Step 6: Were entirely ready to have a Higher Power remove all these defects of character; and Step 7: Humbly asked this Higher Power to remove our shortcomings.
The 12-Step Recovery Process
In listening today, it occurs to me we have not been encouraged to Embrace the Gift of our Faults (EGF) once we explore them in Steps 6 & 7 of Twelve Step Recovery Programs. It occurs to me that the incredible people in these rooms seek to go from bad to good or sick to well because they have never been given an opportunity to see themselves as Better for Having Been Broken. As I heard someone say a moment ago, “…The weller I get the sicker I am…” Better for Having Been Broken is a long way from what I am hearing today. Finding power in our pain to move the world is the last thing on folk’s minds.
That’s when I hear awakening in the Story of a woman I will call Susan. I listen to the muted sound of joy coming through her pain. Susan is an ex-felon and drug dealer. I listen as she describes the pain of being a 29-year-old gay woman who has never held a legitimate job. She found one for the first time in her life and is excited and afraid at the same time. I listen to her share her gratitude for the program in her life and how its helped her clean her up “…Now, I feel like a lady…” she exclaims. She seems happy and proud about this moment even if you can hear in her voice how unsettled she is about what comes next and what may be about to happen to her.
Unsettled or not, Susan has found the magic In These Rooms and power in people’s stories to transform how she occurs to herself. The magic emerges when we begin dealing openly with the hard facts and ugly truths about our past. It gains power when we no longer see the conflicts in daily life as attacks on our life management skills and our decision making, or as evidence of our character defects. Every good story contains conflict. In owning and revealing the twists and turns of our stories, we find the power to turn the test of addiction into a testimony. I found this magic when I became aware that I had no story without my addictive behaviors and without Embracing the Gift of my Faults. I had no story to tell of unmerited love, redemption, strength and hope until things went wrong to the point my life had, in the words of Step 1, become unmanageable. My Story is where I made my Bones with my Addiction. Without these experiences, I had no strength, I had no hope. I could not even think of having an In-Spite-of Dream. Some may doubt this magic. Me, I found the beauty in my Story. I am Better for Having Been Broken. The Struggle Continues…
