I'm Lucia, an alcoholic.

Today I'm sharply aware that the Sixth and Seventh Steps are to the rest of my life what the first three were to not drinking in early sobriety. It took me a while to figure this out. At first I blew off these Steps as grammatical transition to get from Five to Eight. Later I looked harder but still got it wrong. I kept misreading Step Six as "...became entirely ready to remove all these defects of character." Well, after Four and Five who wouldn't want to get rid of this stuff? So I flailed away, but nothing much happened. Then I circled back and saw the words I'd missed before -- "TO HAVE GOD." What a difference. There was still mystery, but I didn't have to worry about it. A "power greater than myself" by definition has more smarts and more skills than I do so all I had to do was trust. I still had some hang-ups on Step Seven until I re-read the Seventh Step prayer especially, "I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows." Looking back, I can honestly say that those defects which were roadblocks to a sober, helpful, productive life have been either removed or cut down to such a small size that they are no longer obstacles to sober living. These are profoundly spiritual steps and they grow on you. If the Big Book gives them short shrift -- only two paragraphs -- could it be because those first 100 AAs, sober 4 years max, didn't quite realize what they had? For myself, so long as I keep circling back -- well, you know how this never-ending story never ends.