Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FIVE

be startled to realize that God knows all about us, we are
apt to get used to that quite quickly. Somehow, being alone
with God doesn't seem as embarrassing as facing up to an-
other person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud
about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to
clean house is still largely theoretical. When we are honest
with another person, it confirms that we have been honest
with ourselves and with God.

The second difficulty is this: what comes to us alone may
be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thinking.
The benefit of talking to another person is that we can get
his direct comment and counsel on our situation, and there
can be no doubt in our minds what that advice is. Going
it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times
have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance
of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mis-
taken. Lacking both practice and humility, they had delud-
ed themselves and were able to justify the most arrant non-
sense on the ground that this was what God had told them.
It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual devel-
opment almost always insist on checking with friends or
spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received
from God. Surely, then, a novice ought not lay himself open
to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders in
this fashion. While the comment or advice of others may be
by no means infallible, it is likely to be far more specific
than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still so
inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater
than ourselves.

Our next problem will be to discover the person in whom