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

by Bill Pittman

Step Four, the Big Book says, “Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.” A thorough inventory reveals those causes and conditions; the Fifth Step allows us to share them with God and another human being, and so remove the inner pain they have caused in our past lives. After finishing my Fifth Step, I discarded the inventory but kept a single page that listed my major character defects.

I took out the list of defects, read it over, and asked myself two questions: Why are you holding on to these things? and What did these things ever do for you?

the willingness to challenge and change patterns of thought, speech, and behavior that may have

gone unchallenged for ten, twenty, thirty years or more.

There are four basic reasons we won’t be “entirely ready” to work the Sixth and Seventh Steps. The first is a conscious decision that we will

never give up a specific character defect. Next, we blame our defects on others: people, situations, or institutions. Third, we rationalize. Our capacity to rationalize is unlimited. Before recovery we spent years on this one—throwing up barriers against unpleasant realities. Finally, it’s denial: we are totally unaware of our

own contribution to our...

Recovery works by giving us daily insight into what we can do to remove what blocks us. We need a daily awareness that our character defects are the

opposite of the principles of our Program.

the Program helps those who help themselves. The Program works for those who understand it.

riddle: “If the principles of Twelve Step recovery are not the Twelve Steps, then what are the principles?”

answer

“The principles of Twelve Step recovery are the opposite of our character defects.” In recovery, we try to take the opposite of our character defects and

shortcomings and turn them into...

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, selfishne...

into tolerance, despair into hope, self-hate into self-respect, and lonel...

Step Six — Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Step Six requires us to stop struggling. It is time to acknowledge that we need help.

Steps Four and Five, we become aware of our defects of character.

We affirm to our Higher Power that we are ready to have God remove our defects. We continue in close and loving contact with God while we do our part in working on our shortcomings. Once we allow room for God to work in our lives, we are making it possible

For the Sixth Step, a spiritual surrender is necessary.

emotional pain; the pain of living the way I have been becomes greater than the fear of change.

This is a Step of surrender and trust, not self-will or self-determination. We surrender our ideas of which defects stand in the way of our usefulness to God, ourselves, and others.

In Step Six, our readiness to change comes from the awareness of how we are

harming ourselves and therefore God.

In order to have God remove our character defects, we must realize that we can’t change ourselves completely by ourselves or have any lasting good purpose without spiritual intervention.

The hole in me, the neediness, the hunger, the ache in my life that I tried to fill or stay distracted from by using addictive behavior is actually the perfectly

logical result of not knowing and therefore not accepting myself as I am.

Finding balance also includes recognizing that a predictable aspect of our disease is extreme action: consumption, deprivation, or repetition.

Acting “as if” the choice is already made and the changes in our lives are already in place puts the power of our will in line with the power of the universe so that we can move forward more gracefully into living without defects unchecked.

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Acting “as if” can raise questions of genuineness and authenticity. Is there a conflict with the person I am choosing to become and the person I currently am?

Authenticity is being true to a vision and purpose. We are authentic when we choose to act and feel and choose to behave in balance with the higher values and

principles we’ve chosen for our lives. If those principles and values are not fully in place and manifested, it doesn’t make us phony. It makes us human. If we feel the conflict between who we are and who we would become, it is good. It signals that we understand th...

The choice to surrender, the becoming entirely ready, is just that—a choice.

The defect might be anger, fear, pride, resentment, gossip, arrogance, self-pity, procrastination, anxiety, intolerance, and so on, but whichever one it was had to be concentrated on for the next twenty-four hours and either reduced to a minimum or cast away.

self-centeredness.

Prayer is of no use when it is not used. Prayer is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of practice.

Self-will versus God’s will.

The Program urges us to take action. Pray. An often quoted prayer goes like this: God give me the courage and strength to know who I really am, to act accordingly in my life, and to refrain from diverting my time, energy, and interest into my character defects.

Meditation is mostly about listening and quieting our mind (quiet time).

Prayer is seeing answers and direction in life. Meditation is listening for answers from a Higher Power and developing the ability within ourselves to accept the answers. Reflection is the study of ways to turn the answers we get from prayer and meditation into action.

Eleventh Step as our key to maintaining our conscious contact, which takes away the regrets of the past and the fears of tomorrow and allows us to deal with the challenges of today.

All addictions

mask feelings and change the way we deal with ourselves and others. We need to deal with them all.)

We learn to become open to relating in a nonsexual

manner.

The last cleansing action suggested is to release the clutter in our life. We take a look in our storage areas and garage. We get rid of the stuff we’ve been packing around for years every time we move. We give it to a charitable organization. We take a look in our closets. Possibly, if we haven’t worn it in a year or a year and a half, we give it away. The point is, we quit holding on to things that are useless to us. They may be very important to someone else who will use or wear them.

It is very hard to reach for new adventures and growth in our lives when our hands are full, holding on to the baggage and excesses of our past. We are grateful for what we have in our life. Taking nothing for granted.

The first of the Seven Deadly Sins is pride (excessive belief in one’s own abilities).