Step Seven And The Real Work Of Humility

The sneakiest version of control is the one that looks like growth: asking for help, then handing over a rulebook on how to help you. I’m digging into AA Step 7, “humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings,” and why it’s not a spiritual formality but a real turning point in sobriety and recovery. When I stop trying to run the whole “self-improvement project,” I finally make room for change that lasts, not change I perform.

We’ll walk through where Step Seven sits in the 12 steps, why Step Six is willingness and Step Seven is the ask, and how “remove my shortcomings” is different from “fix everyone else so I can relax.” I talk about control and fixing, the ways they can overwhelm us, and why sobriety isn’t about becoming perfect. It’s about becoming honest, becoming willing, and getting out of our own way.

We also unpack humility vs humiliation, and why shame is not the same thing as humility. Shortcomings aren’t everything you dislike about yourself; they’re the patterns that pull you away from honesty, peace, connection, and usefulness. I cover why willpower alone often falls short, how the real work lives under the behavior, and how you can define a higher power in a way that works for you whether that’s God, nature, the recovery community, or principles like honesty, love, service, and connection. You’ll leave with seven concrete daily practices plus a simple worksheet you can use this week.

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Transcript

Asking For Help Without Control

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey. Curious, have you ever asked for help and then immediately explained exactly how the other person should help you? Because apparently, I would like assistance, but only if it is delivered according to my instructions. On my schedule, and without making me feel vulnerable. Guess what? That is not really asking for help. That is subcontracting help. And step seven is where we begin to learn the difference. Step seven says, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Just ten words, simple words. But this step asks us to do something that we can feel nearly impossible for people who have spent years trying to control everything. It asks us to admit we cannot fix every part of ourselves by ourselves. It asks us to become willing to receive help. And it asks us to humility, not humiliation, not shame, and not thinking less of ourselves. And still really. Some days I do, some days I don't. But I have learned that sobriety is not about becoming perfect. And oh, I can't tell you, it is not. It is not about becoming perfect. It is about becoming honest. It's about becoming willing. And sometimes it's about finally getting out of your own way. I hope you really hear those words. Myself or anybody else that has been sober ever expects you to be perfect. I don't know about other people outside and about you and around you, what they're asking of you, but I'm telling you, sobriety doesn't come from perfection. 38 years of sobriety doesn't come from perfection. It's finally about getting out of our own way. This

Step Seven And The Progression

SPEAKER_00 2:37

summer we are talking through the 12 steps together, one step at a time. Last week we did step six. So if you are just stepping into my podcast and hearing it for the first time, this is actually, I started on January 1st doing this podcast. So I think we're on episode 33 in season one. And right now we are on step seven of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I want to be clear, and I've I say this in all my podcasts, that AA is not the only way to become sober. If you're doing it some way else, somehow else, good for you and great for you, you are more than welcome to be here. Everybody is welcome here. You can subsidize with my podcast if you like. If you're not up to going to an AA meeting, you can listen. I do have one on how to not be afraid of AA and not be afraid of going to that meeting. And there's all kinds of podcasts I've already done on all kinds of things. But currently we're working through the 12 steps and we are on step seven. Step seven is where we humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. I mean, think of how many people are walking out in the world right now that don't have an alcohol problem, that this could help. Removing your shortcomings. Wow. All right. Well, and if your first reaction to this is, didn't we deal with our shortcomings in step six? Yeah, we did. Sorta. Step six was about becoming willing to let them go. Okay. So as you've learned in lit from listening to me, this is all a process, and one step links with another. One part of your sobriety links to another part, links to another part, and gets you to your desired destination. So step six was just getting you willing to let them go. Because if you remember when you started step six, you may not even have thought you had any shortcomings. You may have thought everybody else was the shortcoming. There might have been a lot of things going on with you, but once you realized and were willing to let them go, step seven is that step. So I want you to pour yourself some coffee, settle in, and let's talk about humility, control, change, and why step seven is much more powerful than it first appears. Okay, where does step seven fit? Let's look, let's start by looking at where we are in the steps. In step four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory. Okay, step five, we admitted the exact nature of our wrongs to God, ourselves, and another person. And if you're first listening, if you got an issue with God, I have no problem with that. Substitute whatever you want there. But you do need a higher power. You do need something more powerful than yourself. So it could be nature, it could be people, it could be anything you want it to be. I don't want to put things out there, but if you have an issue with God, that's okay. Substitute it with something that works for you. So, step five, we admitted the exact nature of our wrongs to God, ourselves, and another person. In step six, we became entirely ready to have our defects of character removed. Oh my gosh, what a gift, right? What a gift. And now in step seven, we humbly ask for that removal. So now we're we've we figured out what needs to go. Now we're asking, now we're taking the stuff to the goodwill, so to speak. There is a progression here. First we see the behavior, then we tell the truth about the behavior, then we became willing to change the behavior, and finally we're asking for help changing it. Sounds pretty straightforward, doesn't it? But us human beings are very funny. We can identify a character defect, admit that it is hurting us, become willing to let it go, and then try to manage the entire removal process ourselves. As if we're the higher power. We say, okay, higher power, I'm ready to let go of my need for control. Here's my detailed plan for how we're going to do that. We say, I would like to become more patient. Could you please make everyone around me less irritating? Or I'm ready to let go of resentment. As soon as the other person apologizes properly, I can do it. And that they understand exactly what they did and suffers just enough to make me feel better. Oh, please don't tell me you haven't thought those thoughts in your head. I have, and I've thought them in my 38 years of sobriety. Haven't had to drink over them though, because I have my steps. Oh, that is not quite step seven. Step seven is not please change everyone else so I can feel peaceful. It is please change what is happening inside me. And that is a very different prayer, people. All

