We’re entirely ready to have God remove our character defects When I first entered AA on 8th June 1992, I was a defect looking for a char­ acter. My life was totally unmanageable and I had made a complete mess of it. I soon discovered that because of my Pride, Ego, Grandiosity, Anger, Resentment and many more defects, I could not accept and live life on life’s terms, so I drank Alcohol to kill the pain. I then discovered that there was no pain in my fantasy world and so I kept on drinking to avoid that pain. What was I going to do to live a better life? I had to acknowledge the fact that I was allowing my Defects of Character to control my life and the consequences were always painful. I had not only damaged myself Spiritually, Mentally and Physically, but had caused sometimes irreparable damage to other people, especially those close to me and those who really loved me. When I had completed my Steps 4 & 5 with my sponsor, I threw myself 100% into Steps 6 & 7 because I was feeling good that I had been able to really confess my wrong doings and I wanted to continue getting better, as I knew I was still a sick man. (Just for the record, Steps 6, 7, 8 and 9 are sometimes termed “the forgotten steps” because some AAs jump over them.) So I spoke with my Sponsor, John the Camera was his AA name, and he told me to get my list from Step 4. (It does say in the Big Book that we return to our list, and we can’t return to the list if we’ve destroyed it, so I was glad that I had held on to mine!) I started to work on the Defect instead of letting it work on me. My Defect came from my ego, and the ego tells me that if I allow the defect to work on me it will give me pleasure because the ego always looks for ways to give us excitement (which is why I drank over my unmanageable life). I continued to refer to my list of defects and was told by my sponsor to list the 7 deadly sins. Well, what a surprise! I saw myself in every one of them and noticed that pride was No. 1 on the list. Of course, we all know that pride is the Alkies’ No 1 offender. Working my way through these was painful, but the reward was awesome. I knew then that if I kept sharing these defects with my Sponsor, or close friend in AA, and didn’t keep them to myself, that I would be on the road to spiritual recovery. Then I realised that after becoming aware of these defects Step 10 helps me remove them on a daily basis. I was not so stupid as to believe that they would not

return! And I was correct. But I was able to Pray and Meditate as suggested in Step 11 and ask my Higher power to remove them again and again.

Today my Life is still unmanageable drunk or sober. That is why I have to keep coming back to meetings: to keep up the maintenance of my sobriety. And I know that my defects of character will only stop working on me when I am dead, because they will die with me. I am much better today than I was 20 years ago at dealing with them, as I know now what not to do, which is more important than knowing what to do.