STEP 7: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
How It Works
When ready, we say something like
this: "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have
all of me, good and bad. 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. Grant me
strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.
Amen." We have then completed Step Seven.
-A.A. Big Book p.76
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The Seventh
Step is where we make the change in our attitude which
permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from
ourselves toward others and toward God. The whole
emphasis of Step Seven is on humility. It is really
saying to us that we ought to be willing to try humility
in seeking the removal of our shortcomings just as we
did when we admitted that we were powerless over
alcohol, and came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity. If that degree of
humility could enable us to find the grace by which such
a deadly obsession could be banished, then there must be
hope of the same result respecting any other problem we
could possibly have.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve
Traditions, p. 76
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Taking Step Seven was for many of
us the greatest act of authentic humility we have ever
been asked to commit: to transfer control of our
recovery to God...
...according to the Twelve and
Twelve, humility is a clear recognition of who we are
followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could
be. That is, humility is seeing ourselves as we actually
are, good and bad, strong and weak, and acting
authentically on those truths. This is not a naieve
attitude suggesting we have in some way already
"arrived." It is a sincere attempt to state the positive
truth that when we face the truth of our shortcomings
and the fact that we are powerless to change and begin
to let God take our defects away, we have entered the
pathway of humility. For the reality is, only God can
take away our Sin, our deeply entrenched addictions, and
our lifelong character defects. It is on this pathway,
where we humbly ask God to remove all these defects of
character, that the tools of recovery bring the healing,
happiness, and security we have dreamed of. But once
more it is only powerlessness and pain that can force us
to take the seventh Step into humility.
- A Hunger for Healing, p. 116-117
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Humility is as much a part of
staying clean as food and water are to staying alive. As
our addiction progressed, we devoted our energy toward
satisfying our material desires. All other needs were
beyond our reach. We always wanted gratification of our
basic desires.
...The word humble applies because
we approach this Power greater than ourselves to ask for
the freedom to live without the limitations of our past
ways. Many of us are willing to do it without
reservations, on pure blind faith, because we are sick
of what we have been doing and how we are feeling.
Whatever works, we go all the way.
- Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text,
Chapter 4/Step 7
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We need humility for three
reasons:
So that we can recognize the
severity of our character defects. One aspect of our
addictions is that we tend to deny and minimize the pain
they inflict. Therefore as we try to assess our
character defects, we may, unless we take a very humble
approach, underestimate their severity.
So that we can acknowledge the
limits of human power in addressing these character
defects. We cannot do it on our own. We cannot do it by
sheer willpower. We cannot do it by our own intellect
and reasoning.
So that we can appreciate the
enormity of God's power to transform lives.
... Although Step 7 is the
shortest step in terms of wording and is perhaps the
least discussed in recovery groups, it is probably the
most potent of the twelve. It embodies the miracle of
transformation as we turn over to God our broken,
defective personalities in order that He might mold them
into healthy, effective instruments of His will.
- Serenity, A Companion for Twelve
Step Recovery, p. 54-55
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