✔ The Seventh Step Prayer

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R.A.’s Seventh Step

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

This is the Seventh in a series of articles about R.A.'s Twelve Steps. Even though A.A. has granted us permission to adapt the Twelve Steps, Recoveries Anonymous is a unique Fellowship with a distinctive way of looking at and working the Twelve Steps. R.A.'s experience is that, when someone thoroughly follows the pioneers' "clear-cut directions," they will duplicate the pioneers' results. They will find the same recovery that the pioneers found.


	In the Seventh Step Prayer, we pray for God to 'remove every single defect of character...'

The Seventh Step also relates to "defects of character." This is true even though the wording of this step says that we ask God to "remove our shortcomings." In the Seventh Step Prayer, we pray for God to "remove every single defect of character..." This allows us to clearly see that "shortcomings" is a synonym for character defects. Therefore, in R.A., we believe that the Seventh Step would perhaps be clearer if it said that we "Humbly asked Him to remove our defects of character."

In R.A., we work the Seventh Step by following the pioneers' "clear-cut directions." This continues the transformation that began in the First Step when we admitted we were powerless. That is where we began to understand that, since we could not manage our own lives, a loving God would have to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. This transformation continued in the Second Step. That is where we came to believe that this same loving God could, and would, restore us to sanity. This process moved forward in the Third Step where we were convinced that we could trust God enough to turn our lives and our wills over to Him with complete abandon.

Next, because of our newfound trust in God, we could fearlessly look for, and discover, the character defects that had been blocking us off from Him. In the Fifth Step, we admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects of character. We could see that selfishness — self-centeredness was the root of our troubles. We could see that all of our other character defects stemmed from this root. In the Sixth Step, we took all that we had learned in the preceding steps, and became willing to let God remove our defects of character. We let go of the old idea that we can, or should even try, to remove these character defects ourselves.


	Now, in the Seventh Step, we are actually asking God to do for us what we can't do for ourselves.

Now, in the Seventh Step, we are actually asking God to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. We humbly — respectfully — ask Him to remove the defects of character we found while doing our inventory.

In R.A., we do this by saying the Seventh Step Prayer. This prayer is in R.A.'s Multilith Big Book, on page 34, in the seventh paragraph. R.A.'s experience is that there are a number of important things we need to note within the Seventh Step Prayer. For example, in the first line it emphasizes willingness. It says, "I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad."

In R.A. we have found that most human beings have a mixture of good and bad character traits. In the Seventh Step Prayer we are expressing our willingness to surrender our will and our lives to God, in spite of the fact that we are not entirely "good." We are willing that our loving Creator should enter our lives, have all of us, even though we are not perfect.

In R.A., we believe that the second line of the Seventh Step Prayer is of special importance. In it, we pray for God to remove, "every single defect of character..." Now notice something very important that is missing here. In the prayer, after it says, "defect of character" there is no punctuation, no period, and no exclamation mark. The prayer simply continues on, qualifying our request to remove "every single defect of character" by adding "which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows."


	We humbly — respectfully — ask Him to remove the defects of character we found while doing our inventory.

In other words, if a character defect is not standing in the way of someone's usefulness to God and their fellows, this prayer is not asking for God to remove it. Think about this for a moment. Many character defects are necessary for people to survive. If somebody had 100% of their fear removed, they'd be dead in very short order. Someone needs fear in order to look both ways when they're crossing a busy street; without fear they may step out into traffic. Also, people need fear so they don't jump out of an airplane without a parachute, etc. Fear can serve a useful purpose. It is appropriate to have it to an appropriate extent in appropriate situations.

The same is true with anger. There are certain situations in our lives where it may be appropriate to get angry. We don't want to get so angry that we hurt others or ourselves. However, it is certainly appropriate to get angry enough to leave a situation where we, or others, are being hurt. There are also social and political situations where it may be appropriate to get angry. For example, it is appropriate to get angry at injustice. We may show our anger in an appropriate way by donating to a cause, signing a petition, or taking some other action.

In R.A., we believe that if we still get angry, have fear, or demonstrate another character trait after we take this step, we will do so in an appropriate way, and to an appropriate extent. R.A.'s experience is that many people get hung up on this point. They mistakenly think that in the Seventh Step they have asked God to entirely remove all their character defects. Then they'll get upset or angry or they'll be afraid of something. Therefore, they think God didn't answer their prayer.


	God removes our defects of character to the extent they hinder our usefulness to Him and the people around us.