Control And Fixing Then Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 7:50

right. I I'll share a little bit about myself. I am extraordinary. I'm a Capricorn. And I am a Capricorn in the truest sense of the word. I am strong. I am controlling. I take care of everyone. I am a fixer. And I have to let that go from time to time. Sometimes it overwhelms me. And I have to remember to ask, to have that let go, to to release me from my controlling self. You know, it's it's not easy. It's not easy. And if you think you worked the first 12 steps your first year and you never do them again wrong, sorry, I need a sip on my Diet Mountain Dew. The Circle K was out of Diet Coke on my way home from the gym. That's very sad. They were out of everything diet except for Diet Mountain Dew. Not my favorite. But, you know, as a good sober alcoholic, I need something to drink that I love. So Diet Soda is my drug of choice. At least when I drink diet soda, I don't forget where I am or treat others poorly. All right, back to your steps. That you continue to do this. I continue to take a step backwards, a step forward. I make mistakes, but I do have a higher power that I can turn to and ask for the removal. All right, I could see the behavior, I could admit the behavior, I could even say that I wanted to change. But underneath all that, I still wanted to be the one in charge. And that is the truth. I fight my controlling instincts time and time and time again. And I also fight my fixing instincts. And that my fixing instincts have always been there, but they kicked into high gear when I became a mom. I was told by my son's girlfriend that I never held him accountable for anything while she's trying to fix him, whatever. And and and that's probably true, but he's 31 years old, and and that and it isn't probably true. It's true. I I did hold him accountable, but not probably as strongly as some other parents. Wasn't my parenting style. But my son is almost 32 years old, you know. He needs to start being accountable for himself. He's an adult and he knows that. But my ability to be a fixer is not a good thing for everybody, and it's not a good thing for me. And that's one of the things I have to keep letting go. So underneath all of it, I still want to be the one that's in charge. I still want to be the fixer. And steck seven asks us to loosen our grip. And I do over and over and over again. And you will too. Whatever it is for you, you will more than likely have the same struggles as me. And if you don't, hallelujah. I praise you for that. But, you know, it's a long road to be sober 38 years. And again, we don't ask for perfection. And I am not perfect in this sobriety world.

