“…the most important aspects of the Fifth Step are the acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness we feel from our sponsor and from a Higher Power. The guilty feelings born in our past start to fall away.”

– Life with Hope, first edition, page 23

I was in shock the first time my sponsor uttered that phrase to me. I spent half my Fourth Step ruminating over tragedies: my errors in judgment, the colossal mistakes I’m still paying for, and regrets I’ve carried with me forever. It never failed when any of my indiscretions surfaced, the “poor me” pose would emerge, the antacids would pop out and my favorite flight response would take over—“run, baby run.”

My sponsor would always tell me, with his kind truth—able to cut to the chase, “Why let your ego run havoc through your life? It’s all a mind game anyway, a big cosmic joke. The ego wants to keep you in its clutches until it’s time to take your dirt nap then it’ll keep on haunting you way into your next life. Trick the ego and don’t buy into the guilt—take responsibility, ’fess up to your wrongs, make those sincere amends, then move on with your life. Don’t worry, don’t compound the mess, there will be more mistakes that will follow. For God’s sake, we’re only human.”

Final thought: Guilt rides the coattails of the ego. It’s time for a new wardrobe.