Humility and the 7 Steps

As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, I'm not a big fan of the Defects of Character Chorus in AA. In fact, the biggest challenge for me in recovery has been letting go of a habit of "self-hatred" that I picked up during my lifetime and all this supposed recovery talk of one's defects of character has been a somewhat of a dangerous experience for a sensitive one like me.

That said then, when it came time for me to deal with the 7th step--Humbly asked God to remove these defects of character--what helped me the most was how Dr. Earle defined 'humility' for me one day while we were waiting for a meeting to begin. Earle taught me much in those brief meetings before the meetings...

On that particular day, when I was only a few months sober, Earle told me that humility was not something to be possessed or "had" -- humility was simply a moment in time when we were willing to learn. In Buddhism, I think it's referred to as "beginner's mind". It's said that once we think we know, we've moved past humility....and oftentimes for me, that entails moving into some sort of "teaching" moment where I'm trying to convince others about what I think I know (but don't). I sometimes joke that it's almost impossible to talk about humility without violating it's basic essence. Humility seems to be more comfortable or possible in silence.

Anyway, that time before the meeting began, Earle said that humility was just a moment in time where we were willing to learn, where we were open to learning. I liked that insight and wanted to talk more with Earle, but the "real meeting" began...

Months later, well after Earle's death, I was able to apply Earle's definition of humility to my own work on the 7th step, a step which interestingly enough begins with the word, "Humbly". The 7th step begins then from a stance of humility, a decision to be open to learning more about who we are as human beings.

Humility seems to be vitally important in this particular step. In fact, I wonder if the previous 6 steps could really be successfully worked without such a humble approach. Without an attitude of humility, we might have blindly worked through the previous six steps with the mistaken ideas (1) that we had some choice about being/not being alcoholics and that as a result there was something "immoral" about us and our drinking problem; (2) that we were somehow mentally deficient, if not downright insane and that such insanity was the cause of our alcoholism; (3) that some Higher Power "out there" had some preset agenda about what we should/shouldn't do ("God's will") and about what we needed to go "if" we were to be worthy of that Higher Power's full albeit conditional acceptance and love; (4) that our inventory was an "immoral" one; (5) that freedom from the past involved confessional-like acts of self-hatred and self-judgments practiced through repetitive expressions of shame and guilt about the same prior acts and emotions again and again; and, finally, (6) that freedom would be achieved by some sort of outside Higher Power/Surgeon cutting out evil, pride, lust and all sorts of other darknesses within.

For those who do see these as their accomplishments from Steps 1 thru 6, then it is likely that you will then see Step 7 as a continuance of purification rite which involves some sort of outside and powerful force coming into your lives and removing something from you that was wrong, dirty and evil. Step 7, in such a scheme, involves us trying to let go of these "wrongs" so that God will be able to take them away. Hopefully, permanently.

That was not my experience of the 7th step, nor were those my experiences of the prior 6 steps. What I learned in the first six steps was (1) that I just happen to be an alcoholic and it's perfectly OK...now I just need to focus on staying sober today; (2) that my insanity was the result of trying with all my might to be something in was not: I was an alcoholic trying to be a non-alcoholic; (3) that when I let go of my death grip on the idea that I could force myself to not be an alcoholic or to escape any other realities of my life, that I would be OK; (4) that with this understanding of "me as alcoholic" my whole past life became clear: that's why I did what I did!!!; (5) that when I disclosed this "truth" to myself and to others I found and experience freedom to be me, today; and finally, (6) that this same healing process which first happened to me in terms of discovering my own truth as it relates to alcoholism, could happen in all other areas of my life where there was darkness, guilt or shame. Despair/Hopeless led to Awareness. Awareness led to Acceptance. Acceptance led to Self-Disclosure. Self-Disclosure led to Freedom.

For me then, the key was a willingness to learn. To be humble. When I listen other other people's stories, their bottoms involved "humiliation" which is similar to "humble" except that it is where the learning happens when we weren't really quite yet ready for the learning to happen in a softer gentler way. Humiliation happens when we discover Truth by falling flat on our face into that Truth of who we are. The so-called "pitiful incomprehensible demoralization" experience talked about on the first page of More About Alcoholism.

