Maybe Unwilling, But Ready

AA Grapevine® - Our Meeting in Print Online November 1966
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
THE Sixth Step makes no sense at all except in the light of the preceding two Steps--Four and Five. Facing our load of psychic garbage and getting it out in the open is not an end in itself. It could be so only for one who enjoyed looking at his own filth. Rather, it is a means to the end of getting rid of enough of that garbage to enable us to endure sobriety in our worst moments and to derive progressively deeper joy from it at all other times.

If, as the Big Book says, "alcohol was but a symptom," and the root of the trouble is to be found in character defects such as selfishness, dishonesty and resentment, it follows that the issue is the removal of these defects. Two questions present themselves here: first, who does the removing, and, second, just how far do we have to go with the Step--obviously all sober people in AA are not perfect people.

The answer to the first question is a shocker to some people because, according to the Sixth Step, God is to be the one who does the removing of character defects. I have heard some strong arguments against this point. A friend of mine with twenty years of sobriety insists, "God didn't remove my character defects--I did!" Naturally, this man is welcome to his opinion; if it works for him, fine. But the point is that it is not the opinion of the first 100 people who recovered in the Fellowship. Their opinion is clearly and strongly stated in the Sixth Step, and it is not that I remove my own defects alone, and it is not that God helps me to remove my defects. It is that God removes my defects.

What the Step requires of me is readiness. Readiness and willingness are often confused in talking about this Step, and they are not the same. My AA sponsor often uses a comparison which I find useful in clarifying my thinking here. I may hate hospitals and be scared to death of the idea of surgery. But if my appendix is about to rupture, when the ambulance comes by, I get in and go. I don't want to go; I am unwilling to go; but I am ready. The Sixth Step works like that. It is possible to be ready to have these defects removed at many times when it is impossible to be willing.

Even readiness is a difficulty with some of the defects--usually the ones which are the most dangerous. For example, how many of us have had the attitude: God, you can take away all of my defects, but leave my love life to me; or, you can take away all of my defects, but I still have to lie in business to succeed. The way to handle such difficulties is not to justify them but to acknowledge them as blocks to taking the Sixth Step and ask God for strength to become ready in these areas.

As to the question of how far do we go with the Sixth Step, in view of the fact that this is a program of spiritual growth rather than spiritual perfection, two words in the Step hold the key. They are "entirely" and "all." My experience with the Step has been that as long as I was pretty much ready to have God remove most of my defects, nothing happened. When I became entirely ready to have Him remove all of them, things changed in my life for the better. I did not become perfect. But I did get enough relief to enable me to get sober and stay sober. I think that, as much as any other single Step, the Sixth Step taken on a thoroughgoing and continuing basis makes the difference between just staying dry and getting the strength to sustain a happy and meaningful sobriety.
T. P., Jr. Hankins, New York