Step Five - Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Why?
If God knows all our secrets and forgives them, why do we have to hang all our dirty laundry out there in front of another person?
Answer - Because to walk a spiritual path we must learn all about honesty, humility and obedience to a Power greater than us.
Our Higher Power needs us to step out in faith here, because we will otherwise remain as sick as our secrets.
Step Four took courage. Step Five takes guts.
It's one of our most important steps along our spiritual path.
That's because, as my old Geordie Gran often said:
"It cleans you ooot."
She was talking about castor oil moving the bowels, of course, while I'm talking about getting rid of emotional shit.
But it's the same thing, both are potentially toxic.
As many of you readers know, we just held a Fourth Step workshop in my home group. My hope is those who were there have already made an appointment to follow up with an immediate Fifth Step. It's never good to hang on to toxins one moment longer than we have to!
Those who have done their Fourth and Fifth steps in quick succession often report on the immediate benefit they received:
Some say they felt "lighter,"
others more "connected" to their recovery,
while many post-5th steppers say they felt "set free."
I felt none of that.
I was disappointed, but at least I was able to tick off another step box I'd "done" in AA and move along to the next. (Box ticking was very important to me at the time.)
I didn't then realize how walled off I still was from my feelings, but it wasn't long after doing my Fourth and Fifth steps that I began experiencing all of them.
Hindsight being 20/20, I eventually connected the dots that having done my Fourth and Fifth Steps allowed me to finally actually feel.
I didn't like it at first, either. Few of us do. After all, alcohol and other drugs allowed us to shut down our bad and sad feelings, and we used them often for that very purpose.
But our feelings - or emotions - are all gifts from that Greater Power. Getting in touch with them, learning to understand what a gift they really are, is part of healthy recovery.
Some feelings do hurt, of course, but once we've acknowledged them they don't have to be fatal. This includes the ones that really, really, really hurt - because we will have learned so much from them once they're finally in our rear-view mirror.
Learning to be grateful for our feelings (this means all of them) is part of our growth in recovery. We will have to work at this, but - again to quote my old Gran - "Everything worth having takes a wee bit of work."
Bullet Points for Step Five:
No one wants to do a Fifth Step. Do it anyway.
AA’s founders recommended doing a Fifth Step immediately after getting our Fourth Step down on paper.
Set aside a morning or afternoon with your sponsor, a trusted friend, your priest or rabbi, or anyone you trust (but not a live-in partner) and read your Fourth Step aloud to them.
We are as sick as our secrets. Get everything (ALL of it) out in the open.
Your Higher Power didn’t bring you this far to drop you on your head. Do the most thorough Fifth Step you can. The benefits will very soon reveal themselves to you.
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