The Twelve Step style, Fifth Step event is not designed to be a
feel good apparatus.
Okay, it is true that the "Big Book" co-authors expressed that, "Once we have taken
this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted."[1]
But is "Delight" or
gratification the purpose of this vital life or death errand?
Our defects (or "sins" as Bill Wilson called them) once ruthlessly faced, are soon to be cast out – taken away root and branch. This is a personally humbling.
Our admissions in the presence of another human helps humble us before God as well. It adds weighty reminder that despite how
objectionable the denominators of our past
behaviors, we have no power to change our natures, however perverse.
A prideful "Self" - that dark entity within, has
deliberately prevented us from seeing one sharp truth:
That of ourselves we can do
nothing. It is 'Its' deflation that helps reconcile us further with the step taken earlier, "Step Two", with which came the shocking revelation that since, “God is everything,"
we must therefore be
nothing.
We will even be asked to conduct a review of this and other foundational ideas before proceeding on with the Steps.
So if feeling good is not the purpose of this task, what then of this "pleasurable" effect that so many report after admitting the
"nature" of their wrongs with another human being?
There is no denying it. For the properly motivated, it is not even
wrong. This is a normal
dopaminergic reaction that occurs within the brain. It is exactly the same as the
rewarding effect that comes with swallowing a shot of tequila, receiving a friendly slap on the back, quaffing down a sugary jelly doughnut or a from big draw of nicotine through a smoldering Cohiba - and although fleeting, is
a perfectly normal human response.
However, many of us pursuing a Fifth Step experience approach this vital step looking for
this "high,” upon once receiving it, later become disheartened after it inevitably dissipates. This kind of expectation and let
down indicates a Fifth Step that has been fueled by a selfish motive.
(Usually looking for "relief.")
There is nothing wrong with a pink
cloud experience that comes out of Freudian style 'talking cure' therapeutic secession. There isn’t a recovered alcoholic on earth who is not
familiar with it. It is a real phenomenon.
But as a motive for Step taking? Shame on anyone who has promoted such
perverted, parsimonious purpose to a spiritual awakening.
It is a harmful idea to promote ‘bliss’, relief or to propose the nurturing
of emotional highs during this process - as it becomes the goal of a person
who is yet prone to selfish, self-centered attitude. There is danger of
mistaking emotional
relief for the spirituality of
forgiveness.
It is not likely that a
soon-but- yet-to-recover alkie, just now for
the first time in his life seeing how he has caused his own downfall, will even
know what true forgiveness means. (Hell most "old-timers" don’t
know) It will be too easy to associate the ecstasy that a
drama laden midnight "confession" elicits with
forgiveness. There are entire
religions and schools of psychological thought that have evolved around
the exploitation of this gross error.
Remember we have not reached Step Seven. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes have
not been replaced with a new set of conceptions and motives. But that will soon
change. So take heart.
What will happen to our anxieties about the future and our interactions
with people, places and things? Will we worry much anymore? Nope.
"Our fears fall from us," they tell us. Anyone who has
gone through this process will agree this is accurate.
They drop like summer flies in November. Fear is an emotional desire to escape and to avoid displeasure,
characterized by dread or the expectation of harm.
Anxiety and other mental or emotional disturbances are not part of the
living design typifying the life of a person who has reached this phase of
development in the spiritual awakening process we call "The Twelve
Steps."
If your fears do not fall after a Fifth Step...you've missed it! There will
be a reason. You had better discover it.
It is extremely important to realize that fear does not disappear. It will
NEVER go away. It is an existing force, like light or gravity over which we
have no control. The real question is will fear continue to penetrate you, and get inside your psyche to haunt you with restlessness, irritability and discontentment, even years and decades after the last drink has been taken?
Many of us are under the mistaken notion that it is good for fear never be seen again –
that all situations begging it ought to be eliminated from our personal
Stream
of Life encounters - and when that mistaken interpretation is adopted, they are
disappointed. The shadow of doubt is cast upon the soundness of the literal
Twelve Step spiritual experience conveyed in their Big Book. Resentment for God
for not doing what we think he ought to is also danger.
The annihilation of fear is not what is meant by "Our fears fall from us."
If the dangerous temptation to fear ever disappeared, how could we
ever hope to develop courage in the face of danger? A life void of such stress would be a curse, not
blessing, as we spiritually atrophied into feebleness. Old age homes, monasteries and insane asylums have always been a testimony to this form of seclusive dreamland - not a healthy reality if we wish to thrive as God's children in The Stream of Life.
What the statement
does say is that although we once were tempted into fear, now we can
watch as the temptation to doubt falls harmlessly away. This is something
that happens as we begin outgrowing unhealthy attachments to our emotions.
Fears are not being obliterated but are being removed from us, as they present
to us. We stand unscathed by them. We are developing courage and
strengthening faith in the face of danger and its emotional child, fear.
Experiencing the "falling away" of this very real, ever tempting
and debilitating emotion is a fact for someone who has reached this point in
this recovery process.
It continues too…if they do! If they do not,
then fear returns as a characterizing feature of the spiritually
degenerated individual.
It surely is a relief to finally experience freedom from this devastating emotion. But relief at this stage is merely a respite gauged with the past. It
does not shield us from fears of things that are yet to come. That is protection we do not experience
unless we continue to firmly establish a progressively conscious contact with
God. We are on our way, but there are more steps to take.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live
Recovered Alcoholic
