Al Anon's Step 5

Al Anon's Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.  

(Photo by Dora Pete.)

 In meetings I've heard of Al Anon's step 5 referred to as a "sleeper step". Sometimes people talk about how they are tempted to skip it or not give enough time to it. Now that I reflect on it, Step 5 was perhaps one of the hardest steps for me. I was one of those people who felt tremendously guilty because I
thought that I was harming everyone and everything all of the time. Determining the "exact nature" of my wrongs was hard, but my sponsor helped me sort it out. She asked me questions like,  "Do you really think the things you did back in grade school were harmful enough to be included?" She was simply asking me a question, but I quickly realized how silly some of my ideas about myself were. 

I hated talking to others because of the shame I felt in coming from an alcoholic home, but through Al Anon I learned that being honest about it makes it less shameful. This step is about breaking isolation and not living alone with the crazy stuff in your head. We begin to come out of it and see that our behavior is crazy and we begin to see things differently.   Interestingly, my notes from different Step 5 meetings are about feeling crazy or dealing with "crazy" people. One sensible note says,  "I'm not crazy, my thoughts are crazy." Another note deals with letting the crazy person have the last word in an argument. That can be pretty hard, but I've found that it leads to dropping the issue without further argument, like when I talked about "Letting go of the rope". This is part of detachment and one thing I've heard often at meetings is, "Bless them, change me".

I realized that step 5 is about changing the way we talk about ourselves. It is about seeing things for what they are and not clouding the issue when we have to talk to others. It is another part of the process in removing denial (which can take a long time).  I've found that if I have problems with Step 5 I can go back to Step 3  (Made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.) for strength before I move on.                                                                                                                                                                        

 Lastly, I'd like to leave you with a little Al Anon joke. We used to tell each other, "Don't do your fifth step on the first date".