No buzz ever felt as good as that buzz on the drive home from our sponsor’s house after uttering the last line of a Fifth Step. We said the hard stuff out loud. The secrets. The cringe. The things that looked a whole lot scarier in the backs of our minds than they did once spoken. And somehow we’re still here. Not struck by lightning. Not disqualified from AA. Just human.
Then comes one of the quieter but powerful suggestions in this process: take an hour alone. Not doom scrolling, not calling six people to explain our spiritual progress, not rewarding ourselves with a cheeseburger victory lap. Just us and the Power we just buddied up to.
We look back over what we’ve done so far. The first five steps. We say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We get honest about whether we left anything out. And if halfway through that hour our brain goes, “Ohhhh no... I forgot THAT thing…” this is not the moment for good enough, dude. We make the call. We clean it up. We get free.
But do what you want. It’s your life. It’s only a suggestion.
A lot of us get here and immediately think, Okay… what next? That’s actually a pretty good sign. For once, we’re not asking how to escape. We’re asking how to continue.
Have you mistaken relief for freedom?
