STEP 6 “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”“The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” – Charles Dubois Step Six of AA’s Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Step program of recovery is all about the removal of what doesn’t work in our lives anymore. Since you have completed Step Four and Five you surely have plenty of things that were revealed to you about what you need to get rid of! So now it’s time to allow a Higher Power to cut out these attitudes, beliefs and behaviors at the source. You get to partner up with your Higher Power and make a firm decision to let go of the character defects and flaws that have been ruling your life and seemed to have you hell bent on self destruction. The sixth step can bring about significant and very noticeable change when it comes to the thought patterns and behavior that have been with us for a long time. It doesn’t happen overnight obviously, and there is nothing like perfection when working the twelve steps of AA. It’s about making a commitment and being content with patient improvement. Breaking Down Step Six Of AA Alcoholics AnonymousWhen breaking down Step Six I like to focus more on the word “ready” than entirely; nobody is ever entirely ready, especially for the unknown. However the word “ready” is a reminder that we are prepared, open and available. Now we can aim at the very best of all we know or can learn. In previous steps we discovered how we harmed ourselves and other people by acting out on our character defects. We learned about patterns in behavior and that we are likely to act the same way with the same defects over and over. All of this knowledge helped us to become ready to have these defects of character removed. So now, at Step Six, we’ve reached a spiritual state of mind where we are aware of our character defects, sick and tired of them and pretty confident that a higher power of our own understanding will remove what should go. |