In early recovery, the big decisions are often the most basic: Don’t drink. Go to meetings. Don’t start a romantic relationship. Don’t end a relationship.
The fifth step of Alcoholics Anonymous asks recovering alcoholics to admit to God, to themselves, and to another human being the exact nature of their wrongs. You have to have a lot of integrity to make this kind of admission. But let’s forget about you for a minute and consider the guy who has to listen to all this stuff. He’s the real hero of the fifth step.
You need a lot of integrity to hear a fifth step. You may have no idea what you’re going to hear. If you’re also in recovery, you have to continue to practice all the other principles of recovery. It’s not like you get time off from your own program just because someone has asked you to listen to their fifth step. In fact, hearing someone’s fifth step—or any time someone shares something intimate with you—is probably the time it’s most important to be spiritually fit and on your best behavior. You certainly don’t want to judge. You also don’t want to find yourself getting so caught up advocating for a certain outlook or perspective that you inhibit whatever good work a Higher Power might be doing in someone else’s life. You have to be clear in your own mind that recovery only happens when the person who is sharing their story is ready to make whatever leap is required of them. You can’t get anyone else sober. You can’t force anyone to act with integrity. Recovery is absolutely an inside job.
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