In R.A., we believe that the Seventh Step is not designed to turn people into unfeeling robots. If someone had all of their character defects removed they'd wind up institutionalized or dead. Therefore, in R.A. we believe that, in the Seventh Step Prayer, it is clear that we are not asking for all of our character defects to be entirely removed. We're only asking for our character defects to be removed to the extent that they hinder our usefulness to God and the people around us. This makes far more sense than for us to expect to become saints after we take this step.

In the third line of the Seventh Step Prayer, we ask God to give us strength as we go out into the world to do His will. In R.A., we believe that this once again accents that we are asking for God's will, not ours, to be done in all things.

In R.A., we thoroughly follow the pioneers' "clear-cut directions" to work all Twelve Steps. R.A.'s experience is that, when we duplicate the pioneers' path, we find the same result that they found. God removes our defects of character to the extent they hinder our usefulness to Him and the people around us. We are restored to sanity in every part of our lives. We have recovered.

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The Seventh Step Prayer

When many people come to Recoveries Anonymous from another program, they do not know that the pioneers' entire discussion of the Seventh Step is contained in only one paragraph. They do not know that the pioneers' clear-cut direction for completing the Seventh Step is to simply say the Seventh Step Prayer.


	...the pioneers' clear-cut direction for completing the Seventh Step is to simply say the Seventh Step Prayer.

This prayer is found in R.A.'s Multilith Big Book, on page 34, in the seventh paragraph. It says, "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." After the Seventh Step Prayer, the pioneers continue by saying, "You have then completed step seven."

Many people do not understand how just saying the Seventh Step Prayer can be all that is needed to complete the Seventh Step. In R.A., we believe this is true because saying the Seventh Step Prayer is the conclusion of all the work we did to get to this point. It is the completion of thoroughly following the pioneers' "clear-cut directions" to work Step One through Step Six. If the pioneers had thought that more than this one paragraph was needed to complete Step Seven, they would have added more to their "clear-cut directions" for working the steps up to this point.

In addition, many people, when they come to R.A. from another program, do not know that the wording of the original Seventh Step was changed. In R.A.'s Multilith Big Book, on page 26, the original Seventh Step said, "Humbly, on our knees, asked Him to remove our shortcomings—holding nothing back." However, even though Bill resisted making any changes to his original draft of the Twelve Steps, when the text of the Multilith Big Book was moved into the current Big Book, he changed his mind. He agreed to remove the phrases, "on our knees," and "holding nothing back." Many of the other pioneers felt that having these phrases in this step might scare newcomers away from the program.

R.A.'s experience has been that many people who come from other programs also misunderstand the meaning of the word "humbly." Some people mistakenly think it has something to do with being humiliated. It does not. In R.A., we simply think of "humbly" as meaning "respectfully." In other words, the Seventh Step is where we respectfully ask God to remove our defects of character to the extent that they stand in the way of our usefulness to Him and our fellows.


We are willing for God to remove our character defects to the extent that they stand in the way of our usefulness to Him and our fellows.

In addition, in R.A. we have found that the people who come from other programs usually have not worked the steps by following the pioneers' "clear-cut directions." Therefore, they never learned to trust God. They never learned to respect Him. When they prayed, they would demand that God grant them their wishes. They sometimes tried to bargain with Him. Then, they would become frustrated with God because He did not respond to their demands. They never had the humility— the respect — to say, "Thy will, not mine, be done." They could not trust that the results of saying this prayer would be that God's will, not their own, will now be done.

To clarify some of the other misunderstandings about the Seventh Step, Bill Wilson wrote an essay in A.A.'s 12&12. On page 75, in the second paragraph, he says that by learning humility we developed a new attitude toward God. We stopped thinking we could only call on Him in an emergency. We stopped thinking that we were still in charge of our own lives, with a little help from God "now and then." Having this new attitude — placing God first — now allows us to receive His help. To emphasize this point, Bill then paraphrases a quote which Dr. Bob often shared. Bill says, "Of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the works."

Bill continues in A.A.'s 12&12, on page 76, starting in the first paragraph. Here he says that, up to this point, the demands we have been making of ourselves, of others, and of God, have been unreasonable. In the next paragraph, Bill says that anyone should know the difference between "a demand and a simple request."

In other words, the Seventh Step is where we stop self-centeredly demanding that God give us the power to remove our own defects of character. Instead, we use the willingness we developed in the Sixth Step to make a simple and respectful request. We respectfully ask God to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. We are willing for God to remove our character defects to the extent that they stand in the way of our usefulness to Him and our fellows.

