The Fifth Step
Part 4 - Updated

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

Among other things, the Fifth Step enables us to directly experience the benefits of living a spiritual way of life based on the Steps and Fellowship of Overeaters Anonymous. I hope you all have read pages 72 through 75 of the Big Book and keep in mind the famous recovery acronym that explains the how, of how it works, H.O.W. = Honesty, Open-mindedness, and Willingness. It’s so easy to rationalize this Step away but this Step is vital.

On page 75 of the Big Book, it says “Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.”

Reprinted from Alcoholics Anonymous, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc

The Big Book explains that after giving our Fifth Step we carefully review what we have done with an attitude of gratitude to our higher power. It suggests that we go back and re-read the first five Steps and ask ourselves if we had omitted anything. We need to make sure our work thus far has been solid. They describe it as an archway we are building that we will walk through as a free person at last. We need to make sure the cement we put in its foundation is strong and all the stones to this archway are properly fitted in place with good mortar.

The Fifth Step allows us to see ourselves more realistically than in the past. One of the problems many of us had is telling the difference between things that are our responsibility and what is the responsibility of others. We sometimes assume full responsibility for things we had absolutely no power or control over while at the same time we are in total denial as to how we have harmed ourselves and hurt others. We may be making mountains out of molehills while ignoring urgent realities that need our immediate attention. Sharing our Fourth Step work with another human being tends to clarify the “exact nature of our wrongs” and the exact nature of our “rights”. While we may not have been able to see the forest for the trees, our Fifth Step partner will help us sort out just what is or was our responsibility and what wasn’t.

Our choice as to who to share our Fifth Step with is very important. I believe the therapeutic value and power that Bill Wilson discovered when one alcoholic reaches out to help another alcoholic, is just as powerful for those of us with a compulsive overeating disorder. A good OA sponsor will have the ability to be supportive without minimizing our responsibility or further enabling our disease process and self-deception in any way. They have been where we have been and understand the cunning, baffling, and powerful nature of denial and this illness.