NA STEP SIX

Tahir · Senior Member

NA STEP SIX

Tahir · Senior Member

Entirely ready for what?

If we're new in NA and this is our first experience with the Sixth Step, many of our character defects will be so blatant that our immediate reaction will likely be one of overwhelming willingness to get rid of them. We're seeing them for the first time, in all their glory, so to speak, and we want them gone - today!

Once we've gotten past our initial reaction, we'll find that we probably have at least some measure of fear or uncertainty about changing. The unknown is terrifying for almost everyone. We've had the defects we're about to let go of for a long time, probably most of our lives.

We probably have some fears about what our lives will be like without these defects. Some of them may seem more like vital survival skills than defects of character. We wonder if the removal of our defects will inhibit our ability to earn a living. We may find that the idea of being a "respectable citizen" is repulsive to us. Many of us are strongly attached to an image -we're cool, we're trendy, we're outside the bounds of polite society, and we like it that way. We may be afraid that by working the Sixth Step we'll be changed into dull conformists. Some of us may think that we're nothing but defects, and wonder what will be left of us if our defects are removed. Our fears are probably vague and unformed. If we pursue them to their logical conclusion, we're sure to find that they are unfounded. In other words, if we say them out loud, we can see them for what they are.

Are there parts of me I like, but which might be "defects"? Am I afraid I'll turn into someone I don't like if those parts of my character are removed?

What do I think will be removed?

Tahir · Senior Member

If we've had some previous experience with the Sixth Step, our character defects are nothing new. In fact, we may be feeling dismayed right now that we still have a certain defect, or we may be upset because we're looking at the same old defect in a new manifestation.

For instance, we're still insecure. We may no longer run around indulging in a series of transparent attempts to convince others that we're big shots, but we still have the defect. The way we've been acting on it lately is far more subtle and far more insidious. We may have been unconsciously sabotaging the efforts of others so that we can look better by comparison, or trampling on someone else's desires because they don't directly serve our own needs. What's especially painful about realizations such as this in later recovery is that we've tended to think of ourselves in a better light. We're deeply ashamed of harming others. We may feel a dull fear that we're incapable of change, that one character defect or another is here to stay. We can draw some measure of comfort from the fact that we're now aware of what we've been doing and are willing to work on it. We need to maintain a sense of hope and trust that the process of recovery works even on the most firmly entrenched defects.

Do I still believe in the process of recovery? Do I believe I can change? How have I changed so far? What defects do I no longer have to act on?

Do I have any defects that I think cannot be removed? What are they? Why do I think they cannot be removed?

raman · Veteran Member

My sponsors suggestion was very practical and simple=
take one behaviour each week thts causing pain.
Work towards letting that go.
Somethings i got rid of =
1.Smoking.Thats the first one i tried and call it begginers luck or what,, it happened,,, i ve never had to light a cigarette for nigh on 14 years.
2.fear of the stage that prevented me from going back to music
3.anger with my parents,,ive hit Pa and Ma even in recovery. I believe this was not only due to past resentment but also due to brain damage caused by cold turkey form heroin and many other addiction at a treatmentcentre. Howver by adopting new thoughts and attitudes,Ive never had to hit ma or pa again
4.compulsive mastrubation that i was doing as a way of coping with pain
5.laziness and lethargy= this came from being willing to do physical excercise and not procrastinating on nimportanat things .I began walking and also returned to swimming,,, these good habits are with me even 12years later.
Thers still few things I want to do !!!I had reservations then but now I think differently !!
First on my list is overspeeding and then gettinginto road rage !!
Boy ,, by God thats Gotta go !!!

florence · Member

i am an al-anon member,recently moved to a new country.this step board is increasing my serenity, it is very helpfull to read these sharings. i feel i could re-read this step for months! i am just coming to a better understanding of a situation in my recent past where i experienced conflict. i am dipping in and out of steps 4 to 6 and that is helping me to let go and accept myself. for me the fine line is self-awareness and acknowledging my defects without descending into self-hate. the program is a great gift to me and i am learning to consistantly love myself even when my glaring flaws have not yet been removed. when i am judgemental or sharp with my kids, i ask for gods help, and i don't turn on myself ....this is a miracle for me and i am so greatfull. before i met these ideas i was tormented by cruel thoughts towards myself. now i treat myself with love and tenderness, and so i am rarely sharp with my kids anymore. i am very gratefull to be able to discuss these topics, i feel i am part of a caring family.

raman · Veteran Member

Hi Florence,
im glad yo shared and i read !
im going thru guilt once more for my brothers slip,,
he gets sober and then does well for sometime and then he slips.
And each time he slips I feel guilty.
When I first came into recovery form addiction myself,, I remember one nite when my family of pa,ma and younger bro ganged up on me and said that he was like that cause of my bad influence.
I was taken aback by that but after an inventory dismissed it as false.
Now I know recovery is my responsiblity and each one of us needs to keep that as our first priority for the rest of our lives,, a day at a time.
The painful thing is to see my younger bro go back and drink inspite of him being aware of the consequences.
So now Im working on how to let go of any guilt I may feel ,, especially as I am witness to his slips cause we live in the same building.
Reading your share gave me identification at feelings level,thanks !!!

