Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Nov 06:

Step Five says, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” But what is the exact nature of my wrongs? Is it the embarrassing moments, the words spoken in anger, the dishonesty?

For me, the exact nature of my wrongs is the unspoken, self- defeating assumptions that give rise to my thoughts and actions. These include notions that my best is not good enough, that I am not worthy of love, and that I have been hurt too deeply to ever really heal. If I dig deeply enough, I usually find thoughts such as these beneath the things I feel the worst about. I am learning to examine whether or not there is any truth to these assumptions. Then I can begin to build my life around a more realistic, more loving way of seeing myself.

Today’s Reminder

Living with alcoholism has taken a huge toll on my self-esteem. As a result, I may not recognize how many of my wrongs are built upon a faulty sense of self. That’s why the Fifth Step is so enlightening and so cleansing. Together with my Higher Power and another person, I can even change life-long patterns.

“…If no one knows us as we really are, we run the risk of becoming victims of our own self-hatred. If we can be loved by somebody who sees us as we are, we can then begin to accept ourselves. Others rarely think we’re as bad as we do.”
~ Alateen—Hope for Children of Alcoholics

END OF QUOTE—————————————

Step Five isn’t confession. It’s vivisection.

When I face “the exact nature of my wrongs,” I am not making some polite apology to the cosmos. I am cutting into the infection beneath my skin — the rot of self-beliefs that have quietly dictated my life. “I’m not good enough.” “I’m unworthy of love.” “I’m too broken to heal.” These are not humble thoughts. They are lies. Parasites. They feed on my energy, masquerading as honesty, when in fact they are cowardice dressed in humility.

The real wrong is not what I said in anger — it’s that I believed I had no right to speak at all. It’s not the lie I told to someone else — it’s the deeper betrayal of lying to myself that I was powerless, helpless, defective.

Step Five demands I drag these assumptions into the light. And the light burns. It always burns. To tell another human being what I truly think of myself is to risk annihilation — but that is exactly what must happen. Annihilation of illusion. The small self dies so something stronger can live.

Alcoholism didn’t just poison my body or my relationships — it built an entire architecture of self-hatred that felt like home. I lived inside those walls for years, calling them “personality,” “responsibility,” or “faith.” But Step Five is the demolition charge. Boom. Down goes the false structure.

The cleansing comes not from being forgiven, but from facing myself without anesthesia. When another person looks at me — really looks at me — and doesn’t flinch, it breaks the spell. Their eyes become a mirror that refuses to confirm my self-loathing. That’s the kind of violence that heals — the violence of truth against illusion.

Others rarely think we’re as bad as we do because they haven’t seen the monsters we’ve fed in private. But that’s the secret: those monsters were never real. They were shadows cast by a soul that forgot its own light.

So yes — I will admit my wrongs. Not as a sinner begging for mercy, but as a warrior reclaiming his territory from lies. Step Five is not about guilt. It’s about sovereignty.