Humility Is Not Humiliation

SPEAKER_00 11:18

What humility can actually mean, the word at the center of step seven is humility. And humility is one of those words that can make people uncomfortable. Some of us hear humility and think it means making ourselves small. Oh, and it does not. We think humility means saying, I'm terrible, I'm worthless, I don't deserve anything. Everything else, everyone else knows better than I do. But that is not humility. That's shame. And if you have any of those people feelings, that's what you're feeling. It's not humility, it's shame. Humility is not hating yourself. Humility is seeing yourself clearly. It is recognizing both your strengths and your limitations. It is understanding that you have value, but you are not the center of the universe. Oh, and us alcoholics really think we are. Oh, Lord in heaven. I've run across a couple of newbies in the program, and I remember, I and I was just like them. I am not casting any anything, anything, but I love listening to a newbie because it reminds me how far I've come and that they can come just as far. That they are not stuck in that self-centered world that they have created. All right. You learned that when you asked, when you made amends with people. Some people accepted your amends, some people didn't. You can't control every outcome, but you can control yourself. Humility is not saying I am nothing. Humility is saying I am human. And honestly, being human is humbling. We get tired, we misunderstand people, we overreact, we become afraid, we say things we do not mean, we make plans that do not work. We promise ourselves that we will behave differently next time. And then next time arrives, and there we are doing the same thing again. That does not mean we are hopeless. It means we need help. Humility shows us how to stay, to say that, excuse me, say that without collapsing into shame. Shame, shame, shame. Shame is not good. You need to let it go. You need to have some humility in life. And I always go when I go through these steps, I think about people, normies that are out in the world living their life and how much better it would be if they could go through the steps, don't you? Honestly, if they only knew, right? Humility versus humiliation. Humility and humiliation are not the same thing. Humiliation says you should be ashamed of who you are. Humility says you can be honest about who you are. Humiliation pushes us down. Humility opens us up. Humiliation says we are bad. Humility says we are unfinished. There is an enormous difference. And rewind and listen to that part again. I'm not going to say it again. I want you to rewind it and hear it. How I said it with my original inflections. Many alcoholics already arrive in recovery carrying plenty of shame. We do not need another step to tell us how awful we are. Step seven is not designed to punish us. It is designed to free us. It says, you do not have to pretend anymore. You do not have to fix everything alone. You do not have to manufacture a brand new personality overnight. You can ask for help. And guess what? You can grow. You can grow gradually. No one is asking for instantaneous changing. No one is asking you to become sober and completely change overnight. You can become more honest, loving, patient, and useful. Not because you have beaten yourself into submission, but because you have become willing to live differently.

Naming Shortcomings With Compassion

SPEAKER_00 15:45

All right, let's talk about shortcomings. The wording of step seven refers to our shortcomings. Different people use different words: character defects, shortcomings, unhelpful patterns, coping mechanisms, survival behaviors that no longer serve us. I personally think the wording matters less than the honesty. I don't care what you call it. We are talking about the parts of our behavior and thinking that repeatedly harm us or other people. Do you remember in step one, two, and three, how I talked about our thinking is very dangerous to us. We have what they used to call when I first came in the program, stinking thinking. It gets us nowhere. We need to adjust that. We are talking the part about the parts of our behavior and thinking that repeatedly harm us or other people. I'm going to give you some some. Jealousy, control, impatience, perfectionism. Oh, oh, that one just is like a dagger in my heart. Anger, avoidance, people pleasing, manipulation, defense, judgment, the need to always be right. Oh, that's another dagger in my heart. I've got that one pretty good though. And I think part of it came with age, but anyway. And before anyone starts making a list of every single thing they dislike about themselves, let's take a pause here. Because not every personality trait is a character defect. I'm gonna go back to myself again and talk about my need to fix everything. It's not a bad thing. It is not. I just have to learn to control it a little bit. And I have. Being sensitive is not automatically a defect. Being cautious is not automatically a defect. Being strong-willed is definitely not automatically a defect. Having needs is not a defect. Setting boundaries is not a defect. Feeling anger is not a defect. The question is not what do I dislike about myself? The question is, what patterns repeatedly separate me from honesty, peace, connection, and usefulness. Let me repeat that. What you're really looking for are not all like all of those words, like I said. What you're looking for are patterns, these patterns that repeatedly separate you from honesty, peace, connection, and usefulness. A shortcoming is often a normal human trait that has become distorted or overused. Ha. Overused. That is the problem with my fix it tendencies. I tend to overuse it. I want to fix everything immediately and make it okay. And in some cases, my kids need to walk through something, but I shouldn't fix it. And I've gotten better at that. Confidence can become arrogance, caution can become fear, responsibility can become control. Generosity can become people pleasing. Independence can become isolation. Anger can become punishing. Planning can become obsession. Fixing people can also become an obsession. And self-protection can become emotional distance. Many of our shortcomings began as attempts to protect ourselves. Remember that. You have done some bad things to yourself, and your brain has been trying to protect you through all this alcoholism. It is an illness, and your brain has tried to help you. And none of this excuses harmful behavior. But it can help us approach ourselves with understanding instead of cruelty. We can say this behavior may have helped me survive something once, but it is no longer helping me live well. That's honest. That is compassion, and that is humble. Why

