Step six in Alcoholics Anonymous is the following: we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. We got here by looking at the worst of ourselves with another person in step five. What this does is give us a lot of willingness to say, whoa, I want to be rid of all these defects of character, and I want to ask the power that has the ability to do that. In step six, we simply get the willingness by looking around, seeing all the worst of ourselves, and realizing I want to be free of all of this. I no longer want all of these defects that were making drinking look so attractive. Step six is about looking at every single aspect of our lives, having a willingness to bring all of those defects to the table, and being willing to be free of them all.
Discovering Just How Many Defects We Have
Many of us thought, well, I was pretty nice, or I'm not that bad. I just have a bit of a drinking problem and maybe one or two other things — maybe a little anger problem or maybe a little resentment. What we discover in step five is, whoa, there are a lot of defects going on here that made drinking look attractive as a way to obscure those defects. Defects of character like selfishness: we go through the day thinking about ourselves all the time. I often made it through almost the entire day barely considering anyone else unless I wanted them to do something for me, in which case I would only think about what I wanted them to do and not what they might want to do also — unless that would benefit me in getting them to do what I wanted them to do.
We find defects like overeating. We find defects like constantly talking and not listening to people, which leads to resentment and arguments and fights and drinking and other things. We find our sex drives often have gotten either repressed and buried and not taken good care of, or gotten completely destroyed — completely out of control, or some weird combination of "Lord, I'm just going to put this away and not use it" or "oh my God, this has gone crazy." We find our defects of character in our work: that we dominate and try to force our will on other people and then resist the same being done to us, or that we're overly submissive and won't stand up, assert ourselves, and say what's right. We find so many of these defects of character that have come up in steps four and five, and by step six, we're immersed in them, and we look around and say, I'm willing to be rid of all this stuff.
For me, I was willing to be free of all the sex problems I'd had. I was willing to be free of my selfishness. I was willing to be free of my messed-up diet that was causing me to be depressed, feel bad for myself, get into self-pity, think about only myself, and then want to drink. We look at all these defects of character with another person, and then we just can't stand to go on with them anymore. That's the power of step five in driving us into step six, because as long as we have kept this stuff secret, this is who we are, and we're not willing to be rid of our defects. Once we expose this to light, we become willing. Just exposing these things with another person often generates a lot of willingness, and it's our decision to amplify that willingness and to bring it to the power that can transform it.
Why Self-Management Kept Failing
Many of us have tried, much of our lives, to move on these defects of character. We've tried to manage our weight and our diet successfully. We've tried to manage our sex life successfully. We've tried to manage our presence at work successfully. We've tried to manage our drinking successfully. We've tried to manage our selfishness successfully. And what we see is failure, consistently, because we were just trying to basically be just as we were, do just as we always had done, and get different results. We weren't bringing our defects to a power that has the ability to transform them. That power — the one we turned our lives over to in step three, the one that gave us the courage to do steps four and five — is available to remove all of our defects.
I believe I am free of defects of character today. Repeatedly working on step six along with all the rest of the steps, I'm free from defects of character. It says right in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that God will not render us and keep us white as snow without our cooperation. In my experience, I am free of defects of character as long as I'm consistently willing to have God remove my defects of character and consistently follow up by asking, in the next step, to have God please remove these things. The key is that defects of character will come up again, and we work these steps again and again. I'm free from any selfishness in sharing this — I'm doing this out of love and imagination and excitement for the possibilities in your life, and to help continue mastering this myself.
Yet it can be amazing how fast a new defect of character can come up — one that has been removed by God and yet has the ability to come up again. I have an amazing diet today. I have an amazing sex life today. I have an amazing business life today. I have what I consider miraculous results in my life from working these steps. The trick is to immediately work them again as soon as something slips, and to keep working them when things are good. I've gone back to steps six and seven with so many things, so many times. God, I see we're here with the ego again. I see that me being a big deal has become way too important in my life. I'm willing to be free of this defect. That's the essence of step six: it prepares us to ask, because the first step to asking is willingness.
When We Secretly Want to Keep a Defect
Ironically, I've noticed sometimes when I've detected things among my defects, maybe I don't want to be free of this one yet. Maybe I'm not willing. I kind of like this one. This is who I am, this defect of character. This is who I am — I get mad and yell at people, or I drive crazy. One of the things I became willing to ask God to remove was my crazy driving. These are things a lot of us don't see as a big problem. Well, so what? I'm a little aggressive. Other people are jerks. But your driving could kill somebody. That's a defect where it's very important to be willing to ask God to remove it. Now Laura complains that I drive like a grandma. I make an intention to drive exactly at the speed limit today unless doing so would be unsafe — for example, driving in Atlanta at 55 miles an hour is often not very safe when everyone else is going 80.
We get willing when we see the cost of keeping our defects in place. I remember doing a step six with my diet. After seeing it again and doing a step five on my diet — talking with my uncle, who's a doctor, and saying, look, I don't even know what I'm doing with my diet and it's not working for me — I became willing to change. Just this simple affirmation can be really helpful for step six: I'm willing to change. Once we have the willingness, then we're ready to do step seven and actually ask and set the intention: God, please remove all these defects of character. Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings. Once we're willing, it's pretty easy then to ask. However, for this purpose we're specifically looking at step six: became willing, and enjoyed that willingness.
Who Am I Without This Defect?
To be fully prepared for step seven, we need to detect and let go of any resistance. When we see a defect of character, look at it. Am I willing to let this go? Am I willing to be a new person? Am I willing to not even know who I am without this defect of character anymore? If I don't eat hamburgers and hot dogs all weekend when my wife is out of town and play video games, who am I? If I don't yell and scream at people when I don't get my way, who am I? If I think about other people and calculate what they might want in my decisions, who am I? If I drive the speed limit instead of 10 or 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, who am I? If I give homeless people money when they ask for it, who am I? These are things I've all been through — every single one of these transformations. Am I willing to not even know exactly who I'll be anymore when I let this defect go?
Just recently, a week or two ago, I was ignoring somebody at my AA meeting. I looked at it, and I went right back to willingness. I talked to my sponsor about it: this doesn't feel right. At first I wasn't willing to let this go. But I'm not the kind of person who ignores people because of some idea in my head. I love every person everywhere unconditionally. That means I don't ignore people because of some story I'm telling in my head that they might not like me, and maybe they shouldn't have said something before, and maybe they will say something mean to me. Then I became willing to be free — free of that — and to see that I wasn't sure exactly how I would interact with this person without that defect of character. I started praying about it. Please God, let me be myself when this person is around. Please God, remove this shortcoming and defect where I'm somehow putting negative energy at this person when they're around. I became willing to be free of that defect of character.
This is a basic that we don't get past. In fact, I just glossed over step six at first. Now, one of the steps I most consistently come back to is six, because I almost automatically do the preceding ones: powerless over alcohol, life had become unmanageable, willing to be restored to sanity, turn my life over to a higher power, do an inventory of what's going on, talk to somebody about it — okay, here's what it is, really it's this. Wow, I still need to improve my diet. Man, I thought I was done. I'm willing to be free from this defect of character. I'm willing to change.
Step six is all about being willing to change, and if the preceding five steps told us anything, it's that there is a desperate need for us to change. Once we're willing to change in step six, the rest of the steps will take us, as if through a vortex, through the change and pop us into a spiritual awakening. I am so grateful for having been through this process so many times and for the chance to learn and master this process one day at a time. You can watch more videos like this on my Life playlist on my YouTube channel.
I love you. You're awesome. I wish you an amazing life in sobriety, and I will see you for step seven.