The Sixth Step
Part 1

“Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

My name is Dave, and I am a grateful member of Overeaters Anonymous. It has been over two years since I last wrote any Step work so there may be some differences in style and form starting with this step. Also, there is another level of recovery experience added—two years worth. I’ve had a major relapse with my food and started over again. I’ve changed my relationship to food and eating. I’ve grown in my understanding and love for the steps. And over the last couple years I haven’t found a more practical or better bedrock tool to help me deal with my binge and compulsive eating disorders than the 12 Steps. I don’t know how to do this recovery thing perfectly, but when I honestly work and use the Steps and apply their principals in my daily affairs, I make progress. With the grace of my higher power, I hope to continue to make progress. One day at a time.

As with all my previous articles, I offer only my own opinions based on my personal experience. My interpretation of the Steps may be different than yours and that’s just fine. I’m sure there are people who do just fine without the Steps. I’m not one of those. I think the Steps are highly individual and we all can use them, or not, in our own way. My hope is that those who do choose to incorporate the 12 Steps in their personal recovery may find something useful in what I write.

Overview: The Willingness to Change

If we have been thorough with our Step work up to this point, we should now have a pretty honest view of the liabilities that interfered with our ability to consistently make healthy food choices, and the things we have done to sabotage our own best interests and recovery. We are also able to see ourselves more clearly and realize that we also have many assets for recovery and positive character traits. What we need now is to become honestly willing to give up our self-defeating behaviors. We need to get ourselves in position to do the actual work of letting go of or healing the beliefs, behaviors, and pain that blocked us from recovery.

Why we need Step Six

Starting any major change in the direction of our lives takes planning. It’s sort of like planning a long car trip and vacation. First you have to have a destination in mind. Then you need to get the car serviced, fill the tank, check the tires and get a good map to lay out your route. It takes some preparation. If you started the drive knowing only that you don’t want to stay where you are right now and in a car with low tires and no map you probably wouldn’t have a very rewarding vacation. One needs to be fully ready to undertake the journey.

Steps Six and Seven are often seen as being almost one combined Step or concept. After all, the Big Book only devotes half a page to them combined—two short paragraphs. But old fears, ideas, and behaviors are deeply ingrained. We’ve been operating with and under them for a very long time. If it were simply a matter of wanting to change we would have done it a long time ago. The fact is we have not been able to manage our lives all that well. Our best thinking was part of the problem! Our old patterns and ways of doing things have become almost instinctual and automatic. We often don’t even fully understand them or realize just how much of a problem they are in our lives. Those liabilities and roadblocks to recovery can be really hard to give up. We can’t change by willpower or intellect alone any more than we could control our eating that way. We need some help—help and guidance from a power greater and wiser than ourselves.

Change takes willingness, honesty, patience, persistence, courage, time, and being open to guidance and help. There is a big difference between wanting to have your liabilities to recovery removed and being ready to have them removed. Wanting to change and being ready to change are two very different things. For example, how long had you wanted to eat in a healthy way and shed those extra pounds? I bet you wanted to long before you were mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready to. Step Six allows us time to become honestly ready and willing to change. It brings us to the point of being honestly willing to do the work required to improve the quality of our lives, heal, and grow. The operative word for Step Six is willingness.

Footwork

In the section of the A.A. 12 & 12* on the Sixth Step it says that, “If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. That is something we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves. He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character.”

We have laid a good foundation for change in the first five steps. We see ourselves more honestly than we had, perhaps for our whole adult life. We have discovered the faulty assumptions behind many of our self-defeating actions. We have a new understanding of our weight and body issues and our relationship to food. We have identified some core issues we need to deal with that have blocked us from wholeness and health. We have discovered areas we can work on within our selves to improve our ability to have healthy relationships with others. These new perceptions help us see a new direction—new possibilities—but they don’t ensure we make any real movement towards this vision. Awareness is only an initial step in the process of change. As we grow and change, our awareness and understanding grows and changes. In one very real sense, recovery is about taking on the challenge of being engaged in the work and process of continual lifelong growth, to give up our comfortable complacencies. This process of “continually becoming” adds vitality and passion into our lives, elements that are usually forsaken when we are practicing our disease.

The willingness to engage in this type of change may be another area where we need help. Having difficulty asking for help can be one of our biggest liabilities to recovery. Asking for help means we have to be vulnerable and honest. This is one of those areas where we can pray for the willingness to get willing. For those who are not into the prayer thing, we can focus on the need to change and how this change would improve our lives and consequently, the lives of those around us.

Sometimes we don’t know about all the resources that are available to us to help us change, grow, and heal. Being “entirely ready” means the willingness to be very open-minded and willing to ferret out new possibilities. For instance, it’s easy to write off seeking professional help because of limited financial resources. Sometimes we may tell ourselves we are willing but what we are really doing is using the lack of money to rationalize not dealing with a particular issue. However, there are other avenues and resources available. We simply need to be willing to start asking around and doing the research (footwork).

A new way of thinking

There’s a saying that goes, “you can’t think yourself into a new way of acting, but you can act yourself into a new way of thinking.” This is particularly true for old patterns like the ones we got in touch with in the Fourth and Fifth Steps. Change takes time and practice. Being entirely ready to have these old patterns removed means being willing to give up our old ways and start practicing new healthier patterns.

The patterns attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that have been hurting us have been part of our manner of coping with the world for a long time. They are familiar and they’ve helped us to cope with life and protect our feelings. They are part and parcel of the way we see ourselves, others, and the world in general. In one sense, they have become part of our personalities and character.

Step Six is a time for commitment. We commit to going from talk to action. In Step One we saw the problem and the scope of our disease. In Step Two we saw the solution. In Step Three we decided to use the solution. In Steps four we began identifying potential pitfalls, and in Step Five we refined those issues to see their exact nature and the true risks they posed. Step Six is where we start the process of actually clearing away those roadblocks to further recovery and begin to change the way we deal with and experience life.

Questions for journaling and contemplation.