Discussion and Sharing Welcomed!

[CarolD]

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

[CarolD]

It's noon and L and I are at her apartment.
I had told J to pick me up there for a movie date.
So...I had a time line of 2 hours to do my 5th.

We started with the Serenity prayer.
I read talked and cried.
L read talked and cried.
we hugged and laughed

When J arrived..I sent him alone to the show.
This sharing took almost as long as writing my 4th!

Afterwards I walked home thru a soft spring rain
The pocket parks were all shiny and smelled fresh
with the new blooms.
I saw a rainbow!! I consider this was a God sign.

I felt free and alive!
An awesome experience for sure!

Thanks for letting me share

[Tazman53]

Thanks for sharing Carol, I look forward to having what you have, I also look forward to giving it away.

[barb dwyer]

me too!

[Kellye C]

My 5th step became a 12 hour marathon. It was long but it was so freeing. I shared what was on my 4th step, shared my thoughts on the subjects and what I thought my part was and then my sponsor would probe and help me see things I couldn't or wouldn't see and she shared some of her E,S,&H that correlated to the stuff I had written. It was so cool! She got to know me better than anyone else, I got to know her better and I learned so much! I did feel sorry for her husband though because he kept asking "Are ya'll done yet? How can ya'll NOT be done? She's not THAT old!!" He is in the program too so it was pretty funny because he knew exactly what we were doing but just wanted to give us a hard time.

After going through all of the stuff on the 4th step I took stock of my character defects and then my sponsor sat down with pen and paper and had me write a list of assets. I couldn't do it so she worked with me on that.

To end the evening we built a fire and I burned my 4th step. I was then sent home to meditate for an hour, search to make sure I hadn't left anything out and then do step 6 with my HP.

Oh yeah, I forgot, we started the session with prayer and ended it with prayer.

By the time I left I felt mentally and emotionally drained but SO MUCH lighter!

Hugs,
Kellye

[Chazzy]

This sounds very uplifiting for the alcoholic?

[CarolD]

Welcome Charles...to our AA Step Study.

Yes Step 5 for me is and was powerfully moving.

However..AA Steps are usually worked in order
and more effective that way.

It is suggested that all newly sober AA members begin with
Step 1.

[collinsmi]

For my fifth step, I went to my sponsor's and read my entire 4th step. Like Kellye, mine took a good 12 hours to finish. Before starting I had to state the purpose of my visit, then I commenced reading. Sponsor provided food and drink. Was very strange, perhaps the strangest experience I ever had in AA. After I was done, I felt at peace with the world and myself, more so than I ever have before or since. By that time, nothing in my 4th was any great revalation to my sponsor as he had been reviewing it all through the time I was writing it. Must have been one of those God things!

[NoelleR]

I figured here was a good a place as any to re-print exactly what the 5th Step says (especially since a few have stated that their 5th Step was reading and going over/thru their 4th Step)............:

"Admitted to God, to oursdelves, and to another human being the exact NATURE of our wrongs."

In other words, as was taught to me......my 5th Step was NOT to just read what I'd written in my 4th Step, but to realize (which came from working and writing my 4th Step) and discuss the NATURE of my wrong.....my sponsor didn't want to hear what I stole, or from whom, or how much, or how often.....jut that I was a THIEF............simple (o: and this is what I share, and expect, from those who may 'do' their 5th Step with me.....in fact, I've stopped a couple of folks, when they brought out their 4th Step and started reading......some gottit, some left in a huff............ah well.......... (o:

I figure, if you're gonna do a step, do it as it's written, not as you think the author's meant.... lol


NoelleR

[GlassPrisoner]

KellyD, my experience was much like yours. Lot's of discussion back and forth. I found out a lot of things about myself that I didn't know.

I too, was drained.

And yeah, it felt good !

[sugarbuger]

I'm doing my 5th with my sponsor tomorrow. I have written, written, written. She wants columns, I have resisted columns. I have share the really dark secrets with her in prior discussions and am now ready to get to the point of what I did and why. I have also been amazed when writing, that I have so many defects that have already changed over my 10+ months. I am so blessed to have a great sponsor that makes me work and helps me work.

[sugarbuger]

I did 5th step! I have been working on 4th for 6 months, during which time I was facing criminal charges (dismissed) and custody for my daughter. It seemed like I was just too tired at the end of the day to deal with it OR it was more painful than I cared to deal with. Long and short of it, it took a long time, 5th step complete and I feel soooooooooo liberated. Onward I march.

[collinsmi]

Congratulations!

[Sheryl85]

When I did my very first 5th Step, I thought I’d cover all the bases and did it with Monsignor D. at my church who is very familiar with the program and what we are trying to do. (In other words, it ain’t his first rodeo!) When I made arrangements I didn’t realize the date I had set it up for was the same evening as the Founder’s Day event for my sorority. That evening I came hot footing it down the aisle with my formal dress hiked up to my knees and Father looks at me and says in his Irish brogue, “Had I known it was a formal affair I would have dressed accordingly!”

