I know. It’s been awhile. It’s been a long while. Since last posting in September of 2020, a lot of things have happened… to all of us.
I won’t rehash the obvious things. I will report that in this span of time I successfully completed my MFA in Creative Writing from Oregon State University-Cascades. I can’t guarantee this will improve the prose written here, but I am using shorter sentences.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoy writing this blog. I’m afraid there is an embarrassingly small number of followers. I know how to talk about the Steps and about Recovery. I’m not so great at self-promotion.
Anyway, I shall now move on to the next set of steps. If you’ve forgotten, we are looking at the connections between each step, not at their traditional junctures, but where one set of Steps meets the next set of Steps.
For this next discussion, I will be posting smaller sections (five in all) but with considerably less time in between.
Steps Seven and Eight
We’re ready to talk about Steps Seven and Eight. I’ve written about the space between Step Six and Step Seven and how there is so little about these two steps in the Big Book. Referring to page 75, the Big Book talks about returning home and spending an hour reflecting on whether we were thorough about our Fifth Step. At that particular moment, becoming entirely ready to have all these defects of character removed seems like a challenge for which we may not be prepared. Years can pass in the space between these steps.
We move then to “humbly” asking Him to remove our shortcomings. In the first edition manuscript, it should be noted that it said, “humbly, on our knees” and then asked God to remove our shortcomings. “On our knees” was removed because that wasn’t the kind of humility we believed we could deal with. It felt too much like an order. It also says something about where we are at that particular moment when we are asking, in prayer, for Him to remove our shortcomings. We want God to remove all these defects of character. When we ask that, what exactly is our state of mind? Are we feeling humble? Are we ready to embrace sweeping changes in our attitudes and behaviors? Or are we merely asking because that appears to be the next thing we’re supposed to be doing?
Why we are doing something is an important question. When we go between Step Six and Step Seven, the combo we talk about in meetings, we do Step Six, then Step Seven. We race through this. What I mean is we merely discuss it. We ask God to remove our shortcomings, and then we merrily move on. I’ll ask again, precisely what is our state of mind? The word “humbly” really articulates better than anything else what our state of mind should be when moving from Seven to Eight. Our objective at this particular point is to be less than self-centered. We probably need to go back if we are still more than self-centered or even self-centered. There’s just no getting around that. The efficacy of our amends, or at least the action of making the list, is dependent on our sense of humility. Are we humble? Are we finding a sense of humility? Are we finding comfort in who we are becoming? Do we have a sense of serenity about how we move on?
Those of us who have been around know that the promises or what are called “The Promises” get bandied around a lot in meetings. They are quoted in meetings. They are read in meetings. Sometimes they are printed on the wall. Mentioning the “Promises” gives people solace about deciding to come to a meeting. The words suggest that a person’s life is profoundly changed. What is often not clarified is that the “promises” as articulated in the Big Book have to do with moving forward with a Step of which the newcomer hasn’t even been made aware. That is the Step that follows Step Eight. We still have an awful lot of work to do before we get to that Step. We have a lot of preparation to do. Not only preparation in terms of making a list, but we also have much spiritual preparation.
We “humbly” asked God to remove our shortcomings. Take away all our defects of character. Anybody with experience knows it doesn’t happen instantaneously but over time. We discovered that we could replace those defects of character with something else. Fear needed courage. Dishonesty needed honesty, impatience needed patience, intolerance required tolerance, and self-centeredness required us to look outside of ourselves and help others. I don’t know anyone who could get down on their knees, pray to God, and have those character defects replaced immediately. There may be people who fall into that category, but I’m not one of them. The desire to have our character defects removed needs to be in our mind as we travel between Seven and Eight. We must understand what needs to happen in Seven that informs what we do in Eight?
I have defects of character that are ingrained in me at my core. They are behaviors that show up first. Not after moments of contemplation. Not after counting to ten or taking a deep breath. They are my initial reaction to almost everything, as I have an alcoholic filter in my brain. Everything runs through that filter before taking action. Many of the feelings, emotions, opinions, and experiences I have, those things I have been using to navigate life, are filled with these character defects. I will find if I am dishonest, and I am, lying comes back pretty quickly when the pressure is on. It’s not like suddenly, I’m pure as the driven snow, and my nose will grow if I tell a lie. On the other hand, I am not wholly unable to tell a lie. Some lies will be more difficult to tell, but not all lies.
I will be fearful a lot. Fear paralyzes me. Fear is a character defect I’ve lived with longer than any other one. The other ones turn out to be devices by which I manage my fear. I won’t move forward in any meaningful way until I better understand how fear controls me. These defects control my life and the way I react. I do not have a good handle on this area of my life — how I react to things. Fear is at the very core of that. The other areas, my self-centeredness, my intolerance, and impatience, are all just ancillary reactions or behaviors. At their core, they have to do with fear. This is why fear is dominant among all the defects of character. I don’t even know what I’m afraid of most of the time. But, at my gut level, I know that something stops me from moving forward or making the right decision, or reacting appropriately.
I would love it if there were some magic incantation or ritual or something where I could take all of my defects of character and load them into some sort of container and either send it into outer space or burn it to a crisp or throw it into the ocean and have it be gone. But that sort of thing is not real. It’s metaphorical. I can metaphorically put my thoughts and defects on paper and put them on a balloon, and let them fly away. But that doesn’t take them away. Not really. It’s all just a show.
If I remain committed to how these defects of character have become “objectionable” to me (Pg. 76), then over time, I will begin to see myself practicing these defects of character less often. I don’t believe I will ever completely eliminate them. Not until I’m dead. They are so core to who I am that I have to be cautious and conscious of their existence almost all the time. Through the actions that I take over time, I may begin to change these behaviors. My first excursion into changing those behaviors has to be the next two steps.
Notes from the Half Measures Seats 