March 5
The Part We Leave Out
We may tell a sponsor a very honest story until we reach the sentence that matters most. Then we explain the circumstances, mention somebody else's behavior, or move along to a worse incident we have already discussed. Everything we said was true. Yet we leave the conversation knowing we kept something back. The part we protected may be less shocking than the effort we spend protecting it.
Step Five offers a place for that unfinished sentence. With someone trustworthy, we can stop managing the listener's impression long enough to say what actually troubles us. They may ask a question we had avoided asking ourselves. They may understand more readily than we expected. Neither response erases responsibility. What changes is that our private version has finally met another human being, and there is room for a more honest conversation.
What am I hoping another person will never notice about the story I tell?
A trusted listener need not hear it all at once.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Five, pp. 55–60.