Great as it was, it was not going to be my only 5th Step. I do them on a regular basis because I’m not perfect and I can still collect some junk in the trunk from time to time. The older I get, the more intricate my ability to try and manipulate and control things seems to get... along with some new character defect I’ve picked up along the way I need to be rid of. (Did you know that every now and then a virtue once it recognizes itself can turn into a vice if you aren’t careful?) Thankfully I have the same (long suffering) sponsor for the last 21 years and she’s heard it all. In case I fail to do so myself, she never fails to help me recognize the areas that I need help on so I can turn them over to my Higher Power for repair or disposal.

Today I don’t dread this Step and I understand the power that it has in my recovery. Thanks for letting me share.

[lanie67]

I have done two fifth steps. I think the second one was better than the first. The first one was more out of the twelve and twelve and the second one was out of the big book. I think the second one was better just because I was a little bit more clear headed when I did it. I'm not even sure, though, that I included on either one the really major things that I had done that had been troubling me. I can't remember, to be honest if I had the bravery to admit those there were just a few. But I have done 9th steps on them.

[gimmeid]

The good stuff is covered, this is also the first action, face to face with another human step. If you have done well, earnest, gotten 'it' out, whatever all 'it' is, there is an immense sense of freedom. So my E,S, & H, will be cautionary. This relief will carry you quite a ways, but unless action continues, it will wear off. The healing of the next steps has not yet become operative. It lasted me a year and half, drunk again. (And sober again, into step 9.)
Anotherwords, this relief and freedom, the wise fellow would invest well. Into continuing onward.

[TimmyO]

Howdy all,
Time to move this one to the top... someone out there is probably ready to do their fifth step!!

Anyways,
I did mine as the book said as well: "We have a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk... ...We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past."

It sounds simple and it was, it was also about a four hour discussion and when it was done, I had almost all of the fifth step promises (they're in the book right after the sentences I quoted). A verrry liberating experience, but again, it is not the be all - end all. All I really did was once again acknowledge that most of my tools for living weren't working too well, luckily six and seven keep moving us forward and start to help us replace those tools with much better ones!

Tim

[jrock]

Just getting to as much of it as I could see at the time in the first one, and asking God if there was anything I was missing at the end was what I did.

[2ala2]

Just finished my fith, 4 hours. Like all of you I'm definately relieved.
My sponsor helped me very very much.
He made me aware of things I could not see very well.
It is a gift I wish to all.

[NOMOMERLOTMAMMA]

I'm working hard to get to this one...

[Spawn]

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

This step I fought with, because it sounded like confessing and at the time I had some very strong opinions about religion....what I had to do was figure out where these opinions stemmed from. "childhood" I won't go into detail about that but once I made that realization I was able to continue. I did this step with my addictions counselor because I new him the longest and I trusted him. I found that this step was like peeling an onion,...at first I would only deal with the outer layers until I felt comfortable enough to dig deeper. If I were to try and guess the time span it took to deal with my ghosts I would say months,....how many I don't know. In my case my bottom was one step away from a pine box or prison,...the insanity of my disease robbed me of it all. So considering how long it took me to hit bottom I thought it would take a good amount of time to crawl out.
(I was like a child learning to walk,..baby steps) At meetings I stuck to the old timers like glue,...soaking up all they shared,..even the stuff I didn't like to hear. My recovery has been one heck of a journey,...but it was all worth it. This step freed me of my demons.

[Threshold]

I am ready to do my 5th step and was stymied when my sponsor said he didn't want to hear all the details of what I'd done. He didn't want me to read the 5 notebooks full of stuff to him. I was terrified, that after all the work I'd done on the 4th step, I would not get the rewards/promises of the 5th step, because I wouldn't be able to do it "right".

Now, my sponsor has 23 years clean and a LOT of sponsees have come, gone, recovered, relapsed, thrived and died over the course of those years. I trust his experience and wisdom and was wondering what the deal was with him not wanting to hear the whole darn thing, but I figured he knew what he was talking about. It helps to see here people pointing out that sharing the 5th step is about sharing the exact nature of our wrongs, that the other person doesn't need to hear the name of the store we snitched a candy bar from, or the sexual position we were in the first time we cheated. As usual, I needed to be led as to the how, what and why of this whole thing. Ah, the exact nature of our wrongs, makes sense, because I could easily share the facts and not get to the heart of the thing. I could tell my story and still feel sorry for myself and still stay blind to the underlying issues.

As I wrote my 4th step, and would get stymied as to why I had these unhelpful patterns of behavior, I'd go to my sponsor, talk to recovering addicts here, share with certain friends who have wisdom in an area or two, and pray, and I would begin to understand...the exact nature of my wrongs.

Thrusting my details on my sponsor could well be another act of self centeredness and fear. Fear that if I don't do this just a certain way I won't reap the benefits (superstition). Arrogance in thinking me, with not quite two years in the program and three relapses, knows more about this thing than my sponsor. Me being obsessive that I didn't truly do a thorough 4th step, even though my sponsor was there while I did it and guided me as to how to approach it. Reminding me that I could easily lose myself in the details of the how, and distract myself from the why.

So, having done a lot of prayerful soul searching, and being as honest as I am currently capable of being, I identified character defects, the nature of my wrongs.

5th step, here I come.

[CarolD]

I found it useful to remember the word nature

[alaina02]

Doing my 5th step today with my sponsor!! ready to get it all out!!!!!!!!