Nar-Anon Chat™

Step 7: Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

There are Nar-Anon members who will say that when they first read this Step they thought, “This one is for the addict, not me!” Because the Twelve Steps were adopted from Narcotics Anonymous some of us thought they were given to us in Nar-Anon just to let us know about one of the tools the addicts would be using during their recovery. We felt we could pick and choose the steps we wanted to use believing they could not all apply to us because we were perfect. But, after attending several meetings it dawned on us that we must also use all of the Steps, including Step Seven. This Step makes us realize that humbly means to yield our will to the Higher Power’s will. After this, we then must be willing to ask the Higher Power to remove our flaws.

Before Nar-Anon many of us believed we had no shortcomings. After all, we didn’t have a problem with drug abuse, the addicts did. Nar-Anon opened our eyes so we could see how judgmental, manipulative and self-righteous most of us were. We saw how we manipulated the addict through:

our money (“you’re not going to get my money to use for drugs”)
our bodies (“I don’t want to make love to an addict:)
our words (“I can’t talk to you and you don’t listen”)
our negative attitudes (“I’m better than you because you’re an addict”)

We knew the best way to live, the right way. Our way was the only way.

Resentment, anger and fear were our emotions. There was no room in our hearts for tolerance, patience and good-will. We thought joy and happiness were not ours because of the addict. We blamed our unfortunate state of affairs on the addict. We believed we were justified in our judgments.

When we finally worked on Step Seven and asked the Higher Power to remove these shortcoming, we began to live a better life. We learned to be humble and admit our wrongs. We have found that we don’t know what is right for others. We are finding that many of us don’t even know what is right or ourselves. We learned healthier ways to express our emotions. We learned we do have choices. Our own joy and happiness is our responsibility.

Through changed attitudes we now know that just like the addicts, we must accept the consequences of our actions. As we use the Steps in our daily affairs we will continue to humbly ask the Higher Power to remove our shortcoming. Yes, we have shortcomings.

Can I accept myself, humbly, as I am, and give to my higher power the task of determining what and when to remove my shortcomings?

What does, “Humbly asked…” mean to me in this Step?