Step 7: Humbly Asking for Removal of Shortcomings

Step 7 asks you to humbly request that your higher power remove the character defects you’ve identified in previous steps. This isn’t about willpower or self-improvement, it’s about surrendering your limitations and opening yourself to spiritual help. You’re acknowledging that deeply rooted patterns like fear, resentment, and self-centeredness can’t be overcome alone. Humility becomes your foundation for lasting change, replacing ego-driven self-reliance with genuine openness. Understanding how to practice Step 7 daily can transform your recovery journey.

What Does Step 7 Mean in Recovery?

When you reach Step 7 in recovery, you’re moving beyond simply recognizing your shortcomings to actively asking your higher power to remove them. This step requires you to humbly ask higher power for help with character defects you can’t eliminate through willpower alone.

Step 7 centers on spiritual humility, not self-deprecation, but peaceful acceptance of your limitations. You’re acknowledging that addiction has compromised your ability to change independently, and you’re opening yourself to external guidance. Embracing humility reinforces the previous steps and improves your ability to reflect on past actions and behaviors.

Step 7 centers on spiritual humility, not self-deprecation, but peaceful acceptance of your limitations. You’re acknowledging that addiction has compromised your ability to change independently, and you’re opening yourself to external guidance. This humility reinforces the earlier steps and deepens self-awareness, while also highlighting the importance of prompt admissions in recovery, since honest, timely recognition of shortcomings prevents old patterns from quietly regaining control.

Your willingness to change becomes the driving force here. You’ve already identified what needs transformation in Steps 4 through 6. Now you’re taking action by requesting help. This prepares you for the practical amends work ahead while building the character strengths necessary for lasting sobriety.

What are the shortcomings in Step 7?

In Step 7, shortcomings refer to the character defects you’ve identified through your inventory work, patterns like dishonesty, fear, resentment, and self-pity that have fueled your addiction and damaged your relationships. These aren’t moral failures that define who you are; they’re obstacles to your recovery that developed over time and can be gradually released with help. Since these defects have developed over a lifetime, most take years to change through consistent effort and self-reflection. Common examples include pride that keeps you from asking for support, anger that pushes loved ones away, and the self-centered fear that drives so many destructive behaviors. Recognizing these shortcomings with honesty while also acknowledging your strengths is the essence of humility that Step 7 requires.

Defining Personal Character Defects

Character defects, often called shortcomings in Step 7, aren’t moral failings that define who you are, they’re the negative traits, behaviors, and attitudes that have fueled your struggles with addiction and held back your recovery.

In the alcoholics anonymous tradition, these defects include patterns like dishonesty, resentment, fear, and self-centeredness. The chief activator behind most shortcomings is self-centered fear, fear of losing what you have or not getting what you want. Bill W. himself noted that the phrases “defects of character” and “shortcomings” were used interchangeably simply to avoid repetition in Steps 6 and 7, with no particular significance in the different wording.

AA Step 7 asks you to recognize that you can’t overcome these deeply rooted patterns alone. Shortcoming removal requires acknowledging your limitations and seeking help from your higher power. This isn’t about perfection; it’s about honest self-examination and willingness to change the traits blocking your spiritual growth and lasting sobriety.

AA Step 7 asks you to recognize that you can’t overcome these deeply rooted patterns alone. Within the 12-step program steps, shortcoming removal requires acknowledging your limitations and actively seeking help from your higher power. This process isn’t about perfection; it’s about honest self-examination and a genuine willingness to change the traits that block your spiritual growth and lasting sobriety.

Common Examples of Shortcomings

Although you’ve begun identifying your character defects, seeing concrete examples helps you recognize patterns you might’ve overlooked. These shortcomings typically cluster into recognizable categories that drive addictive behavior.

Common shortcomings include:

1. Fear-driven behaviors, procrastination, avoidance, and self-centered fear that prevents you from facing problems directly
2. Relational defects, people-pleasing, dishonesty by omission, defensiveness, and holding grudges against others
3. Self-centric patterns, isolation disguised as independence, spiritual bypassing, and comparing yourself to others
4. Control and impulsivity, impatience demanding immediate results, manipulating situations, and overcommitting to appear competent

You’ll notice these shortcomings often interconnect. Your fear might fuel people-pleasing, which leads to overcommitting, creating resentment. Many people discover that self-reliance taking precedence over reliance on a higher power underlies multiple character defects. Rather than trying to address every shortcoming at once, Step 7 works better when you focus on 1, 3 specific patterns for a season to avoid overwhelm and shame. Recognizing these patterns prepares you to humbly ask your higher power for their removal.

Obstacles, Not Moral Failures

Now that you’ve identified common patterns, it’s important to understand what shortcomings actually are, and what they aren’t. They’re not moral failings or fundamental flaws in who you are. Instead, think of them as obstacles blocking your path to freedom and genuine connection.

Many shortcomings began as survival strategies. Resentment, fear, and dishonesty may have once protected you, but now they’re causing pain and holding back your recovery. Picture a swimmer weighed down by hidden rocks, that’s what carrying these patterns feels like.

