“They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way.” — Big Book
So many of us ran around screaming the same mantra in life: not my fault. It seemed like we were born that way, unable to admit when we screwed something up. Deep down, we usually knew better. But admitting fault meant consequences, and consequences meant discomfort, and alcoholics do not like discomfort. Hell, we were already restless, irritable, and discontented. Add uncomfortable on top of that and we’d do just about anything to avoid it. So we got real good at deflecting, explaining, justifying, and rewriting history until the people around us got too exhausted to argue.
Then the sick part happens: we start believing our own nonsense. Everybody else becomes the problem. The world is unfair. We become the victim in every story we tell.
Step Four started breaking that pattern by asking one hard question: where were we to blame? And now in Step Five, we finally say it out loud.
That’s scary for a lot of us. But if you picked somebody who’s actually done this work, they’ve probably been there too. Maybe not your exact story, but close enough. Shame loses power when it gets dragged into the light. You’re not confessing to a judge. You’re talking to another alcoholic who found a way to get well.
You are not alone anymore.
What’s one “not my fault” story you believed for years that you can finally be honest about now?
