THE STEPS · STEP SEVEN
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
IN PLAIN WORDS
The step where humility stops being a dirty word.
Humility scared most of us — it sounded like humiliation, like groveling, like shrinking. The program means something else entirely: seeing ourselves at true size. Not the giant our ego insisted on, not the worm our shame insisted on — just a person, accurately measured, asking for help with what we could never fix alone.
That's the whole posture of Step Seven. The asking takes one prayer and one honest moment. Living it takes the rest of our lives, and the Book never pretends otherwise: some shortcomings leave quickly, some leave slowly, and some we'll be asking about for years. The ask still counts.
INTO ACTION · BIG BOOK, P. 76
Where we get stuck
“Humility sounds like groveling.”
It's the opposite — it's accurate self-measurement. Egos and shame both lie about our size. Humility just tells the truth.
“I asked, and I'm still impatient.”
So were we, the day after. Removal isn't always sudden — the Book's founders kept asking for years. The asking is the practice.
“Remove them? I just got to know them.”
Fair. Six made us ready; Seven is only the ask. What gets removed, and when, was never our department.
THE STEP SIX & SEVEN TOOL
Ready and Asking
Steps Six and Seven are worked together — we'll start with getting ready, and end with the ask.
🛡 Free · No account · Nothing is saved or stored
AS THE BOOK OFFERS IT
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.
THE SEVENTH STEP PRAYER · BIG BOOK, P. 76
Many of us used these words. Yours can be different.
What a sponsor would ask
“What's the difference between thinking less of yourself and thinking of yourself less?”
“Which shortcoming have you been trying to remove on willpower — and how's the score?”
“Can you ask for help out loud, in your own words, without a joke at the end?”
From the literature
Big Book · p. 76
Big Book · p. 76
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions · pp. 70–76
Explores this step's well-known reframing of humility as true self-size.
Read more about this book at aa.org
Step Eight is waiting — the list.
Continue to Step Eight →