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For part four of the discussion of step five, I would like to speak about admitting the exact nature of our wrongs to ourselves. Once again, I recall asking myself why this was necessary. After all, did not just do ¼ step that went over all of the gory details that I thought were appropriate and/or necessary to include in that writing.

When I had finally decided to be honest, (or at least as honest as I could be at the time), I tried to be as fearless as possible when digging up those incidences from the dregs of my mind. Even though I had decided that I wanted to be “fearless and thorough from the very start”, I remember having a difficult time with step four. Some of the incidents from my past showed up in my brain and very foggy way, and I had to fight to bring them to the front. I had a problem with other memories, not because they were foggy, but because they were just too painful to look at again. This is one of the reasons why I believe this God-given program was given to us in the order it is. It is implied that I definitely need to do the first three steps before tackling the action steps of four through nine. Once I was secure in the first three steps and I knew that I had the actual power of God to help with my day to day life, I was able to look at my past in a different light. I knew that some of the things I had done were downright bad, or at the very least, inappropriate. However, with the strength I was given through the first three steps, I was able to face my “self” in the action steps, four through nine. But according to this part of step five, I was certainly not ready to completely let go of those incidences of which I had become painfully aware.

Now, the fifth step was asking me to look into that mirror one more time. This time it wants me to admit to myself the exact nature of my wrongs! Come on! Give me a break! How many times so I have to go through this? Garbage? It turned out that it really help me to sit down in a quiet place and read my fourth step as if it were being read by a bystander or stranger. It helped me to reinforce the fact that I had become some kind of entity that was absolutely out of control. It helped me to realize that, if I wanted to have some degree of happiness in this world and this life, I needed to reach out to God for help.

So, this part of the fifth step that asks me to admit to myself the nature of my wrongs, was actually right on. But, it didn’t just become a litany of my failures. It was, even more importantly, an awakening to my potential and possibilitie. I had surrendered my way of doing things to God. That in itself was like a huge weight off of my shoulders. Now I got another chance to become aware of exactly what that weight was that was about to, for the most part, leave me. I was becoming aware of a whole new outlook on my life. I realized for the first time that I did not have to do those things that beat myself down. I became no less than, and no more than, any other human being. I was the same as them, with the same heartbreak in the same happiness. The difference was, however, that I had a plan to listen and follow my spiritual self. I have a plan to follow God’s direction.