“Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
What Does Step 6 Mean?
Even after working steps 1 through 5 – taking a moral inventory, baring your soul (to either yourself, others, or your higher power), and declaring yourself ready to turn your life over – you still may not be as prepared for change as you think you are. Step 6 highlights that only being willing to change an individual part of your life or your mindset – in this case, alcoholism – will not work. You cannot beat your addiction by wanting change in an isolated, compartmentalized fashion. Only when you’re willing to change all aspects of yourself will you find yourself with the correct mindset to succeed in recovery.
The Goal of Working Step 6
It’s easy to get distracted by the mention of character defects and feel that this step is all about identifying (more) flaws in yourself. However, the word “ready” is what gives an insight into this step’s true purpose. The goal of working step 6 is all about putting ourselves in the right mindset of cultivating change. Ultimately, our efforts to overcome our addiction is to improve our lives, right? Alcoholics Anonymous uses step 6 as a holistic approach to encourage us to be the best version of ourselves in all aspects – not just our drinking.
This “best version” of you does not mean perfection, however. The original literature acknowledges that we will still have innate desires or “instincts” that we may want to indulge ourselves in. Rather than saying to deny human nature, simply recognize that the same excuse-making mindset that allowed us to pursue self-destructive drinking behavior to such an extreme level is also present in our other vices.
What Is a Defect of Character?
Step 6 has AA participants take a step back to recognize that they may possess unhealthy or negative vices, ways of thinking, or behaviors – hereby referred to as “defects of character”. Some of these character defects might have a direct influence on your drinking problem, some might not.
Some of the defects will be obvious to you, as will their negative impact on your life – those aren’t the ones we’re concerned with (although it is important to address them and how they play a role in your interactions, your mindset, your goals, etc.). Instead, we want to get down to the character defects that, at first glance, might not seem so bad.
Say for instance, that you partake in gossip from time to time. Harmless, right? Sticks and stones and all that. But deep down, we know that gossip can be quite hurtful and is overall, a negative behavior to partake in – so why do we downplay it? We shrug it off as something inconsequential even though it goes directly against what we know to be true about gossip (that it’s bad). Analyzing things like this that will bring out valuable insight not only about ourselves but highlight just how easily we rationalize and justify the negative behavior surrounding alcohol addiction.
Types of Character Defects
One of the easiest ways to conceptualize these defects is to consider the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Many of the items you might include in your list of character defects would be offsets of these such as being judgemental (pride), a workaholic (greed), or overly critical (envy).
Not all of the adjectives you think of to describe yourself will fall under one of the seven sins. More importantly, not all character defects are something that you might think of as negative. Let’s revisit the example of being a workaholic. You might actually take pride in this quality in yourself, you believe it to be a testament to your work ethic and reliability. However, deep down you might throw yourself into work for feeling guilty when you’re relaxing, overcompensating for feelings of insecurity regarding your accomplishments, or perhaps trying to make yourself look superior to others.
Working Step 6:
The easiest way to create a list of character defects is to include both negative and positive words you would use to describe yourself. Then, dive into the motivation behind those qualities. Take your time, this is not a quick process. In fact, many find this to be an ongoing exercise as they continue to discover more about themselves and dig deeper in their moral inventory.
Just remember that the purpose of this process is to create a readiness and willingness to become better people – not an expectation to be perfect. To do this, you’ll be asked to identify undesirable behavior or ways of thinking that you’ve rationalized – or even find to be admirable. Understand how that same line of thinking can be one of the reasons you have struggled with alcoholism thus far. Resolving your alcohol addiction requires a willingness to change everything about your way of life, not just what you “think” is the problem.
