When I got to AA my mind was like a bucket of dirty, muddy water, filled to the top with fear, resentment, guilt and shame. As I began to give AA a try, it was like I placed my bucket under a spiritual faucet. Every time I took one of the actions suggested by our program, a drop of cool clean spiritual water dripped into my bucket. When I went to a meeting.. drip. Said my prayers.. drip. Put my hand out to others.. drip, drip. Called my sponsor..drip. Slowly, the spiritual water started displacing the dirty water.
It would seem that given enough time under the spiritual faucet of AA, eventually all the water in my bucket would be pure. But there was one problem. Besides dirty water I also had some bricks, rocks and rusty beer cans at the bottom of my bucket. These were my dark secrets, and the embarrassing things I did both drunk and sober that caused major harm to others. These were the things that made me cringe when I thought about them. No amount of dripping was likely to float these bricks from the bottom of my bucket.
The dynamic action of steps four and five and eight and nine lift these bricks right out of my bucket. Without an honest effort at these steps I have no hope of ever living free.