Chipping Away at Defects of Character

[MajestyJo]

Honesty/Dishonesty

Remember recovery is a process and it is one day at a time. It is good to do Steps 4-9 on big issues in our life. I also do them when something from my past comes up and confronts me in today. I don't feel a Step 10 is big enough to encompass all, as it often involves others as well as myself, even if it happened, in my case 60-70 years ago.

As I like to say, "If I remember to take my God with me, how can things go wrong?" I found Step 5 to be very freeing.

Sometimes when things come up, it means the blanket of denial has been removed and I can finally get true self-honesty. In so many cases with me, I had buried things so deep, that it took them a while to surface. As I have shared before, when I quit smoking at 7 years sober, I found a lot of underlying emotions that I had never dealt with. They were the same emotions in the beginning 4th & 5th Steps, but a lot of abandonment, sadness, resentments, rejections, and blessing that I didn't see as such at the time, because when I blank out feelings, I blocked out the good as well as the not so good. I can't connect with my Higher Power when I have those barriers up.