Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FIVE

much trouble self-delusion had been causing us. This had
brought a disturbing reflection. If all our lives we had more
or less fooled ourselves, how could we now be so sure that
we weren't still self-deceived? How could we be certain that
we had made a true catalog of our defects and had really
admitted them, even to ourselves? Because we were still
bothered by fear, self-pity, and hurt feelings, it was prob-
able we couldn't appraise ourselves fairly at all. Too much
guilt and remorse might cause us to dramatize and exag-
gerate our shortcomings. Or anger and hurt pride might be
the smoke screen under which we were hiding some of our
defects while we blamed others for them. Possibly, too, we
were still handicapped by many liabilities, great and small,
we never knew we had.

Hence it was most evident that a solitary self-appraisal, and
the admission of our defects based upon that alone, wouldn't be
nearly enough. We'd have to have outside help if we were sure-
ly to know and admit the truth about ourselves—the help of
God and another human being. Only by discussing ourselves,
holding back nothing, only by being willing to take advice and
accept direction could we set foot on the road to straight think-
ing, solid honesty, and genuine humility.

Yet many of us still hung back. We said, "Why can't
‘God as we understand Him' tell us where we are astray? If
the Creator gave us our lives in the first place, then He must
know in every detail where we have since gone wrong. Why
don't we make our admissions to Him directly? Why do we
need to bring anyone else into this?"

At this stage, the difficulties of trying to deal rightly
with God by ourselves are twofold. Though we may at first