Tahir · Senior Member

Welcome home Florence. Thank you for sharing. Glad you're here with us.

Keep coming back, we all need each other.

florence · Member

thanks guys!

Tahir · Senior Member

...to have God remove...

Yes, the Sixth Step specifies that only a Power greater than ourselves can remove our defects of character. However, the extent to which most of us grasp what that actually means is directly influenced by how much experience we have with the up-and-down, on-again off-again struggle and surrender associated with Step Six.

The first thing most of us do about our character defects is decide not to have them. Unfortunately, this is futile - about as effective as attempting to control our using. We may have some apparent success for a time, but our defects will eventually resurface. The problem is that our defects are part of us. We will always be subject to reverting to our worst character defects in stressful situations.

What we need to do in the Sixth Step is much like what we had to do in the first two steps. We have to admit that we have been defeated by an internal force that has brought nothing but pain and degradation to our lives; then, we have to admit we need help in dealing with that force. We must completely accept the fact that we cannot remove our own shortcomings, and we must prepare ourselves to ask in the Seventh Step for God to remove them for us.

How am I trying to remove or control my own character defects? What have my attempts resulted in?

What is the difference between being entirely ready to have God remove my defects of character and suppressing them myself?

How am I increasing my trust in the God of my understanding by working this step?

How does my surrender deepen in this step?

What action can I take that shows that I am entirely ready?

Tahir · Senior Member

Our defects of character

Even after all the work we've done in the Fourth and Fifth Steps, we're still not entirely clear at this point about the nature of our defects of character. We're probably wondering where, precisely, our character defects end and our character begins within the complex structure of our personality. Why do we do the things we do? Is it someone's fault? When did we first feel this way? Why? How? Where? If we're not careful, we can become so self-obsessed that we lose sight of why we're working a Sixth Step. We need to focus our efforts. Our goal is to raise our awareness of our character defects so that we can become entirely ready to have them removed, not to analyze their origin or indulge in a bout of self-absorption.

Our character defects are indicators of our basic nature. We are likely to find that we have the same basic nature as anyone else. We have needs, and we try to get them met. For instance, we need love. How we go about getting love is where our defects come into play If we lie, cheat, or harm others and degrade ourselves to get love, we are acting on defects. As defined in It Works: How and Why, our defects are basic human traits that have been distorted by our self-centeredness. With our sponsor's help, we need to list each defect we have, describe the ways in which we act on it, look at how it affects our lives, and, very importantly, find out what we're feeling when we practice it. Imagining what our life would be like without each defect will help us see that we can live without them. Some of us take practical action by finding out what the opposite spiritual principle would be for each character defect.

List each defect, and give a brief definition of it.

In what ways do I act on this defect?

When I act on this defect, what effect does it have on myself and others?

What feelings do I associate with this defect? Am I trying to suppress certain feelings by acting on certain defects?

What would my life be like without this behavior? Which spiritual principle can I apply instead?

Tahir · Senior Member

Spiritual principles

In the Sixth Step, we will focus on commitment and perseverance, willingness, faith and trust, and self-acceptance.

At this point in our Sixth Step work, we should be acutely aware of our shortcomings. In fact, we're probably so aware of them that, in the course of our daily lives, we can see them coming and even stop ourselves from acting on them much of the time. At times, our awareness may fade, and we may no longer be as vigilant in watching our behavior. It takes an incredible amount of energy to monitor ourselves every second and curb every impulse to act out. We'll relax into everyday life until, all of a sudden, we'll be left feeling sick and ashamed and wondering how, after all the work we've done, we could have possibly done that again.

However, we do not give up. Instead, we make a commitment to our recovery. We maintain our newly emerging principles despite our setback. We keep taking steps forward even though we've taken one or more backward. We're looking for gradual improvement, not instant faultlessness.

How am I demonstrating my commitment to recovery today?

By working the first five steps, I have persevered in my recovery. Why is this quality so vital to the Sixth Step?