Why Willpower Alone Falls Short

SPEAKER_00 20:20

can't we just remove them ourselves? Well, you and your best thinking got you into this situation. Why do we need to ask a higher power to remove our shortcomings? Why can't we just stop doing them? Occasionally we can change a behavior through determination, practice, therapy, accountability, or better habits. All of those things can be valuable. Step seven does not mean we sit on a couch, announce that we have prayed about impatience, and then continue screaming at people in traffic. We still have work to do, but there is a reason willpower alone often falls short. How's your willpower worked for you up till now? I'm just gonna ask you that. Our character defects are usually tied to something deeper: a fear, an insecurity, a pain, the need to feel safe, to feel important, and to avoid rejection. The need to control what cannot be controlled. We may tell ourselves, I will stop being controlling. But then uncertainty appears, fear arises, and suddenly, guess what? We're organizing everyone else's life again. We may say, I will stop people pleasing, but then someone is disappointed in us, and we immediately abandon our own needs. We may decide I will stop holding grudges, but then we remember what happened. Feel the hurt again and begin mentally presenting our case to an imaginary jury. Oh my goodness, the behavior is often only the top layer. Step seven invites us to ask for help with what is underneath it. Not just help me stop being controlling, but help me trust. Not just help me stop judging, but help me practice compassion. Do you see where I'm going with this? That is where step seven becomes more than a request to have our undesirable traits magically erased. It becomes a request for transformation. What does remove mean? When we ask for shortcoming to be removed, it does not always vanish instantly. And I wish it did. I wish we could stay step seven prayer once and make up the next morning, wake up the next morning with no resentments. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes we will still react. Sometimes the circumstances that activate the defect keep appearing. Resentness can make us feel powerful. Control can make us feel safe. All those things come back. Oh I am not there yet. Please help me become ready, is the prayer that you can use. As these things pop their ugly head up, step seven asks us to keep returning to that willingness. That willingness can be a short prayer, like I am not there yet. Please help me become ready. And

Higher Power Without Religious Pressure

SPEAKER_00 23:25

last but not least, let's talk about that God question. You know, I know that that just stops people dead in their tracks. A lot of people. But also a lot of people have gotten over that. Anytime, anytime a step includes the word God or Him, some people immediately tense up. So let's address that again. Step seven does not require any everyone to have the same religious belief. Your understanding of a higher power may be traditional. It may be spiritual, but not religious. It may be collective wisdom of the recovery community. It may be the principles of honesty, love, and service and connection. I want you to think about that. You can adopt these four principles as your higher power. Your higher power can be the principles of honesty, love, service, and connection. It may be something you are still trying to understand, but don't let that stop you. Pray to your dog if you have to. But use the step. Do the step. Step seven asks us to develop a relationship with something beyond our isolated ego. It asks us to say, my best thinking cannot solve every problem created by my best thinking. That's not weakness, that's wisdom. For someone new to recovery, the prayer might be: whatever is out there, help me become less afraid and more honest. It might be help me act from love instead of fear. So, however, you need to manipulate this God piece, I want you to do it. I want you to find a way to step through the God piece, not over it, not around it, because you need something higher than yourself to help you work through all this. All right, many people use this traditional seven-step prayer. The exact wording is less important than the intention behind it. At its heart, the prayer says, take all of me, the good and the difficult. Remove what stands in the way of being useful. Give me the strength to live according to better principles.

Useful Living With Healthy Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 25:35

The focus is not on becoming impressive, it is on becoming useful. That is a big shift. Many of us spend years trying to become safe, admired, successful, protected, right, or in control. Step seven asks us how can I become more useful? Useful does not mean people taking it advantage of you. It does not mean sacrificing your well-being. A person, a useful person can still say no. I say no all the time. A useful person can set boundaries. I have learned to set them. I've learned to set them recently. A useful person can leave an unhealthy situation. A useful person can speak the truth. Humility is not passivity. That's a hard word to say. Humility is taking the next right action. So I think that should give you a pretty good guide on step seven.

