Step Six: Became entirely willing to have God remove all these defects of character.

If you’ve been around the rooms awhile, you’ve bumped into the idea that character defects are outdated survival skills. At one time they helped us survive the craziness of alcoholism, but now they’ve outlived their usefulness. They don’t fit our current circumstances, so they’re causing more problems than they solve.

This idea came to me, as most of my recovery miracles did, just when I needed it: during my Fourth Step. I felt overwhelmed by the looooong list of defects uncovered in my inventory. I knew I was a mess, but really? How could anyone have this many defects?

When I felt crushed by my inventory, defects-as-coping-mechanisms gave me a handle I could hold it by: the tiny, baby beginnings of self-compassion. Maybe I wasn’t a horrible person after all. Maybe I just had some really overdeveloped coping skills.

Finding out that I didn’t have to hate myself for my flaws was a seismic shift in my thinking. But it still left me the problem of becoming willing to let go of them.

Self protection

A key piece in my Alcoholic Craziness Defense System (patent pending!) is resentment. It took me a long time to see resentment as something I choose to do. I thought of it as a natural reflex, almost like gravity. You let go of an object, it drops. Someone hurts you, you resent them. It’s automatic. And besides, I’m totally justified. Do you know what they did to me? They deserve it!

In fact, I didn’t even see resentment as a problem. I saw it as a necessary defense against the pains of living with a largely clueless dry alcoholic.

It’s way easier to be angry than hurt. Anger gives me a nice hard shell. Admitting that I feel ___________ (fill in the blank: hurt, lonely, ignored, rejected, scared)? Who wants to be that vulnerable, especially with someone who hurt my feelings in the first place? Nope, no way. I’ll stay mad, thanks, and keep my shields up.

Learning to see resentment as a character defect–as something standing in the way of my usefulness to God–came very slowly. When my Higher Power started nudging me to let go of it, I had a million excuses. I need this. How am I going to survive without any defenses? Maybe You could make the crazy people in my life behave, and then I wouldn’t need it!

Willingness is complicated. What keeps me from being entirely or even partially willing? It took me a long time to figure it out, but most times the problem is lack of faith.

The empty space

Back when my oldest two kids were babies, we had a junky old secondhand couch. Ripped upholstery, chunks of foam missing, and decades of dust and secondhand smoke (and then two babies). It was still better than sitting on the floor, and we were broke, so it was good enough.

When another relative upgraded their home and offered us their old couch, we were overjoyed. We found someone to take our old couch–it was so beat up, Goodwill didn’t want it–and in between hauling out the old and receiving the new, we spent a few days couchless.

My little ones couldn’t understand: Where did our couch go? Why is it gone? We want it back! Why don’t we have a couch anymore? They missed that crappy old thing because it was all they’d ever known. They didn’t understand that we got rid of it to make room for something better. All they saw was the empty spot in the living room.

Trusting that something better is coming

I’m a lot like that when my Higher Power starts moving things out of my life. Maybe that defect has done nothing but make me miserable, but I’m still afraid to let go of it–to be the apocryphal hole in the donut.

Because when the God of my understanding puts His finger on something and says it’s gotta go, He never shows me ahead of time what He’s going to give me to put in its place. I have to be willing to take off that armor and step out naked. That takes more faith than I have sometimes.

I can pray for the “willingness to be willing,” as it says in Pathways to Recovery. I can listen to the stories of all those who have gone this way before me. I can remind myself of all the times God has gotten me through without dropping me on my head. And if all else fails, I can stay miserable until I’m really willing. God doesn’t force me to let go. He’ll let me sit in my mess as long as I want.

The alternative to resentment is to feel my feelings–to let myself feel hurt, lonely, rejected, scared, and all the rest. That doesn’t sound like such a great deal. But when I allow those feelings to come up, instead of stuffing them under a load of bitterness and anger, they pass.

They pass. That discovery changed my life. I thought resisting feelings would make them go away. Turns out, it makes them stronger. Feeling the feelings is like riding the waves at the beach. If I resist, they knock me down and drag me under. If I let them carry me, I can ride them out. Who knew?

I don’t have to keep carrying them around. I can take off the shell and practice being human. I’m grateful that this program gives me a safe place to do that.

Keep coming back!