Since then I have seen honest and willing sponsees, who have worked fear­ lessly on their Step Four’s, run aground at Step Six. These women were more hon­ est than I was, because they saw their own faults more clearly, and recognized more easily that AA was asking them to take a big part of what they had lived with as “their personality” for good or ill (and let’s grant it was mostly ill), and chuck it in

the trash. I had been like a blind person dancing along the edge of a precipice—it’s easy! These sponsees saw what was being asked and, quite humanly, balked. (But not forever.)

So don’t let the fact that Step Six seems to merit only a single sentence in the Big Book (a place where 25-page stories about ordering sandwiches at lunch-

counters are pretty thick on the ground) trick you into thinking Steps Six and Seven are easy, or less serious than the other steps. A person who fails here will not be able to make honest amends in Step Nine, nor will he find much comfort in Step Eleven. Each step demands much from us, but for me one of the hardest things to see was that I had been wrong about myself even when I was critical and tore myself down. Even in the depths of my despair, I had been telling myself I was worthless for reasons that weren’t even the right reasons! I was surprised and upset to learn that I hadn’t even been managing to do self-loathing properly. But there you are, AA life is full of surprises.

There are only so many of us here in Singapore. If we listen to only the loudest voices, who are quick to submit their stories, we will quickly run out of material. In the rare meeting chaired by Indian Michael, things sometimes go quiet. Instead of waiting patiently as the seconds tick by, he will say, “So-and-So, it looks like you have something to share with the meeting!” We all laugh, but aren’t those dragged- out-of-you shares often the best at the meeting? Don’t we wonder, why was he staying silent, when all that was inside? I’m wondering the same thing, people, so get those stories in here before I start calling on you in the letter to the Editor. This is service work yo can do anytime, anyplace; service work that may help a fellow alcoholic when he is at his most alone in the dark night of the soul. Write some­ thing, already!