Step Forum Step Five Home

Step Five

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Question 1:		Do I really have to bare my soul to a complete stranger?
	Answers:	You certainly have to talk to someone. Alcoholics Anonymous (pp72-73) says, "If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. We think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story." Narcotics Anonymous (p.32) says, "The Fifth Step is the key to freedom. It allows us to live clean in the present...We are told that if we keep these defects inside us, they will lead us back to using. Holding on to our past would eventually sicken us and keep us from taking part in our new way of life. If we are not honest when we take a Fifth Step, we will have the same negative effects that dishonesty brought us in the past." The Steps Foundation After he had helped me through the first four steps I didn't consider my sponsor a stranger. I was actually eager to share my fourth step with him. The lightness of spirit that I felt after sharing all that garbage with my sponsor is still with me today. Chris H Well, I certainly didn't want to tell anybody I knew! Barb G

Question 2:		This seems humiliating! Why does this step require me to humiliate myself in this way?
	Answers:	I looked up the definition of humiliate: “to reduce to a lower position in one's own eyes or others' eyes, to lower the pride, dignity, or self-respect of.” The truth of the matter is that my drinking and drugging had brought me to a point where my self-respect was zero, my position in my own eyes could not have been lower. Strangely, however, my pride was enormous and very easily injured. I knew I was a hopeless drunk but if anybody even suggested that there was anything wrong I was all over them. The fifth step helped me to regain my self-respect. By the time I was finished with it that false pride was pretty much gone. Chris H Step five certainly requires some humility but I found the process far from humiliating. In fact, I found it liberating. Susan D It’s not Step Five that’s humiliating; it’s all the stuff I have done that’s humiliating. Recalling and examining all that garbage from my past in Step Four was painful. I thought Step Five would be even worse but strangely it wasn’t. My sponsor never flinched or told me I was a horrible person. He even told me some things from his past that were worse than mine. When I was done I felt lighter, cleaner, like maybe I could be part of the human race again. There was nothing humiliating about the experience. Mike K