Step 5 – Confession

Step 5: We Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. James 5:16

Secrecy has always been the opaque wall behind which I’ve hidden my darkest and most destructive behavior. As long as no one knew about my drug use, I could continue using. Terrified of discovery, I crept in the shadows, desperately hoping that no one would expose my addiction. The light is painful for eyes accustomed only to the dark.

Eventually, my worst fears were realized as my addiction was revealed. No longer able to maintain the lie, the worst things about me were exposed for the world to see. Though it was profoundly painful to see my name in the paper, this had an effect I couldn’t have predicted. The truth set me free. In the truth, I found recovery and the ability to talk about it. Though it was horribly painful, I wouldn’t change it for anything.

This is the principle behind step five, that we maintain our sickness in our secrecy and that exposing the truth, though painful, is necessary to find freedom. We don’t need to confess in front of church and we don’t need to put our name in the paper, but step five insists that to deal with our mess, we must confess it to God and to another human being.

It is God who ultimately forgives us, and it is to him that we must first confess, but James, in today’s passage, confirms that we must also confess to each other if we want to find healing. Secrecy maintains our sickness and it is only in honesty that we find life and recovery.

I’ve done step five formally only once, but like the other steps, this is a continual practice I’ve had to learn. Because I haven’t become perfect in recovery, I continue to fail, and I continue to require confession. Personally, I have my own groups of men that I’ve come to trust, whom I meet with weekly to discuss my recovery, successes and failures.

If we want to know healing, recovery, and life, we must be honest with ourselves about our struggles. Then, we must shine the light of truth on them, confessing to God and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.