Having Trouble with Step 6

Today I am 5 months sober from alcohol :blush:

Currently working on the 6th step in AA, and I’m having a much harder time with it than I had thought I would. I tackled steps 1-5 with lots of focus, but am feeling some resistance with step 6. I’m a perfectionist by nature - to a fault - and have spent a lot of my recent past trying to undo those thinking patterns and work on acceptancing myself for you I am, faults and all. Now I’m suppose to work on my higher power removing those character defects from me? It feels like a step backwards and an opportunity to beat myself up again.

If I were queen of the universe, I would make steps 8&9 come after 4&5, but since I’m not I’m asking for advice instead. What were the tools that were most helpful to you during step 6?

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Never had a problem used my sponsor .

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Yes, I have Drop the Rock it’s great

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There’s not a lot of guidance in the big book regarding this step. My sponsor and I read drop the rock together and discussed. In the end this step was about willingness to change. Some detects are harder to let go than others.

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Unfortunately for us drunks, time takes time. It isn’t my time or your time, but HP’s time. HP plays the dance as HP sees fit.

For me, often left out of this conversation is our self will. I’m not ready to give up this defect! For me, one of the main themes running throughout the steps is surrender surrender surrender. The other part for me is taking ownership.

The text of this step says that we became entirely ready for HP to take this stuff. If we did a step three and really practiced it, why do we even need this? I already turned my will over to HP. But I am in no way a Jesus take the wheel, set it and forget it sort of goat…For me, I cannot abdicate my responsibility, my part in things.

So again, I have to surrender to HP. That doesn’t mean that I have to begrudginly look to HP and be like OK I am ready to give up X take that from me! I mean it this time!

It means I have to be willing to accept whatever HP’s decision is for me concerning my defects. Those defects may serve a purpose and I can’t begin to fathom whether or not that defect still serves a purpose today or tommorrow. I have to simply be ready to accept HP’s plan for the defects and take ownership of the things I can and should do to alleviate those defects and try to do them as best I can.

I have found that for many of my defects, I was the creator of the circumstances that allowed those defects to thrive. As I healed, I saw my part in the damage I was doing to myself. Yes… It isn’t that simple. Bad people did bad things to me that helped create fertile grounds for me and my defects.

So like not touching a hot stove, I had to stop doing the things that helped create the environment for those defects to thrive and as I did my part, HP removed the defect. Sometimes slowly and some times quickly.

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