Step Five: The Gateway to a New Life

By Yale Sage, Recovered Alcoholic

Oh no, the dreaded Fifth Step! The celebrated refrain from a large portion of newcomers to Alcoholics Anonymous. This is completely understandable, as more seasoned members like to laud this pivotal Step over the heads of the uninitiated. Luckily, I was to learn the truth: that Step Five is the gateway to all the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous and a new life.

A quick background: I came from a dedicated family of alcoholics, complete with cirrhosis and multiple deaths. By 38, I was physically broken, spiritually vacant, and out of options. Enter AA in the basic discussion meeting format. After some initial enthusiasm, I drifted away from the Program with minimal meeting attendance, no sponsorship, and no spirituality. I was the definitive example of self-will run riot. Somehow, miraculously, I survived and stayed sober for more than 20 years, but I was miserable, and the people around me were miserable. If you take alcohol away from an alcoholic, you are left with an untreated alcoholic. Without addressing the underlying spiritual issues, you are left with a person who is restless, irritable, and discontent.

By age 60, I was suicidal, and again another miracle occurred as I was introduced to a Big Book Study Group in Dallas, Texas. There, I learned what I didn’t know: that there was actually a Program of recovery that promised freedom, happiness, and relief for lost alcoholics. The joke was that it was skillfully hidden in the last place I would ever look, right in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous!

I embraced the Fellowship, the Program, and my new sponsor with ever-increasing abandon. By working the Steps of the Program, I quickly arrived at the Fourth and Fifth Steps. I completed what was, at the time, a searching and fearless moral inventory of my resentments, fears, and harms done to others. Then I admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs.

The defect that haunted me was not the most obvious. Yes, I had been in numerous drunken fist fights, I had hurt several people, and I had done the stupid things many ego-driven men have done. But the shame I carried deep inside was the feeling that I disappointed the people who mattered most to me. I had leaned into drinking and been totally irresponsible over everything else in my life. I failed to be the son, brother, boyfriend, and employee people expected. By swallowing my fear and opening up to my sponsor, I began to feel that a dam had been cracked. I lost all the embarrassment of thinking that I was the only one who had suffered shame and remorse. The isolation that had trapped me like a cage began to be lessened. I immediately felt a closeness with God that I had forgotten. Because of my sponsor’s guidance, I also felt part of a larger community, one that had been forgiven and called to serve others.

Later the same day, I completed Steps Six, Seven, and Eight. The next day, I made my first amends, then moved on to the remainder of the Steps.

I met great people in my home group who were committed to working with others. They taught me that sponsorship was not optional. I eventually landed a commitment where I could carry the message of recovery and hope to my fellow suffering alcoholics. This turned out to be the single greatest miracle of my life: a weekly commitment to meet with beneficiaries of the Salvation Army.

The greatest part of sponsoring others is that it takes you deeper and deeper into the solution. By sponsoring new men and going through the Steps repeatedly, I learned that there was so much more to the Program, especially as a path toward deepening my relationship with God. As the saying goes, to really learn something you have to teach it, and to keep something you have to give it away.

This particularly applied to hearing Fifth Steps. As I listened to others, I realized that my previous Fifth Step had been limited. Not intentionally; I just hadn’t remembered everything. I confronted my own forgotten resentments, fears, and harms toward others. It was a weekly examination of my self-centeredness. I suspect this is an integral part of development in the Program, as God protects us from seeing the full extent of our deficiencies all at once. As we continue working the Steps, God discloses more and more to us, and we grow in understanding and effectiveness. As the book says, we will soon be trudging the Road of Happy Destiny with others.  

I used my sponsor and another trusted friend to revisit my forgotten Fifth Steps and examine any overlooked character defects or additional amends.

My lesson was that perhaps our initial Fourth and Fifth Steps were but a beginning. Though I tried to be as thorough and honest as I could manage at the time, God continued to reveal more to me through working with others. In sponsoring alcoholics, I continue to be shown a much more complete view of my past, the importance of the Steps, and the miracles of the future. I have been given gifts beyond my wildest dreams.

Additionally, my experience taught me that the currency of recovery is Step 12, but you can’t survive very long working with others without relying heavily on Steps 10 and 11. As it says in the Big Book in Step 10,

“We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.”

Sometimes Steps 10, 11, and 12 are referred to as the “Maintenance Steps.” I couldn’t disagree more. We cannot simply maintain. As the Big Book teaches us on page 14,

“Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that.”

In retrospect, Step Five was the gateway through which I was to begin to learn humility, faith, and reliance on God. With each day that passes, He reveals more, and I get to grow closer to Him. Let me share an example of how the gateway was opened in Step Five and what God was preparing me to experience.

Three years ago, I was diagnosed with a form of incurable cancer. Last year, while at an appointment in a notable cancer hospital, I had a massive heart attack nicknamed a “widow maker.” While on an operating table, I had an additional cardiac event, and I truly felt that I was slipping away. To my eternal surprise, I was completely at peace and was having a conversation with God, saying that I was alright with any outcome. I was then overcome by the presence of God. I also had a certain knowledge resonating in my soul that I wouldn’t die that day because I had unfinished work at the Salvation Army. No person or event can ever take my faith away, thanks to these God-given experiences through the Program, specifically working with others and the gateway of the Fifth Step.

Perhaps the peace that transcends all understanding.