Step 5

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

My name is Joel.  I'm a grateful believer in Jesus, the Christ, and I struggle with sexual addiction, anger, and isolation.

I can do 2/3 of this step real well, but what's up with that last part?  Another human being?  If I've admitted it all to myself, and given my past away to God, why do I have to involve someone else?

I've done the first four steps, and they didn't require any outside participation.  Sure, the wording of the steps all say "we" did this and that, but they were my decisions to make; I may have told a few things to somebody else by the way of accountability, but partners, sponsors?

I had made it to this step without a strong support team, but 5th Step is the first step that requires me to go to someone else.  Sure, it helps to start that way, but I hadn't done that.  One of my struggles is that I seek loneliness, and I often find it just when I need it the least. 

I had to go to someone else to share my inventory.  Otherwise, it would have been me talking to myself, and that's just not balanced.  The burden doesn't go away when I'm only handing it back to myself.  That's not letting go, that's juggling.  If I haven't given it away, it stays.

Let it go.  Share it.  Give it away.

Build a relationship.  That's what 5^th Step really is for me.  I step out of myself, out of relying on just me.  I let that stuff go.  I tell it to my sponsor,  and it has no power over me anymore.

If I may use a baseball analogy, in giving my fifth step I was the pitcher.  I threw all sorts of pitches, and I had so many in my inventory.  I had curve balls, brush backs, cutters, cliff-hangers, good cheese, and backdoor sliders.  Mostly, I wanted strikes, but sometimes I wanted that ball to be hit right back into the field.  So I threw my past out there with a vengeance.

You might think my sponsor is going to slam those balls right back at me, hard, but remember, my sponsor is the catcher.  He's on my team.  At the end of the game, he will say, "Good job," and we will pray, like in James 5:16: "Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed..."

Grateful Believer,

Joel