The Miracles Revealed:
R.A.’s Journal of Recovery

The page to the right is from R.A.'s second book, "The Miracles Revealed: R.A.'s Journal Of Recovery." This book will give even the most experienced person a fresh look at the program. You can read it like a daily journal, or you can read it straight through. R.A.'s Journal will help everyone come to a deeper understanding of our program of recovery. If you enjoy this sample, please visit R.A.'s web site and download a copy of "The Miracles Revealed: R.A.'s Journal of Recovery."

A Story of Recovery

Our experience is that the stories in the original Multilith Big Book were written to validate the pioneers' "clear-cut directions" for working the Twelve Steps. To help your recovery, we encourage you to visit R.A.'s web site and get "The Original Way Out Revealed: R.A.'s Annotated Multilith Big Book" and read all of these original stories. The following passage is from the story "MY WIFE AND I." In R.A.'s Annotated Multilith Big Book, in the personal story section, on page PS51 it says:

"Every alcoholic reaches the end of the tether some day. For me there came a day when, physically and mentally, unable to make my way to a saloon for a drink. I went to bed. I told my wife for the first time that I wanted to quit drinking, but couldn't. I asked her to do something for me; I had never done this before. I realized that I needed help. Somehow in talking with a lady doctor, my wife had heard of another doctor who in some mysterious way had stopped drinking after thirty years and had been successful in helping a few other alcoholics to become sober men. As a last resort, my wife appealed to this doctor, who insisted on a certain situation before he could help; his experience had taught him that unless that situation existed nothing could be done for the alcoholic.

""Does your husband want to stop drinking, or is he merely temporarily uncomfortable? Has he come to the end of the road?" he asked my wife.

"She told him that for the first time I had expressed a desire to quit, that I had asked her in desperation to try to do something — anything, to help me stop. He said he would see me the following morning.


I acknowledged my fault to God and asked His help to keep to the course I had to follow.

"With every part of my being craving a drink, I could hardly sit still when I got up to await the visit from the man she had talked to on the phone, but something kept me in the house. I wanted to hear what this fellow had to offer and since he was a medical man I had some pre-conceived notions ready for him when he came. I was pretty jittery when my wife opened the door to admit a tall, somewhat brusque professional man who, from his speech, was obviously an Easterner. I don't know what I had expected, but his salutation, designed to shake me up, I can now see, had almost the same effect as the hosing with cold water in a turkish bath.

" 'I hear you're another 'rummy,' he said as he smiled and sat down beside me. I let him talk. Gradually he drew me out until what I did tell him gave him a picture of my experience. And then he put it to me plainly. 'If you are perfectly sure that you want to quit drinking for good, if you are serious about it, if you don't merely wish to get well so that you can take up drinking again at some future date, you can be relieved,' he said.

"I told him that I had never wanted anything as much in my life as to be able to quit using liquor, and I meant every word of it.

" 'The first thing to do with your husband,' he said, turning to my wife, 'is to get him to a hospital and have him "defogged." I'll make the necessary arrangements.'

"He didn't go into any further explanation, not even to my wife. That evening I was in a hospital bed. The next day the doctor called. He told me that several former alcoholics were now dry as a result of following certain prescribed course of action and that some of them would be in to see me. My wife came to see me faithfully. She, too, had been learning, perhaps more quickly than I was doing, through talking with the doctor who by this time was getting down to brass tacks with me. My friend was the human agency employed by an all-wise Father to bring me into a pathway of life.


	In our town there are some 70 of us, ready and willing to spend our time to show the way to sobriety and sanity to men who are like what we used to be.

"It is an easy matter to repeat and orally affirm a faith. Here were these men who visited me and they, like myself, had tried everything else and although it was plain to be seen none of them were perfect, they were living proof that the sincere attempt to follow the cardinal teachings of Jesus Christ was keeping them sober. If it could do that for others, I was resolved to try it, believing it could do something for me also.

"I went home after four days, my mind clear, feeling much better physically and, what was far more important, with something better than just will power to aid me. I got to know others of the little group of alcoholics whose human center was my doctor. They came to our home. I met their wives and families. They invited my wife and myself to their homes. I learned that it would be well to begin the day with morning devotion which is the custom in our house now.

"It was almost a year when I began to get a little careless. One day I hoisted a few drinks, arriving home far from sober. My wife and I talked it over, both knowing it had happened because I had stopped following the plan. I acknowledged my fault to God and asked His help to keep to the course I had to follow.

"Our home is a happy one. My children no longer hide when they see me coming. My business has improved. And — this is important — I try to do what I can for my fellow alcoholics. In our town there are some 70 of us, ready and willing to spend our time to show the way to sobriety and sanity to men who are like what we used to be."