Applying the spiritual principle of willingness means, very simply, that we are willing to act differently. It does not necessarily mean that we will act differently or even that we're capable of doing so. We can perhaps best illustrate this attitude by an example. Suppose we've been dishonest- with our families, with our employers, with our friends - in many ways, ranging from the minor to the severe. While it may seem better to become willing in "layers," focusing our willingness on the worst or most destructive forms of dishonesty first, this step says that we were entirely ready to have all our defects removed. That means being willing never to be dishonest again, even in a minor way. This may seem like more than we can expect of ourselves, but we only have to do it for today.

It's hard to have this kind of willingness, especially when the apparent consequences for mild dishonesty aren't so severe. We may be aware that we're not being entirely honest, but we think we're not hurting anyone and we're getting away with it, so why be concerned about it? But it's this kind of thinking that has perhaps the most severe spiritual consequences. It may turn out that no one is obviously harmed by our dishonesty, and that no one ever finds out, but the dishonesty reverberates in our spirits from then on. Even if we're not consciously aware of it, even if we sleep just fine at night, the result of acting on a defect when we have the ability not to is an impairment of our spiritual growth. If we continue being unwilling, we'll eventually paralyze our spiritual growth.

Am I willing to have all my defects of character removed at this time? If not, why not?

What have I done to show my willingness today?

The amount of willingness we have to develop in this step requires a corresponding amount of faith and trust. We have to believe that a Higher Power is going to work in our lives to the exact degree that's necessary. Continuing with the example of dishonesty, we have to trust that our Higher Power isn't going to remove the defect of dishonesty from our lives to such a degree that we become brutally honest, incapable of remaining silent even when speaking the truth would hurt someone. As long as we get out of the way so that God can work in our lives, we'll experience the exact degree of spiritual growth we need.

To what degree is my fear of what I will become still present? Has it diminished since I began working this step?

How am I increasing my trust in the God of my understanding by working this step?

With words like "entirely" and "all" playing such a prominent role in this step, it's easy to become overly self-critical and perfectionistic. We need to remember that even though our willingness must be complete, we're not going to become perfect - not today, not ever. When we act out on a defect against our will, we need to practice the principle of self-acceptance. We need to accept that while we're still capable of acting out, we're also still willing to change; with that acknowledgment, we renew our commitment to be changed. We've grown exactly as much as we were supposed to for today, and if we were perfect, we would have no further need to grow.

Do I accept myself today? What do I like about myself? What has changed since I've been working the steps?

Tahir · Senior Member

I've come to realize today in my recovery that the Sixth Step is the most important in the chain of 12 Steps, especially from where I am in this journey of recovery. When I had just started exploring the 12 steps in my recovery, my first impressions about Step Six (and also Step Two in some ways) was they required the minimal work, and could be easily breezed through moving on to the more important steps... How wrong I was.

Step Six is the Step of Transformation, the action step! Writing my inventory in my fourth step and even sharing it with my Sponsor in my fifth step merely brought awareness and to some extent, acceptance of my defects of character, those dysfunctional patterns that I've developed over the years due to my addiction. The true work of looking at my defects for what they are and what they do to me on a deeper level happens in my ongoing sixth step that I picked up from my first Sponsor.

When I investigate thoroughly the incidents that take place in my daily life in the light of Step Six, I see why I acted out on a certain defect of character in a particular situation. I see what I really wanted to achieve in that situation and why I thought that using this defect would bring about what I wanted to achieve. I see how my acting out on this defect actually brought about the opposite result of what I actually wanted to achieve. I see how disadvantageous and self-defeating using my defects of character is to my true desires.

Once I have identified all this, I then go back to my second and third steps by opening my mind to the possibility of using a different approach in a similar situation in the future and committing myself to doing so. Then I investigate what that different approach can be. I list out the corresponding spiritual principles that I can take into use instead of the defects. Thus I become entirely ready by surrendering to this idea born out of my Sixth Step Inventory.

If I find myself continuing to act out on a particular shortcoming of mine, I take it to mean that my Higher Power has a loving intention for me there. My Higher Power wants me to pick up something more that this defect has to teach me. I go deeper by using my Fourth Step on the issue, do a fifth with a member or with a NA group, either face-to-face or online, gain the insight that I must pick up and fall back to the ongoing process of sixth and seventh steps again.

The Sixth step doesn't mean that I change. It only means that I become willing and ready. Only my Higher Power can change me as I have already admitted in my first step that I cannot on my own.

Learn how the 12 Steps work. Participate in your own recovery as well as the recovery of others, by being active on this board as we go through the 12 Steps of recovery together! We discuss each of the Twelve Steps In the order they are written, one step at a time, every two weeks.