The Fifth Step: Where Secrets Lose Their Power
By Douglas W., webservant@aascv.org
I recently started working with a few new sponsees in one month. Experience tells me most will fade away around the Fourth Step—but for those who make it this far, something extraordinary awaits. The Fifth Step isn’t just another task to check off. It’s where we finally cast out the character defects we’ve been carrying, where honesty becomes our foundation, and where God removes what we could never eliminate ourselves.
Why Resentments Are Both Futile and Fatal
When I hear a Fifth Step, my Big Book and my sponsee’s Big Book are always open between us on page 70. We change the paragraph to first person and read together:
“If I have been thorough about my personal inventory, I’ve written down a lot. I have listed and analyzed my resentments. I have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 70)
Let me explain why those two words matter so much.
Why are resentments futile? Resentments are always about something external—another person, an institution, or a principle. We have absolutely no control over another human being, an institution, or a principle. None. That’s why they’re futile.
What’s the fatality of resentments? The Big Book tells us resentments block us from the sunlight of the spirit—the power of God. Many of us believe we’re separate from everybody and everything. But what if the truth is that everything is connected? When I harbor resentment, I block myself from God. And when I’m blocked from God, I go to that strange mental blank spot where I drink.
We don’t have the luxury of relapse because we can’t afford to be blocked from God. That’s why resentment is fatal. That’s why we put it all down on paper.
The Big Book is clear: “Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 64) Our relapses mostly traces back to resentments. Some folks in the rooms are emotionally dry—if you lit a match around them, they’d ignite. They’re packed full of resentments, which means they’re blocked from God and can’t be present.
The Line That Changes Everything
Turn to page 72, where we find the line separating spiritual experience from therapy: “Now these are about to be cast out.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 72)
In my experience, they truly do get cast out—an incredible thing. This requires action. When completed, it means I have admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my defects.
The Big Book warns us plainly: “If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 72) Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep certain facts about their lives to themselves. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they turned to easier methods. Almost invariably, they got drunk.
Why? “They never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 73)
The Double Life We Lead
The Big Book describes our condition perfectly: “More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn’t deserve it.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 73)
That inconsistency is made worse by our sprees. Coming to our senses, we’re revolted at certain episodes we vaguely remember. These memories are nightmares. We tremble to think someone might have observed us. As fast as we can, we push these memories far inside ourselves, hoping they’ll never see the light of day. But we remain under constant fear and tension—and that makes for more drinking.
Here’s the connection between honesty and recovery: “We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 73)
How to Hear a Fifth Step
When someone reads inventory to me, I have them start with the resentment column. They read the name, and I make them tell me the truth—not a backstory, but the actual reasons they resent this person. Then I pull out their third column: the seven areas of self that they were hurt, threatened, or interfered with.
The third column is where pride shows up. Pride is how others see us. No one should see that person doing that to me. Ambition is what I want—respect, validation, and control. Security is what I need to be okay. Personal relations reveal my belief systems about how people should treat me.
Here’s what I’ve learned: in your third column, you better see where you’re playing God. God doesn’t have low self-esteem. The Big Book says, “Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 62) Playing God doesn’t work.
The fourth column turns the second column into a lie every time. Once I see where our actions were selfish, self-centered, dishonest, or afraid, I realize the truth: our troubles are of my own making.
The Fear That Steals Everything
On page 67, we read: “It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn’t deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling?” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 67-68)
Fear causes more trouble than almost anything else. Have you ever stolen something without thinking about it first? No—we always think about it. The same is true with fear. Anytime we’re in fear and stay in fear, we’re making a conscious choice, and fear is always about self-reliance.
When I review fear inventory, I ask why they have each fear. The answer almost always comes back to failed self-reliance. “Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn’t fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 68)
The Formula for Courage
The solution to fear is one of the most powerful passages in the entire Big Book:
“Perhaps there is a better way—we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 68)
I’m here to play the role God assigns—not the role I assign myself. When I assign myself roles, I don’t wind up in good places. Just to the extent that I do as I think God would have me, and humbly rely on God, does God enable me to match calamity with serenity.
Here’s the definition of courage: “The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 68)
When your back’s up against the wall and all hell is coming at you—can you trust God? That’s courage. Not self-reliance, not willpower, not toughness. Faith. Trust. Surrender.
The Big Book gives us our part: “We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 68) Notice it says what I’m supposed to be, not do. In my Third Step, I agreed that God would be my Father and Employer (He is not my employee), and I would be His child and actor. When I’m afraid, I ask God to remove the fear and remind me who I’m supposed to be.
The promise? “At once, we commence to outgrow fear.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 68) For years, I struggled with those words—outgrow fear. I missed the word “commence,” which means to start. When I finally understood that, I began to see changes. I’d thought I could outgrow fear simply by asking God, without taking any action.
What Happens After
Once I’ve pocketed my pride and illuminated every twist of character and every dark cranny of the past, something shifts. The Big Book describes it perfectly:
“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.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 75)
After the Fifth Step, I ask my sponsee to go home and find a place where he can be quiet for an hour. He carefully reviews what has been done. He will thank God from the bottom of his heart that he will know Him better.
Then he takes the Big Book down from the shelf, turns to the Twelve Steps (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 59), and carefully reads the first five proposals (Steps), asking God if he omitted anything. (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 75) If so, he needs to call me and we work through it.
Putting It Into Practice
If you’re working with someone through their Fifth Step, remember: both Big Books should be open between us. Teach them what you were taught. Make sure they understand the futility and fatality of resentments. Help them see where they played God in their third column. Walk them through the fear inventory and the solution on page 68.
And here’s something I’ve learned: in my experience, the worst items in stock are normally tied to the sex inventory. When I pick up on fear, I address it head-on. I share a few tidbits from my own inventory, and they usually smile and say, “Mine isn’t anywhere close to yours.” They relax. Then we can do the inventory.
There isn’t anything any of you have ever done that hasn’t been done by most people. It’s not unique to you. You can let go of that when you do the Fifth Step.
The Fifth Step is where secrets lose their power. It’s where we stop leading double lives. It’s where God demonstrates through us what God can do. If you’re tired of the life you’re living, do this work. Watch what happens. Let God demonstrate to you what God can do.