800-643-9618
Get Help With Alcohol Addiction
- Find meetings near you
- Discover online or in person meetings
- Get 24 hour information on addiction
Who Answers?The 12 Steps are the foundation for Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and many other mutual help aid programs. Each step builds upon the previous step. Step 5 AA is, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”¹ This admittance of wrongdoing to a higher power, to self, and to others is a powerful and necessary step within the AA process. While these concepts are fundamental to the 12 Steps and AA, and admitting your defects to another person is an ancient practice, however, there is also a science of Step 5 AA.¹
What is Step 5?
Step 4 in AA requires you to take a moral inventory of yourself and your past behaviors. Most likely, this was not an easy process, as this step requires you to look at experiences that you may not want to remember or revisit. Step 5 AA now builds on this and is not only about acknowledging the mistakes made in the past and trying to understand the nature of these mistakes but also now saying these wrongdoings out loud to important people in your life.
How Does Step 5 Work?
You may ask yourself, how does step 5 work? Step 5 AA looks at processing one’s “wrongs” and can have benefits. These may include learning to externalize shame, unlearning toxic shame, learning to appropriately assign responsibility, and learning to identify cognitive distortions, such as labeling oneself based on one’s wrongdoings. According to the Big Book, individuals with addictions often experience loneliness, largely due to feelings of not belonging, even before becoming addicted.¹
These feelings of loneliness and lack of belonging are further amplified by the shame associated with drinking and some behaviors that may have accompanied the drinking, such as lying. These behaviors further drive a wedge between self and others. In step 5 AA, being vulnerable and sharing the secrets of the things that have been done, that you may not be proud of, breaks the cycle of shame, allowing you to feel unconditional love from another person.
In this process, also showing your authentic self to someone else who is not judging you can be powerful. The “other person” you talk to about your “wrongs” can be a substance misuse counselor or therapist, as these professionals specialize in assisting with the processes of healing that may go deeper than what is appropriate to process with a friend or at an AA meeting.
Additionally, this can be done with a sponsor or in an AA group. The important thing is to get it out. Traditionally, methods used to admit the wrongdoings are told to another person, as well as to your higher power. This process can, however, include journaling, workbooks, guided therapy exercises, and meditation, not just religious communion with the Christian God.
You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets
Step 5 AA may be one of the most indispensable steps in the AA process, and without this step, recovery can be affected even for someone with many years of sobriety. AA advocates explicitly sharing what you’ve done wrong—the idea of “you’re only as sick as your secrets.” Why? Because of the impact of shame.
Learning to Externalize Shame
Shame is a powerful emotion. Shame, however, has power only in the darkness. As soon as shame is expressed or spoken out loud, it begins to lose some of its power. The more we speak about it, the less power it has. Shame can take on several characteristics in a person, including not wanting to be seen, as well as the perception of being deeply flawed, incapable, unacceptable, or even bad.²
Shame is hard to separate from our feelings of anxiety about what other people may think or feel about us. Thus, when we have done something we’re not proud of or are generally considered “wrong” or “bad,” shame reinforces these labels and makes us retreat into ourselves. People often hide these things from others, so that they do not feel undesirable or defective.
Unlearning Toxic Shame
An important distinction in unlearning toxic shame, as shame and guilt often accompany the recovery process, is the difference between shame and guilt, which often can be confused. Shame is “I am a bad person”, while guilt is, “I did a bad thing.”³ Shame impacts your sense of self, and toxic shame sticks around after making a mistake, long after making amends, like in 12-step work. Toxic shame can impact your ability to be honest with others or even yourself. It may keep you isolated, fuel negative self-talk, impact your relationships with others, or lead to harmful behaviors, such as substance misuse.
Learning to Appropriately Assign Responsibility
Learning to appropriately assign responsibility can be an important factor in healing toxic shame. Oftentimes individuals struggling with addictions take on a lot of the blame for the decisions they have made in the past, especially while drinking. While it is important to identify the aspects of yourself where you could have made different decisions and accepted responsibility for your wrongdoings, it is also important to recognize that other factors took place to get you to the place you are in your addiction. There are also genetic and environmental components that play into an addiction.
Learning to Identify Cognitive Distortions
There are many cognitive distortions individuals have over time within addiction. Step 5 AA helps challenge some of those negative thoughts that can plague an individual. Cognitive distortions are negative errors in a person’s thinking. People experience these negative thoughts typically after a situation, which can lead to a behavior or action.⁴ Over time, these negative thoughts can be so automatic that you may not even realize they are occurring, and can oftentimes be reinforced by other events in your life. Completing a thought record, which is a log used within cognitive-behavioral therapy, may help track these cognitive distortions. Additionally, when you complete your Step 5 AA, talking out loud to another person can help identify when you may have these negative biases.
The Science of Step 5 AA
There is a deep need for practical insight and knowledge into our own personality flaws, and a discussion of them with an understanding and trustworthy person.¹ These concepts are fundamental aspects of not just AA but also evidence-based therapeutic methodologies used in addiction treatment programs, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). So not only is Step 5 AA practical but it also includes the science of Step 5 AA.
A study published in 2020 found that Alcoholics Anonymous works, as well as scientifically proven treatments for alcoholism.⁵ AA uses aspects of other evidence-based treatments for addiction. For example: in CBT, the steps in AA help identify negative thinking patterns that may fuel addictive behaviors, such as drinking. By admitting your wrongs, step 5 AA can help look at the negative feelings and thoughts associated with those behaviors.
In ACT, a major component of this therapy is looking at a person’s willingness. AA tends to be an all-or-nothing practice, and willingness is just that. Willingness is a state of being open to your own experience, as it is. It doesn’t mean you have to like it or mean you must want it. It is being open to any present thoughts or feelings without changing them. Feelings of hopelessness and assessing values are also explored both in ACT and AA.⁶
Call to speak to a treatment specialist at
800-948-8417
Who Answers?
to discuss your AA and therapy treatment options.
Resources
- BN Publishing. (2008). Step Five. In Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, 55-62.
- Black, R. S., Curran, D., & Dyer, K. F. (2013, February 04). The impact of shame on the Therapeutic Alliance and Intimate Relationships. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(6), 646-654.
- Terrizzi Jr., J. A., & Shook, N. J. (2020). On the origin of shame: Does shame emerge from an evolved disease-avoidance architecture? Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 14.
- Rnic, K., Dozois, D.J.A., & Martin, R.A. (2016, January 22). Cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 12(3), 348-362.
- Kelly JF, Humphreys K, Ferri M. (2020, March). Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs for alcohol use disorder. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2020, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD012880.
- Wilson, K.G., Hayes, S.C. & Byrd, M.R. (2000, December). Exploring Compatibilities Between Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and 12-Step Treatment for Substance Abuse. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 18, 209–234.