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Steps 6 and 7 AA — when we stopped asking God for help

Steps 6 and 7 AA spiritual posture of prayer and humility featuring Big Book page 76

We Thought God Took It. He Didn’t.

There is a paragraph on page 76 of the Big Book. One paragraph. That is all Bill W. gave us for Steps 6 and 7, and for a long time I thought that meant they were easy. Do the work, say the prayer, move on to Step 8. I did exactly that. What I did not do was come back.

Somewhere around year four, maybe five, I noticed the old stuff creeping back in. The impatience at the kitchen table. The way I could justify anything if I thought about it long enough. The small dishonesties nobody else could see. I was sober. My life looked fine from the outside. But something had gone quiet inside that used to feel alive.

The Maintenance of Our Spiritual Condition

I talked to my sponsor about it. He didn't say much at first. Then he asked me when I last said the 7th Step prayer. Not at a meeting. Not in my head while driving. Actually stopped, got quiet, and asked God to remove what was standing in the way of being useful. I could not remember.

That was the thing I had missed. Steps 6 and 7 AA are not a door you walk through once. We were entirely ready, we humbly asked—and then we kept going, kept asking, kept showing up with open hands. The Big Book does not say we asked once and it was settled. The word is humbly. Present tense. A posture, not an event.

The Daily Reprieve (Pg. 85)

"We get a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition." — Big Book, pg. 85

What I have come to understand, slowly and with some embarrassment, is that I cannot fix myself. I knew that when I was first admitting powerlessness in Step 1, but I forgot it when things got comfortable. The character defects did not leave—I just stopped noticing them because the chaos was gone.

Not a permanent pardon. A daily reprieve. It is the same mental blank spot that used to lead me to a drink, only now it was leading me to a resentment.

What is the one thing you have been meaning to ask God to remove that you have been carrying so long it started to feel like just part of who you are?

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