Seven Daily Practices Plus Weekly Exercise

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Here's a couple practical ways to work step seven. I'll give you seven ways to work step seven in daily life. Name the shortcoming without attacking yourself. Instead of saying I'm a horrible person, say I am acting from fear. Instead of saying I ruin everything, I became defensive again and I caused harm. Look at it, change the learning. Ask what the behavior is trying to do. What am I trying to protect? What am I afraid of? What do I believe this behavior gives me? Look at the behavior. Number three, ask for the opposite quality. So you may say, I'm struggling with resentment. Ask for compassion, fear, courage, dishonesty, integrity, impatience, acceptance, control, trust. Okay? That's three. Four, pause before acting. And this is great for everyone. Pause before sending that text, before making the call, offering unasked for advice, whatever it is, pause before you act. Five, accept feedback. Feedback is a gift. It is still hard for me to take feedback, good or bad. I struggle with that one, but it's important. Feedback is a gift. If it's coming from a good source, okay, let's be clear. Not an internet troll. Feedback coming by somebody that you respect is a gift. I want to clear that. Take the opposite action. If your shortcoming tells you to isolate, don't reach out. If something's telling you to lie, tell the truth. If it's telling you to control a situation, take a step back. You see what I'm saying? Number seven, practice, don't perform. Step seven is not about providing how humble, proving how humble you are, excuse me. The moment we become extremely proud of our humility, we may have wandered slightly off course. Okay. There is no graduation ceremony for step seven. It just becomes a way of living. Well, I think I have given you as much as I can on step seven. I will give you a practice for this week. Here is a simple practice. Choose one shortcoming, not 14. Write it down and then answer these questions. When does this behavior appear? What feeling comes right before? What am I trying to protect or control? What does this how does this behavior affect me? How does it affect other people? What quality would I like to practice instead? What is one small opposite action I can take? I tell you what, I love this. I'm going to print this out. I'm going to create a PDF and I will put it for download. It'll be downloadable on my website. My website is Marcy Bacchus with an H, B-A-C-K-H-U-S, Marcy with a Y, Marcy Bacchus Media. Marcy Bacchus Media.com. I just lost my train of thought. Does that ever happen to you? All right, I'm gonna have that in a downloadable PDF and you will be able to get it. You'll also get step six's worksheet up there. Take a look. I got all kinds of things. And I want before we wrap up, I remember that you can always find me over on my other podcast. If you're having a rough day, and if maybe I am really helping you and you need to hear my voice, I have two other podcasts, Aging A for Sissies. It talks about getting older with humor, honesty, and absolutely no intention of disappearing quietly. Inside Marcy's mind, oh goodness, I could talk about just about anything on that podcast. And that's why I created it. It's kind of like my sounding board for life. Kind of like, and a lot of times I'm asking, am I the only one that thinks this is strange? Life is weird, it's crazy. But you know, if you are struggling and you need to just hear my voice, please check out my other podcasts. Because apparently, one podcast was not enough room for everything going on in my head. So I needed three. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. It's a small step with enormous meaning. It teaches us that humility is not humiliation. It teaches us that asking for help is not weakness. It teaches that we are responsible for our actions, but we do not have to transform ourselves alone. It teaches us that change may be gradual. It teaches us the goal is not perfection. The goal is freedom, freedom from automatic reactions, freedom from shame, freedom to pause, freedom to choose differently. But perhaps tomorrow you will notice one sooner. You will notice a character defect and you'll change it. I know you've got this. Humility over pride, honesty over self-protection, and faith over fear. You've got this. Again, this is a long episode, 32 minutes already. I am

Resources And Closing Call To Action

SPEAKER_00 32:00

sorry. I try to keep them shorter because us alcoholics don't have very long attention spans. Thank you for spending this time with me today. This episode helped you. Please follow Unbottled. Leave me a review. Please rate my podcast. It will help me get this out to other people. Share it with someone who may need to hear this. And remember, you are not behind. You are not hopeless. You are not your worst decision. You are just a human being in the process of becoming. Keep showing up, keep telling the truth, keep asking for help. And keep doing the next right thing. I am Marcy. This is Unbottled Sobriety, Uncorked, Unfiltered, and unapologetically real. I will meet you right back here next week. Same bat time, same bat channel, and we will move into step eight and begin making a list of people we have harmed to become willing to make things right. Until then, be honest with yourself, be gentle with yourself. And please remember, you do not have to control everything. And thank goodness for that.