Anonymous - Step Five: Telling Your Story

Edward C. Sellner, PhD, received his doctorate in pastoral theology from the University of Notre Dame. He became interested in Fifth Step ministry while involved in clinical pastoral education at Willmar State Hospital and Hazelden in Minnesota. Since then he has counseled people in recovery and their families, and has lectured and conducted workshops on Fifth Step ministry and AA spirituality all over the country. He was also professor of pastoral theology and spirituality at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is the author of numerous books on lay leadership, spiritual mentoring, and Celtic spirituality.

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

Step Five

This pamphlet is for those who want to pull themselves out of their fear, despondency, despair, or procrastination. Its for those who want greater self-acceptance, healing of the past, and hope for a better future. It shows what has worked for many of us.

Only you, with the help of your recovering friends and your Higher Power, can make a Fifth Step that sets you free and strengthens your recovery.

The following guidelines can help you in the process:

The Fifth Step is one of the most necessary of all the Steps. Without it, we might never overcome the compulsion to drink or use other drugs. No matter who we tell our story to, telling all of our storyall those things that stand in the way of forgiveness and reconciliationis vital to long-term recovery and peace of mind.

Step Five is also one of the most difficult Steps to take and one of the most often avoided. Why? Each of us can find a good reasonor an excuse.

I dont have to tell anyone about my past; Im already forgiven by God.

I wouldnt know where to begin.

Its nobodys business, anyway.

Many of us put it off. Im not ready seems one of the best excuses to justify procrastinating for a long, long time.

Whenever we are hesitant about taking the Fifth Step, we should know that we are not alone. Many have felt the same hesitation.

We need to acknowledge and accept something before we can change it. Self-knowledge and self-acceptance depend on telling our story, being heard by someone other than ourselves, and perhaps most importantly, hearing ourselves speak the truth.

It is only when we verbally acknowledge our feelings, past faults, and destructive patterns of behavior to another human being and our Higher Power that they lose their control over us. Then we claim the real freedom to move on.

Most of us find it extremely difficult to be completely honest with ourselveslet alone someone elsein areas where we feel shame about the pain weve caused. Deep down were afraid of what might happen if we did open up. We risk the possibility that our listener may feel differently about us afterward or, maybe worse, that we might dislike ourselves even more.

For many of us, the pain of going into the past seems too overwhelming, especially when we consider how hard weve tried to bury the guilt, regret, and shame that likely contributed to our use of alcohol or other drugs.

Yet, unless we are entirely honest with someone else, we cannot expect to live long or happily in this world. The Fifth Step is our chance to do so.

To find the courage to proceed with Step Five, we can only make ourselves ready and pray for the power to carry it outrealizing that if we do not take this vital Step, the process of spiritual awakening may not occur.

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed. (New York: AA World Services, Inc., 2001), 74.

Anyone who is taking a Fifth Step needs to begin with the Fourth.

There is a definite progression in the Twelve Steps, and they are meant to be taken in order. All twelve are part of a total process leading to a spiritual awakeningthe discovery that life does have meaning and that we, too, can experience spiritual progress One day at a time.

Anyone who is taking a Fifth Step needs to begin with the Fourth.

In Step Four, we make a searching and fearless moral inventory, taking stock of our lives, reviewing the direction of our lives, and attempting to make peace with the physical and spiritual worldsso closely interconnectedand find our place within them.

Step Four asks us to look at where we have come from and what patterns of living have been ours. This task requires time, a quiet environment, and writing materials.

Writing something down with a pencil or pen is especially helpful. This process of remembering the past often happens only when we begin to write. Self-destructive patterns, as well as those patterns that contribute to our happiness, are often revealed in the writing process. We also discover aspects of our personalities and areas of our lives that we often overlook.

Writing usually clarifies what sort of person we have become, both our positive and challenging qualities. It reveals what aspects of ourselves we need to acknowledge, accept, and change if we are to experience forgiveness and healing.

This inventory should include resentments: those indignations and slights that can quite literally destroy us. Many such resentments began in early childhood and still control us today. This honest evaluation should also include a search for flaws in our behavior (or defects of character, as the Sixth Step calls them).

Defects like dishonesty, selfishness, pride, intolerance, impatience, envy, phoniness, self-pity, and letting ourselves be dominated by fear likely contribute to our disrupted lives and ruined relationships.

Our inventory should also unearth areas that have caused a great deal of grief, hurt, anger, frustration, or guilt.

We need to acknowledge any secrets that still continue to make us uncomfortable. By bringing to light all those unresolved feelings, unhealed memories, and personal defects that have produced depression and loss of self-worth, we have a chance to heal.

Defects like dishonesty, selfishness, pride, intolerance, impatience, envy, phoniness, self-pity, and letting ourselves be dominated by fear likely contribute to our disrupted lives and ruined relationships.