Step 7: Humbly Ask

This 7th Step – synchronistically made up of seven simple words – really hinges on just the first two. Both of which are so hard for us addicts: being humble and asking for help. Because though 7’s gravitational double-star dance is with Step 6 (about becoming entirely ready), “it is not enough to be ready; it is not enough to hope. We have to ask, and we have to ask humbly.” (Recovery–The Sacred Art, p.102)

So, first, humility.

As Bill Wilson’s Twelve and Twelve reminds us, “the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of A.A.’s Twelve Steps.” (p.70) A complementary way of looking at it is that “there is only one step: hitting rock bottom, and hitting it so hard that there is no opportunity for denial, no room for ego, no option for anything but a radically humble cry for help.” (Recovery–The Sacred Art, p.105)

And while not the same as humiliation, “it was only by repeated humiliations that we were forced to learn something about humility […] about humility as something more than a condition of groveling despair” (12&12, p.72). For while I’m living proof that humiliations can be inextricably tied to our shame-cycle existence as addicts – feeling we are unworthy, unloved and unlovable – growing, as a result, into a healthy humility paradoxically creates confidence (con fi, literally “with faith”) in oneself: “Humility seems to be the basic ingredient for transforming pain into growth.” (Drop The Rock, p. 64) As Wilson asserts, “Everywhere we saw failure and misery transformed by humility into priceless assets, [how it had] brought strength out of weakness.” (12&12, p. 75)

For humility is ultimately “simply a clear recognition of who [we] are […] the middle ground between the extremes of grandiosity and intense shame. … humility is not being meek. It is being our true selves.” (Drop The Rock, p.57) Kurtz and Ketcham frame it as an ancient, classic virtue in their lovely The Spirituality of Imperfection (p.186):

[H]umility signifies, simply, the acceptance of being human, the acceptance of one’s human being. It is the embrace of the both-and-ness, both saint and sinner, both beast and angel, that constitutes our very be-ing as human. Beginning with the acceptance that being human – being mixed (and therefore sometimes mixed up) – is good enough, humility involves learning how to live with and take joy in that reality.

Next, asking.

We addicts (and all humans addicted to control), by ourselves, in our mixed-up way, tried so hard for so long to remove our shortcomings once we recognized them. As a consequence, only after repeated failure of our willpower to control our character defects were we finally ready to humbly ask. “In developing humility, we are faced once again with an ‘active surrender.’ In asking God to remove our shortcomings, we must move and act in a manner that reflects our willingness to surrender.” (Drop The Rock, p. 58) Thus, becoming humble so that we can actively surrender is the stance from which we can finally ask, and ask with all our heart.

And as Richard Rohr reminds us, “We ask not to change God but to change ourselves. We pray to form a living relationship, not to get things done.” As Gerald May puts it: “God knows that we are good; it is for us to discover that goodness. As we have seen, the tests of attachment, by bringing us to our knees in humility, may show us the way of goodness and how us to choose that goodness with our whole being.” (Addiction and Grace, P.117)

This asking God, then, becomes in itself a sincere and integral prayer practice in our recovery: “Prayer is how we put our humility into action.” (Drop The Rock, p.78) In asking our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings, we remain in conscious relationship with the sacred source best seen as relationship itself, as the mutual inflow and outflow of love. As Wilson surmises: “The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God.” (12&12, p.76) Because, as he states, “for just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.” (12&12, p.72)

Prayer as humbly asking.

Of the many prayers used in recovery circles, my favorite has always been the Seventh Step prayer:

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.” (AA, p.76)

Prayer, again, as one of our ways of humbly asking. And my favorite word there is “which.” It signifies for me that I’m asking my Higher Power to remove only the shortcomings that keep me from God, and from serving others. The rest of those defects – I wholeheartedly believe – are what brought me to Her/Him in the first place. They are what ultimately saved me … and continue to save me:

The defects that remove me from service are removed on and for the day that I ask. God lets me keep the rest of the defects to remind me of my need for daily spiritual contact. They remind me that there is a God, and it isn’t me. (Drop The Rock, p.5)

Next month, having humbly asked for transformation of the shortcomings in ourselves, we start Step 8 and moving outward to the amends process for others in our lives.