Step Six

[bluidkiti]

NA STEP SIX

"We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."

Surrender is the initial part of working each Step. Surrender prepares us to ask God to remove our defects. Respect and honest humility are keys that open doors to powers that are so great that they dare not approach us when we are exerting our wills. The loving higher powers do not want to hurt us, and going against our unsurrendered will would definitely hurt! We have a blessed tendency to not violate certain basics of humanity. If we betray, exploit or manipulate others without their knowledge or permission, the shame and guilt can exact a high price. The Sixth Step gives us a chance to actualize our disapproval of the way we have been living our lives. The danger here is that our illness of addiction tries to make us forget that we are tapping into a greater power that enables us to work our way back to health through the Twelve Steps. We find that submission calms us and allows us to do our part by being willing and open to change rather that letting us be hurt. But we have to keep going with the Steps! By the time we get to this Step, we have begun to see that addiction only feeds us contradictions. Some experiences NA members have said that we need to clearly define what is bothering us. We want to make sure we really are suffering from a defect and not merely confused by our disease.

We addicts require gentleness when we deal with areas of sensitivity caused by past pain. A light touch will do to communicate our needs and our readiness to a loving and attentive God. Gentleness soothes our tendency to relate change with hurting or losing. It gives us maximum capability to pay attention to spiritual principles that may require all our attention. Harshness and abrasiveness make it hard to envision the freedom we seek as near at hand. A loud voice may make us unable to hear at all.

The disease of addiction seems to find a second wind so to speak as we approach this Step. We may want to 'take our time', having 'come so far.' Many have found themselves thinking that if we were to have all our defects removed, we would be unable to survive. Remember here that the purpose of addiction is to mislead and confuse. All that we are seeking in this Step is a growth in our trust and faith that our loving Higher Power will meet our needs. In doing this, we gain the ability to turn loose of harmful defects as we continue with the Steps. We will not be able to go further in recovery unless we trust God to do for us. We have to ask for help from our Higher Power and mean it for the Steps to continue our forward process. Defects do not benefit us. Defects will continue to create countless problems for us and those we love long after we have stopped using drugs. We retain even in recovery the illogical obstinacy and resistance to change in any form. We may even speak well of the Program of NA and the Twelve Steps of recovery and yet we continue hold back from asking God to remove these defects. There are things and places over which we now have some control. We maintain those things in the best way we can. One of the lessons that we will learn again and again in recovery is to keep to our place. While we stress personal responsibility, we get better at choosing what is our business and what is not. Feeling bad over things that went wrong where we really had no say is ridiculous and is only another way the disease will work to make us miserable when it can.

With an increase of trust and faith from this Step, we give ourselves permission to move forward. Our permission is evidence of our surrender and our willingness to change. So far as we know, God has never forced goodness on any of us. We are all free to mess-up forever. If we want to see what ‘better’ is like, we must let God come into our lives and remove that which has blocked our path. Misplaced fears often cause many of our members to slow down when they get to this Step. This is like hanging around outside a restaurant when you're hungry. We addicts feel so brave about things that don't matter to us yet we can be so meek and timid when we face change or improvement. Recalling the early fears that we might have had to overcome in early recovery may help us snap out of any illusions that we might have that the Sixth Step is a resting place in the quest for spiritual growth.