"Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character"
"... Any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step 6 on all his faults - without any reservations whatever - has indeed come a long way spiritually...
"When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation, they seem bent on self-destruction. They work against their own deepest instinct. As they are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession. Here their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their Creator's desire to give them new life. For nature and God alike abhor suicide.
"But most of our other difficulties don't fall under such a category at all. Every normal person wants, for example, to eat, to reproduce, to be somebody in the society of his fellows. And he wishes to be reasonably safe and secure as he tries to attain these things. Indeed, God made him that way. He did not design man to destroy himself by alcohol, but He did give man instincts to help him to stay alive.
"It is nowhere evident, at least in this life, that our Creator expects us fully to eliminate our instinctual drives. So far as we know, it is nowhere on record that God has completely removed from any human being all his natural drives.
"Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires, it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That is the measure of our character defects, or, if you wish, of our sins.
"If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. That is something we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves. He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character...
"So Step 6 ... is AA's way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime job... With most of [our character defects] we shall have to be content with patient improvement. The key words 'entirely ready' underline the fact that we want to aim at the very best we know or can learn...
"How many of us have this degree of readiness? In an absolute sense practically nobody has it. The best we can do, with all the honesty that we can summon, is to try to have it... No matter how far we have progressed, desires will always be found which oppose the grace of God...
"What we must recognize now is that we exult in some of our defects. We really love them. Who, for example, doesn't like to feel just a little superior to the next fellow, or even quite a lot superiour? Isn't it true that we like to let greed masquerade as ambition? To think of liking lust seems impossible. But how many men and women speak love with their lips, and believe what they say, so that they can hide lust in a dark corner of their minds? ...
"Self-righteous anger also can be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us, for it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority. Gossip barbed with our anger, a polite form of murder by character assassination, has its satisfactions for us, too. Here we are not trying to help those we criticize; we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness...
"When gluttony is less than ruinous, we have a milder word for that too; we call it 'taking our comfort'. We live in a world riddled with envy...
"Some people, of course, may conclude that they are indeed ready to have all such defects taken from them. But even these people, if they construct a list of still milder defects, will be obliged to admit that they prefer to hang on to some of them... So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God...
"Many will ask at once, 'How can we accept the entire implication of Step 6? Why - that is perfection!' This sounds like a hard question, but practically speaking, it isn't... Only Step 1, where we made the 100% admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals. They are the goals toward which we look, and the measuring sticks by which we estimate our progress. Seen in this light, Step 6 is still difficult, but not at all impossible. The only urgent thing is that we make a beginning, and keep trying.
"If we would gain any real advantage in the use of this Step on problems other than alcohol, we shall need to make a brand new venture into open-mindedness. We shall need to raise our eyes toward perfection, and be ready to walk in that direction. It will seldom matter how haltingly we walk. The only question will be'Are we ready?'...
"Looking again at those defects we are still unwilling to give up, we ought to erase the hard-and-fast lines that we have drawn. Perhaps we shall be obliged in some cases still to say, 'This I cannot give up yet..'"
From the AA "12 Step and 12 Tradition" book
"Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character"
"... Any person capable of enough willingness and honesty to try repeatedly Step 6 on all his faults - without any reservations whatever - has indeed come a long way spiritually...
"When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation, they seem bent on self-destruction. They work against their own deepest instinct. As they are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession. Here their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their Creator's desire to give them new life. For nature and God alike abhor suicide.
"But most of our other difficulties don't fall under such a category at all. Every normal person wants, for example, to eat, to reproduce, to be somebody in the society of his fellows. And he wishes to be reasonably safe and secure as he tries to attain these things. Indeed, God made him that way. He did not design man to destroy himself by alcohol, but He did give man instincts to help him to stay alive.
"It is nowhere evident, at least in this life, that our Creator expects us fully to eliminate our instinctual drives. So far as we know, it is nowhere on record that God has completely removed from any human being all his natural drives.
"Since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires, it isn't strange that we often let these far exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly, or we willfully demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or due us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That is the measure of our character defects, or, if you wish, of our sins.
"If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. That is something we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves. He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character...
"So Step 6 ... is AA's way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime job... With most of [our character defects] we shall have to be content with patient improvement. The key words 'entirely ready' underline the fact that we want to aim at the very best we know or can learn...
"How many of us have this degree of readiness? In an absolute sense practically nobody has it. The best we can do, with all the honesty that we can summon, is to try to have it... No matter how far we have progressed, desires will always be found which oppose the grace of God...
"What we must recognize now is that we exult in some of our defects. We really love them. Who, for example, doesn't like to feel just a little superior to the next fellow, or even quite a lot superiour? Isn't it true that we like to let greed masquerade as ambition? To think of liking lust seems impossible. But how many men and women speak love with their lips, and believe what they say, so that they can hide lust in a dark corner of their minds? ...
"Self-righteous anger also can be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us, for it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority. Gossip barbed with our anger, a polite form of murder by character assassination, has its satisfactions for us, too. Here we are not trying to help those we criticize; we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness...
"When gluttony is less than ruinous, we have a milder word for that too; we call it 'taking our comfort'. We live in a world riddled with envy...
"Some people, of course, may conclude that they are indeed ready to have all such defects taken from them. But even these people, if they construct a list of still milder defects, will be obliged to admit that they prefer to hang on to some of them... So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God...
"Many will ask at once, 'How can we accept the entire implication of Step 6? Why - that is perfection!' This sounds like a hard question, but practically speaking, it isn't... Only Step 1, where we made the 100% admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals. They are the goals toward which we look, and the measuring sticks by which we estimate our progress. Seen in this light, Step 6 is still difficult, but not at all impossible. The only urgent thing is that we make a beginning, and keep trying.
"If we would gain any real advantage in the use of this Step on problems other than alcohol, we shall need to make a brand new venture into open-mindedness. We shall need to raise our eyes toward perfection, and be ready to walk in that direction. It will seldom matter how haltingly we walk. The only question will be'Are we ready?'...
"Looking again at those defects we are still unwilling to give up, we ought to erase the hard-and-fast lines that we have drawn. Perhaps we shall be obliged in some cases still to say, 'This I cannot give up yet..'"