The 7th step then begins for me by continuing with an attitude or predisposition of "not knowing," of not having set and strongly held beliefs about who I am or what and why I've done what I've done. It begins with wonder. It begins with a willingness to learn. And it takes time. Ever so much time. In fact, if there ever was a step which I believe in reworking on a daily basis, in addition to Step 1, it would be Steps 6/7.

As I've said before, my 7th step process was helped a great deal by means of a line from Maya Angelou which has been greatly responsible for my coming to be kinder and more gentle with myself and what I've done in the past: "We did then what we knew how to do; when we knew better, we did better." In my 6th Step, what I became entirely ready to do was to treat myself with the kind of unconditional love and acceptance that many attribute to their understanding of their Higher Power. What I was becoming entirely ready to let go of was not "parts of myself" but rather, the labels and judgments about me that condemned and ridiculed me. Nothing was removed per se, the labels/judgments just fell away from disuse. Like the tree leaves in Fall. They'd served their purpose.

For me, this stance of humility in the 7th step was one of learning more about the Mike of my past and why he did what he did. What happened was that the labels I placed on my past actions, what others like to call "shortcomings" or "character defects" --- began to lose their damning edge and flavor. Selfish and self-centered really don't shed any light on who I was or who I am. I personally don't share the belief that these or other such neat and tidy labels were the underlying foundation of my drinking problem.

The underlying foundation of my drinking problem, and I'm just talking about and for me, was not character defects. The source of my problem was that I was physically different from non-alcoholics/drug addicts in terms of how my body processed certain chemicals like alcohol, pot and all the other mind altering drugs I didn't partake in before I got sober. Once I accepted that fact (my first step), I experienced a freedom to be me: an alcoholic. For me, that freedom released me from the obsession to drink that had plagued me on an ever increasing basis for a period of about 30 years.

That being true, then, why work anything more than the 1st Step? Well, for me, I kept going in part because I wanted to be a full member of this weird organization, but also because being "dry" didn't hold much attraction for me. I'd seen dry drunks and suicide was a far more attractive option than that. The rest of the steps presented me with the possibility of going beyond "non drinking" dryness: it held out the possibility that there was life above and beyond both drinking and simply not drinking.

And in terms of the 7th step, that came in the form of embracing my imperfect, wounded, "torn-to-pieces-hood" (thanks Ernie Kurtz, author of my favorite book, The Spirituality of Imperfection!) humanity.

For my entire lifetime, I thought I knew what my defects of character were: all the bad things about me, including my alcoholism. But I was truly ignorant. On the day my 7th step happened to me, I realized that all the things I thought wrong with me were simply one side of a coin: the so-called "bad" side.

For me, the 7th step involved looking at both sides of these coins, including the one called "alcoholism". Alcoholism was a dis-ease, but it was not a death sentence that I thought it was. It has in fact been the primary reason I have achieved the level of happiness and serenity that I've been able to achieve by this point in my life. Were it not for this "defect" I wouldn't be the wonderful, kind, and loving father and husband I've started to become over the last six years... And if that's true, why would I refer to alcoholism as a "defect" of mine?

For 30 years, I attempted to avoid my potential and actual alcoholism by trying to keep my drinking and my behavior outside of the definition of alcoholism. For most of those 30 years, the definition was that an alcoholic was someone who couldn't stop drinking, even when stopping was required in order to be the kind of person, the kind of father, I so wanted to be. That definition worked for me for most of those years, until the day came when I couldn't stop drinking when I was asked to do just that to be supportive of my 15 year old son's recovery from this same disease.

Looking back, I wasn't interested in the truth behind the question, "Was I an alcoholic?" No, I was only interested in the answer being "No!" Ultimately, I couldn't keep my drinking within the bounds of what I knew to be non-alcoholic drinking -- but by then, I'd lost the ability to stop drinking "on demand" or by willpower. And then, I woke up and realized that the inability to stop drinking was a disease called "alcoholism" and that that was just a physiological disease and that I had it. Luckily, after seeing my son begin his recovery, I knew there was a solution and I began going down this path. Alcoholism wasn't a defect of character for me, it was part of who I was, who I am. It's not something that God or anyone else took away from me: it's still a real part of me. What happened, and I think this was by means of a sliver of humility, is I became aware of the truth about who I was and that truth gave me freedom.

Ok, this has gone on way too long. I suppose that my worst fear, Blogger's Block, has gone the way of most feared things.

Take care!

Mike L.