5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
I found this was just as necessary for me to do as it was for an alcoholic, even more so perhaps, because of my former “mother-and-bad-boy” attitude toward Bill. Admitting my wrongs helped so much to balance our relationship, to bring it closer to the ideal of partnership in marriage.
Step 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
I came to realize there were selfish thoughts, feelings and actions that I had felt justified in keeping because of what Bill or someone else had done to me. I had to try very hard to want God to remove these. There was, for instance, my self-pity at losing Bill’s companionship, now that the house was full of drunks, and we saw each other alone so seldom. At that time I didn’t realize the importance of his working with other alcoholics. In order to banish his alcoholic obsession he needed to be equally obsessed by AA.
In the early days there was also my deep and unconscious resentment because someone else had done in a few minutes what I had tried my whole married life to do. Now I realize that a wife can rarely if ever do this job. The sick alcoholic feels his wife’s account has been written on the credit page of life’s ledger. But he knows his own has been on the debit side; therefore she cannot possibly understand. Another alcoholic, with similar debit entry, immediately identifies himself as a non-alcoholic really cannot. This important fact took me a long time to recognize. I could find no peace of mind until I did so.
Step 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
“Humbly” was a word I never fully understood. Today it means “in proportion,” an honest relationship between myself and my fellow man, and myself and God. While striving for humility myself, it was encouraging to see my husband’s growth in humility. While he was drinking he was the most inferiority-ridden person in the world. After AA, from a doormat he bounced way up to superiority over everyone else, including me. This was pretty hard to take “after all the good I done him.” Of course few wives at first can see how natural it is for the alcoholic to feel that the most wonderful people in the world are AAs living the only true principles. Since I, too, was trying to live the AA program, this was the very point where I had to look to my own humility, regardless of my husband’s progress or lack of it.
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
At first I couldn’t think of anyone I had harmed. But when I broke through my own smugness even a little, I saw many relatives and friends whom I had resented; I had given short, irritated answers and had even imperiled long-standing friendships. In fact, I remember one friend that I threw a book at when, after a nerve-racking day, he annoyed me. (Throwing seems to have been my pet temper outlet.) I try to keep this list up-to-date. And I also try to shorten it.
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
This is just as important for me as for the alcoholic. To have serenity and joy in living and doing, to be able to withstand the hard knocks that come along, and to help others do the same, I found I had to make specific amends for each harm done. I couldn’t help others while emotionally sick myself.
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
It is astounding how each time I take an inventory I find some new rationalization, some new way I have been fooling myself that I hadn’t recognized before. It is so easy to fool oneself about motives. And admitting it is so hard, but so beneficial.
Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
I am just beginning to understand how to pray. Bargaining with God is not real prayer, and asking him for what I want, even good things, I’ve had to learn, is not the highest form of prayer. I used to think I knew what was good for me and I, the captain, would give my instructions to my lieutenant, God, to carry out. That is very different from praying only for the knowledge of God’s will and the power for me to carry it out.
Time for meditation is hard to find, I imagine, for most of us. Today’s living is so involved. But I’ve set aside a few minutes night and morning. I am filled with gratitude to God these days. It is one of my principal subjects for meditation; gratitude for all the love and beauty and friends around me; gratitude even for the hard days of long ago that taught me so much. At least I’ve made a start and have improved to some small degree my conscious contact with God.
Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I am like many AAs who do not realize when their spiritual awakening occurred. Mine was a slow developing experience. Even following a sudden spiritual awakening, no one can stand still. One either moves forward, or slips backward. In retrospect, I can see a change for the better between my old and new self, and I hope that tomorrow, next month, next year, I shall continue to see a better new self.
And nothing has done more to move me forward than carrying the AA message to those non-alcoholics who do not yet comprehend and are still in need of the understanding and help of those who have gone before.
Anne Smith
March 21, 1881 — June 1, 1949
June 1950
Somehow we believe Dr. Bob’s beloved Anne would prefer this simple tribute beyond all others. It was written by one who knew her well. It came from the bottom of a grateful heart which sensed that extravagant language and trumpeting phrases would serve only to obscure a life that had deep meaning.
–The Editors
It is doubtful if now, only one year after her passing, that the true significance of Anne Smith’s life can be realized. Certainly it cannot yet be written, for the warmth of her love, and charm of her personality and the strength of her humility are still upon those of us who knew her.
For Anne Smith was far more than a gracious lady. She was one of four people, chosen by a Higher Destiny, to perform a service to mankind. How great this contribution is, only time and an intelligence beyond man’s can determine. With Dr. Bob, Lois and Bill, Anne Smith stepped into history, not as a heroine but as one willing to accept God’s will and ready to do what needed to be done.
Her kitchen was the battleground and, while Anne poured the black coffee, a battle was fought there which has led to your salvation and mine. It was she, perhaps, who first understood the miracle of what passed between Bill and Dr. Bob. And, in the years to follow, it was she who knew with divine certainty that what had happened in her home would happen in other homes again, again, and yet again. For Anne understood the simplicity of faith. Perhaps that’s why God chose her for us. Perhaps that’s why Anne never once thought of herself as a “woman of destiny” but went quietly about her job. Perhaps that’s why, when she said to a grief-torn wife, “Come in, my dear, you’re with friends now—friends who understand” that fear and loneliness vanished. Perhaps that’s why Anne always sat in the rear of the meetings, so she could see the newcomers as they came, timid and doubtful … and make them welcome.
There’s a plaque on the wall of Akron’s St. Thomas Hospital dedicated to Anne. It’s a fine memorial. But there’s a finer one lying alongside the typewriter as this is being written—letters to Dr. Bob from men and women who knew and loved her well. Each tries to put in words what is felt in many hearts. They fail—and that’s the tribute beyond price. For real love, divine love, escapes even the poet’s pen.
So, in the simplest way we know, and speaking for every AA everywhere, let’s just say “Thanks, Dr. Bob, for sharing her with us.” We know that she’s in a Higher Group now, sitting well to the back, with an eye out for newcomers, greeting the strangers and listening for their names!
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