Al-Anon's Step 7

Al-Anon’s Step 7: Humbly ask (our Higher Power) to remove our shortcomings.

(Photo by Maxime Perron Caissy.)

It seemed like step 7 was everywhere in July (duh, the 7^th month) and now that I’ve hashed it over so much in my mind I almost didn't want to write about it for my step of the month entry then. I realized, after struggling with thinking about this step so much, is that at that point I was supposed to look at the “humility” part. This is what I focused on when I was the speaker at a small group recently, which asks that we speak on something loosely related to the step of the month.

To make speaking easier I usually go off of a passage from one of the books. For step 7 I picked the June 9 reading from the Courage to Change Al-Anon daily reader. This reading talks about confusing humility with humiliation. That has been a chronic problem for me over the years. I grew up in a faith that taught that. We were told to be subservient to others and to set our own needs aside for people who needed it more. This was reinforced by the events in my alcoholic home, where the adults were unable to do the daily tasks they were responsible for and so we kids took that over. It was a way of life to thanklessly do the tasks adults should do to make the household function, like laundry, grocery shopping, and due dates (or more likely, past due dates) for the bills. 

Also, my mother often said abusive or inappropriately sexual things to me as a kid. I thought that being humiliated by the alcoholic was “normal”. After all of that abuse I didn’t understand how anyone could just like me for myself.

So, as an adult I was wrapped up in doing for others and not for myself. I needed to be needed and was used to being constantly needed in situation where others were dysfunctional. Defects that arose from the lack of humility include arrogance (I know what is best for other people) selfishness and over-dependence on the alcoholic. Without realizing it, I was making myself another person’s Higher Power. I also made the alcoholic my Higher Power because I was too insecure to trust my own thoughts and feelings.

When I first came to Al-Anon I couldn’t understand the idea that I am selfish--how can I be selfish if I am always doing for others? The answer is that I do for others because I think if I don't they won't stop loving me or I need them to do what they want me to do. The Al Anon welcome for some groups say, “Our thinking becomes distorted and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it.” Because I was used to thinking for that alcoholic I thought I should think for everyone else, too, and force my will upon them.

Humility, as I define it, is to be honest about our own shortcomings and allow that we are not another person's higher power. Humility is one of the big elements in the Al Anon program and is first present in step one, when we admit we are powerless over alcohol.

In Al Anon we learn to surrender things to our own Higher Power but I also learned to remember that other people have their own Higher Power and I am not it. I have to trust that their Higher Power will look after them and that when that person makes what I consider mistakes I can't cushion them because their HP may be giving them something to learn from.