Step Five

After spending weeks—or sometimes months—staring at that Fourth Step notebook, Step 5 felt like the ultimate "put up or shut up" moment. I remember sitting in my car outside my sponsor's house, clutching my list of resentments and fears like it was a live grenade. I was convinced that if I spoke the "exact nature" of my wrongs out loud, I’d be cast out of the rooms forever. I thought I was uniquely broken, but that's just the isolation of this disease talking.

In Al-Anon, we learn that this Step is the great "unmasker." We aren't just reciting a list of bad behaviors to get them off our chest; we are looking for the patterns—the "exact nature"—beneath the actions. It’s one thing to say, "I yelled at my husband." It’s another thing entirely to admit, "I used my anger to try to control his choices because I was terrified of what would happen if I didn't."

There’s a specific kind of magic that happens when you sit across from another person who doesn't recoil when you share your darkest secrets. My sponsor didn't judge me; she just nodded and said, "Me too." That’s where the healing starts. We admit these things to God and ourselves first, which prepares our hearts, but telling another human being is what finally breaks the back of our shame.

By the time we finished, the weight I’d been carrying for decades—that heavy, hot stone in my chest—just evaporated. I realized I wasn't a "bad" person trying to get "good"; I was a hurting person who had developed some really messy survival skills. For the first time, I wasn't alone with my past. I was finally standing in the light, ready to let go of the things that no longer served me.