A Newcomer Asks

"In the other program I was in I worked steps four, five, six, and seven. However, in that other program, I did them the way I was told to do them. In the Fourth Step, I tried to remember and list each time I had behaved badly. For the Fifth Step, I admitted each time that I had behaved badly. At the Sixth Step, I said I was willing to stop behaving badly. In the Seventh Step, I asked God to stop me from behaving badly. Then I was told that it was now my responsibility to stop behaving badly. However, I was still not able to stop. Nothing had changed. Now, thanks to R.A., I have discovered that these steps are not about bad behavior. In R.A., I have learned that all of these steps are supposed to be about my character defects. What do I do now?"

If you want the same recovery that the pioneers found, you will need to work the Fifth through Seventh Steps again. However, this time you will need to work them by following the pioneers' "clear-cut directions." If you have not worked the first three steps by following the pioneers' "clear-cut directions," we suggest that you also work them again.


In R.A., we believe this means that all of our problems and behaviors are just symptoms of our defects of character.

R.A.'s experience has been that, when someone does not follow the pioneers' "clear-cut directions" for working these steps, they will not find the recovery the pioneers found. Unfortunately, R.A. has found that it is not unusual for these steps to be misunderstood in other programs. This is not your fault.

In R.A., we believe it is clear why these steps are often misunderstood. At the time Bill Wilson went to school, it was common to tell students not to be repetitive in their writing. Therefore, when Bill wrote the Twelve Steps, he chose to use synonyms such as "moral," "wrongs," or "shortcomings," even though each of these steps refers to character defects. If they were written today, they would probably be written for clarity, instead of variety. Instead of using synonyms, all of these steps would clearly mention character defects.

In R.A.'s Multilith Big Book, on page 28, starting in the bottom paragraph, the pioneers share, "Next we launch out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which you have never in all probability attempted. Though your decision is a vital and crucial step, it can have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in yourself which have been blocking you. Your liquor is but a symptom. Let's now get down to basic causes and conditions."

Please note that the pioneers say that "liquor is but a symptom." In R.A., we believe this means that all of our problems and behaviors are just symptoms of our defects of character. Our character defects are the "basic causes and conditions" that have been blocking our relationship with God. Therefore, using these steps to look at bad behaviors, wrongs, or shortcomings is not the same as using them to discover the defects of character that resulted in our symptoms — our problems and behaviors.


	They can then humbly — respectfully — ask their loving God to remove these defects of character to the extent that they hinder their usefulness to God and the people around them.

R.A.'s experience is that, when someone works these steps with this understanding, the differences in the results they receive are striking. For example, if someone searches for his or her bad behaviors, they may try to remember times they were immoral, wrong, or showed shortcomings. They might then write down times when they stole comic books as a child. They would admit that they stole comic books. Now that they are an adult, they probably find stealing comic books to be objectionable. Therefore, they have no problem asking God to stop them from stealing comic books. However, this process totally ignores the underlying "basic causes and conditions." It totally disregards the reason they stole the comic books.

In R.A.'s Multilith Big Book, on page 29, in the top paragraph, the pioneers share, "We do exactly the same thing with our lives. We take stock honestly. First, we search out the flaws in our make-up which have caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, is what has defeated us, we consider its common manifestations."

In other words, when someone works these steps by following the pioneers' "clear-cut directions," they are going to list the "flaws" in their character, their character defects which caused them to steal comic books. They will recognize that their selfishness — self-centeredness is the root of their troubles. They may add other manifestations of self, such as dishonesty or greed, etc. Then, they will be able to admit that they have been selfish — self-centered, dishonest and greedy, etc. They will be able to see if these character defects are still active in their life, and if they are now objectionable. They can then humbly — respectfully — ask their loving God to remove these defects of character to the extent that they hinder their usefulness to God and the people around them. They can then move on to work the rest of the Twelve Steps and recover.

R.A.’s “How To Begin…” Guides

To find out more about our Twelve Step Fellowship, and how you can get started working the Twelve Steps of our Solution Focused Program of Recovery, we suggest that you visit our web site and Download R.A.'s "How To Begin…" guides. This includes R.A.'s Newcomer Guide, "How To Begin Living In The Solution."

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If you are reading this, you have probably spent a lot of time and energy trying things that did not work out the way you hoped they would. Doesn't it make sense to invest a little more time and energy in this time-proven method of finding the recovery you've been seeking? As the pioneers promise in the Multilith Big Book: ''It works—it really does. Try it.''

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