THE STEPS · STEP SIX
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
IN PLAIN WORDS
The step where we stop defending what's been defeating us.
Step Six looks like a resting step — no lists, no conversation, one paragraph in the Book. It isn't. It's the honest question the inventory was building toward: now that we've seen our defects on paper, are we actually willing to live without them?
The Book doesn't expect a clean yes. It says plainly that if we still cling to something, we ask for the willingness to let it go. That's the whole step.
Our defects were survival tools once — the anger that felt like armor, the dishonesty that kept the peace. Step Six is where we admit the armor is what's been sinking us.
INTO ACTION · BIG BOOK, P. 76
Where we get stuck
“ALL my defects? Entirely?”
The Book's own answer: almost nobody is entirely ready. Ask for the willingness — that IS the step.
“Some of them still feel like me.”
We know. Some of ours had our names on them. Naming what a defect still seems to do for us is where readiness starts.
“Isn't this just Step Four again?”
Four found them. Six is deciding we're done being run by them. Seeing and releasing are different acts.
THE STEP SIX & SEVEN TOOL
Ready and Asking
Steps Six and Seven are worked together — one sitting in the Book, one flow here. Naming what we're carrying, the one we're tempted to keep, and the humble ask.
🛡 Free · No account · Nothing is saved or stored
What a sponsor would ask
“Which defect would you keep if you could keep one — and what's it really doing for you?”
“What would the people who love you say your bodyguard has cost them?”
“Are you ready — or ready to ask to be ready? Both count. Which is it today?”
From the literature
Big Book · p. 76
Big Book · pp. 67–69
Step Seven is the same sitting — the ask itself.
Continue to Step Seven →