"I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and to my fellows."
One of the easiest character defects to justify is talking about other people. We tell ourselves we're just venting. We're just being honest. They need to know. It's true. Before long, we've convinced ourselves we're helping when all we're really doing is spreading someone else's story.
Step Seven asks a different question: Is what I'm about to say making recovery safer... or making it harder for the next alcoholic?
Think about the newcomer walking into their first meeting. They don't know who to trust. They don't know if they're going to make it. Then they hear us tearing another member apart in the parking lot or over coffee. What have we taught them? That meetings aren't safe. That sponsors gossip. That if they admit something embarrassing, they'll become the next conversation. Then we wonder why nobody asks us for help.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot what it felt like to walk through those doors scared to death. We forgot what it was like to need help, to confess something we thought we'd take to the grave, and to pray that someone would keep it there.
Recovery isn't a place to impress people. It's a place to protect people.
Every word we speak is either building someone's confidence in this program or tearing it down. We can become the reason someone asks for help—or the reason they never do. Let's never forget where we came from.
If a newcomer heard every conversation I had after the meeting, would they feel safer asking me for help—or less likely to?
