Fifth Step

Other guys have talked about what a release they felt, like a huge load off their backs. The Big Book says,

"Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We can begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."

So, I was expecting harps and choirs of angels. But my Step Five just wasn't that big a deal.

Maybe there was stuff I didn't talk about -- I didn't consciously hold anything back, but it could be there's stuff I haven't uncovered, that I don't recognize, that I'm in denial about.

What I felt most was disgust. Like when I start cleaning the kitchen sink after letting dishes pile up for a week or two, and discovering rotten sights and smells. Finding all the garbage.

The progress, I think, is that for once I didn't feel self-loathing. What disgusted me were the defects of character, and the behavior they have caused. All sitting there together in a big stinking ugly pile. But they felt detached from me. No more a part of me than what's in my garbage can.

Maybe I didn't feel a big release because there was not much I haven't told someone about, sometime in my past. I've had plenty of shrinks, and I've been blessed with people I've trusted that I've told my secrets to. I've talked about the really awful shameful stuff, even shared some at meetings, because it isn't the most embarrassing stuff to disclose. So it was the most embarrassing things that I disclosed for the first time, rather the most shameful things, if you understand my distinction, and I guess the truly shameful things are the ones that weigh so much.

I didn't feel delight, peace, ease, didn't feel fear falling away as though exfoliated. It was a spiritual experience, but not a burning bush. I certainly had no strong feeling that the drink problem has disappeared. It's still a daily decision, sometimes a daily struggle.

Maybe step five was underwhelming because I'm still in early sobriety -- most people don't seem to embark on the steps as early as I have. Maybe it's because I'm doing the steps according to the schedule of my workshop, rather than working a step only once I feel secure in the previous step. Maybe the first character defect I need to work in steps six and seven is "impatience." :)

In any case, I see I'm kind of wallowing in a form a disappointment in this post. I am, actually, feeling some pride and gratitude about it. I DID it! Not perfectly, not completely, but I made a start. I should probably consider what I wrote in my last post, that the vast majority of the guys in my workshop are doing their steps for the second, third, sixth, seventh time -- apparently they didn't do it "perfectly" their first time either, once and for all time! I hope in 5 or 10 years, I'll find myself in another workshop, working the steps for the fifth or tenth time, and getting new insight and new growth in my life and deeper serenity in my sobriety.