Any
Lengths: Willingness & Step 6
This month’s focus is the
spiritual principle of willingness. Step
6 asks us to be “entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of
character” – the fears, resentments, insecurities, self-seeking and so on –
that we uncovered in taking our inventories.
There is a saying in OA that
captures the idea of willingness: “OA is
not for those who need it, only for those who want it.” But what does it mean to want to change? To be willing to change? To be ready to change? Willingness comes down to the state of being
prepared to do something; readiness.
We learn in OA that we have
a fatal disease. We learn too that
recovery is possible: “If you have
decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it — then
you are ready to take certain steps” [Big Book, p.58].
With Step 1, we have started
to practice open-mindedness in setting aside our notions that we can “control”
addiction, our compulsions and the unmanageable lives that result. We become open to new ways of thinking about
powerlessness and strength in Steps 2 and 3.
In Steps 4 and 5, we practice honesty:
first with ourselves and then with our sponsor or another trusted human
being. We lay our lives bare because we
want to change. “Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness are the essentials of
recovery, but they are indispensable,” the Big Book reminds us in the
Appendix titled ‘The Spiritual Experience.’
When
it comes to addiction, recovery is a decision, not a negotiation. Past experience
tells us that we don’t negotiate with this disease, we either recover from it
or we don’t. Do you ask yourself, “I’ll
have to see what I am willing to do for my recovery today?” This may be why your abstinence is not where
you’d like it to be.
As we move to Step 6, we ask
ourselves: Is our work solid so far? Are
the stones properly in place? Have we
skimped on the cement put into the foundation?
Have we tried to make mortar without sand? [Big Book, pp.75-76]. Lawrie C talks about how his first
sponsor made him go back to revise and add to his inventory more than once when
Lawrie equivocated on the answers to these questions! [www.oabigbook.info]. But once we can answer these questions to our
satisfaction, we are truly at Step 6.
Then, our willingness is
significantly tested: it’s time to let
go of old ways that do not serve us or our fellows. On page 76, the Big Book asks, “Are we now ready to let God remove from us
all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can He now take them
all — every one?” In other words, do we want to keep holding on to a few
things? A resentment against someone who wronged us deeply? Justified anger? A
comfortable old way of looking at the world that we think keeps us safe from
its ups and downs? The way we talk to others? The way we listen (or don’t
listen)? Aggressive driving? The need to be right? The need to control? All or
nothing? The idea that we can rely on ourselves? Eating compulsively to quash
our feelings?
These
and a hundred-thousand other worn-out ideas and ways of conducting ourselves in
the world have to go. Otherwise we will eat compulsively again. Think of our
lives like a damaged ship. We wouldn’t go back to sea having repaired the boat
save for one little hole in the hull. Even if the hole was tiny, eventually
enough water would stream in that we would sink. It is the same with our
recovery.
We are in the business of
giving ourselves to our Higher Power so that we can be fully repaired—by
God—and sent back into the world to help others. If we deceive ourselves into
hanging onto just a couple little things, then, like the ocean filling the
ship, our ego will find that weak point and fill our souls back up with the
very kind of junk we’d just disclosed about ourselves in Step 5. The stuff that
makes us want to eat compulsively.
As
addicts, we have this uncanny knack for hanging onto behaviours that have
proven again and again to cause us pain and suffering. Step 6 is about getting
honest on this account and being willing to change. It is about finally getting ourselves fully
and unquestionably ready to abandon the stuff that doesn’t work in our lives.
And because we are probably the worst judges of what does and doesn’t work in
our lives, we have to give it all away to our Higher Power, the good and the
bad. That’s how we avoid even the potential for hanging onto to something
objectionable that can lead us back to eating again.
It’s
OK if we aren’t yet willing. We just need to understand that we will not
receive the gifts of this program until we are. If we still cling to something we will not let
go, we ask God to help us be willing. We
may focus our prayers on those who frustrate us, for example. We ask for others in our prayers and, in
doing so, become willing to change ourselves.
Sometimes people share in
meetings that their willingness has left them.
That may be. But they can get it
back. Willingness is not a Muse that comes and goes at whim. We need not wait for Divine Inspiration to
recover from compulsive eating. If
you have been trying to give up the old ways and have condemned yourself for your
failure to do so, simply be willing to
learn how the old ways may be
replaced with ways of peace. [And
then do those things!] If you are
willing to be abstinent, even ‘failure’ may be used as a teaching device. If
you are willing to be abstinent, you ask for guidance from your Higher Power,
your sponsor, from whatever source will help you. When you are willing, there is acceptance…
and then there is learning followed by action.
And this willingness starts within you.
You can be your own catalyst,
reaching out for willingness through your Higher Power and the OA Fellowship. No magic pixie dust or fairy godmother is
required.
Steps 6 and 7 get only a
very few sentences in the Big Book, but they are the turning point in our
recovery. Up until then, we’ve been dealing with our problems. Once we get
through step 7, we restart our lives in the solution. But for step six, the
good news is that we are only becoming perfectly willing, not perfectly able.
It turns out that giving away our character defects is a lifelong process, and
one that brings us closer and closer to God. So, in step 6, we have simply to tell ourselves, that, yes, this is
something I’m signing up for. I am
willing to change.
We
have to go all-in with God or we go nowhere and stay stuck. This is the crucial turning point in the
Steps. If we say yes, and proceed
through Step 7, amends are not optional. Prayer is not optional. Sponsoring is
not optional. Compulsive eating is not an option. OA is not optional. We go to any lengths.
รจ Want more? There’s the World
Service Podcast on Step 6 - https://oa.org/podcasts/step-six-june-14-2015/ or Step
6 Writing and Action List - http://oahow.squarespace.com/2-questions-topics/Step%206%20Q%20%20Action%20Suggestions.doc
Y
|
-Jennifer S,
North Vancouver, with grateful acknowledgment of concepts in the Step 6 blog
posts at seacoastoa.org (Portsmouth, NH).
