We look at anger and its consequences and then move toward being entirely ready to let it go.

Butterfly 🦋 caterpillar 🐛

F.E.A.R. = Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, and Resentment.

It’s a program of getting rid of things to get down to what we want. It’s not a program of getting anything. It’s a program of getting rid of things: uncovering, discovering, and discarding.

They have gotten down to their own right size. Humility is understanding that they’re worthwhile. It’s the middle ground between the extremes of grandiosity and intense shame.

Humility for us means staying our right size—and remembering we are as humble as we are grateful.

my sponsor was fond of pointing out that my way

alcohol (or drugs, sex, food, gambling, and so on) is just a symptom.

The Fifth Step gives us a sense of our fears and the Sixth Step our willingness to let them go. The Seventh Step gives us the means to do it. By moving into humility and specific action, where we can, and asking for help where we need it, we can give up acting through our character defects.

“Take a deep breath.” Deep emotion tends to make us breathe differently.

Growth is almost always uncomfortable for me.

I have also been helped in dealing with stress by learning when to say no. My sponsor quoted William James to me: “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”