My last SPAA recovery themed post wrote about taking AA Big Book Steps One, Two, Three and Four. This post delves into experience taking the supremely confessional and purgative Step Five. (SPAA stands for Sex and Porn Addicts Anonymous)
I consider it a sacred step; its process breathes with lungs of prayer and connection with God and man. After Step Five, I had no more hidden secrets, none in my awareness, and this released an enormous burden of weight I didn't realize I had been shouldering until after having taken the step.
Step Four's fact-finding mission of self-discovery revealed the faults of my character which I had hidden from myself. I had been too often reacting to faults in others, faults inside me which I had projected onto them--- an escape hatch out of avoiding responsibility for fixing my own self. Step Four opened the curtain. It allowed sunlight to shine upon what darkness had previously hidden.
When I took Step Five, I admitted to this newly discovered knowledge, to myself, to another person, my sponsor, and to my conception of a Higher Power. The result transformed me, I believe mostly because of the admission to my sponsor. Why is that? Yes, to myself, great, to God, great, wonderfully needfully great, yet...to someone who could rat me out? Reflect upon the trust I needed to have in that person. This IS God becoming human.
And that's the sense of relief that occurred in me. A lightness. A sense of freedom. The sense of the cleansing of the soul never before experienced. For the taker of the step, the final stage of the Step Five process is.....to be alone with God in reflection. In my process, I prayed my heart out with prayers of thanksgiving for the tool of Step Five. I was like in the bosom of gratitude, in the hands of a Lord and God whose love for me is without measure.