Here’s the shift: shortcomings are distinct from your core identity. They’re learned behaviors and harmful habits you can gradually release with help. Recognizing this difference moves you from shame toward compassion. You’re not broken; you’re human, working to remove what no longer serves you.

Why Humility Is the Heart of Step 7

Your ego often stands as the biggest barrier to meaningful recovery, convincing you that self-reliance alone can overcome deeply ingrained patterns. Yet true strength emerges when you admit your limitations and open yourself to help beyond your own willpower. This humble openness creates the foundation for lasting change, allowing you to release the pride that keeps shortcomings firmly in place. As Aquinas understood, humility means keeping oneself within bounds and avoiding inordinate self-esteem, a perspective that aligns with AA’s view of accepting our human imperfections. This act of humility stands at the center of Step 7, representing the culmination of the surrender process developed throughout the first seven steps.

Ego Blocks True Growth

When you’ve spent years building defenses to protect yourself from pain, asking a higher power to remove those very defenses can feel terrifying. Your ego has worked overtime to justify behaviors, deflect criticism, and maintain a carefully constructed self-image. Research shows that ego-driven desire to be likeable, smart, or special enough often prevents us from forming genuine connections with others.

Here’s how ego blocks your growth:

1. Self-justification, You rationalize flaws instead of acknowledging them
2. Defensive projection, You attribute your unacceptable traits to others
3. Spiritual bypassing, You use recovery progress to feel superior rather than connected
4. Feedback distortion, You take offense at criticism instead of learning from it

True humility requires recognizing your fundamental similarity to others rather than believing you’re exceptional. When you understand that everyone struggles with shortcomings, you’re better positioned to release yours without shame. Becoming aware of these ego-threatening patterns can actually increase defensiveness and reduce self-improvement efforts when cognitive dissonance and self-enhancement motives drive your response to that awareness.

Strength Through Admitted Weakness

Although society often frames humility as weakness, Step 7 reveals a paradox at recovery’s core: admitting powerlessness over addiction requires tremendous strength. You’ve likely experienced how pride and self-sufficiency failed to protect you from addiction’s grip. Now, humility becomes your foundation for genuine transformation.

When you humbly ask your higher power to remove shortcomings, you’re not diminishing yourself, you’re accurately appraising your limitations while building character. This process counters the ego-driven thinking that previously confused your life’s means with its ends.

The humble prayer in Step 7 follows your moral inventory work, channeling honest self-reflection into spiritual action. As you release self-centered perspectives, you’ll discover that repeated humiliations have crushed false self-sufficiency, replacing it with authentic humility that heals pain and reduces fear.

Openness Enables Lasting Change

Humility’s role extends beyond admitting weakness, it actively opens doors to lasting transformation that willpower alone can’t achieve. When you expose your wounds to what recovery literature calls “the sunlight of spirit,” healing becomes possible in ways self-reliance never permitted.

This openness creates measurable change through:

1. Reduced fear of pain, acknowledging defects diminishes their power over you
2. Character strength development, humility builds capacity for sober self-governance
3. Preparation for amends, Steps 8-9 require the foundation you’re establishing now
4. Ongoing integrity, Steps 10-12 depend on this humble posture

You’re not eliminating shortcomings through sheer determination. You’re creating conditions where your higher power can work. This willingness to remain open, honest, and teachable sustains recovery long after initial sobriety stabilizes.

How Step 6 Prepares You for Step 7

Before you can humbly ask for the removal of your shortcomings in Step 7, you’ll need the solid foundation that Step 6 provides through readiness and willingness. In Step 6, you’ve examined each character defect identified in Steps 4 and 5, honestly evaluating whether you’re prepared to stop acting in those specific ways.

This readiness isn’t about achieving perfection. It’s about cultivating genuine openness to change. You’ve recognized how defects like dishonesty, resentment, and self-centeredness have harmed your relationships and undermined your recovery progress. Just as websites use protective measures against threats, you must establish safeguards against the behaviors that endanger your sobriety.

Step 6 also strengthened your connection with a higher power, preparing you to accept assistance beyond your own willpower. You’ve shifted from independent problem-solving to acknowledging that lasting transformation requires external support. This psychological and spiritual groundwork makes the humble surrender of Step 7 possible.

Step 6 also strengthened your connection with a higher power, preparing you to accept assistance beyond your own willpower. You’ve shifted from independent problem-solving to acknowledging that lasting transformation requires external support, a mindset that eventually supports making amends with affected individuals. This psychological and spiritual groundwork makes the humble surrender of Step 7 possible and sustainable.

The Step 7 Prayer and Secular Alternatives

The Step 7 prayer, found on page 76 of the Big Book, offers a structured way to ask your Higher Power to remove the character defects that block your usefulness to others. The prayer represents a complete surrender of yourself, both good and bad, to your Higher Power’s care. Through this surrender, you ask to be strengthened for future actions that align with your Higher Power’s purpose. If traditional prayer language doesn’t resonate with you, secular alternatives like mindfulness meditation, journaling, or quiet reflection can help you cultivate the same humble willingness to change. What matters most isn’t the specific words you use, it’s your genuine openness to releasing old patterns and embracing personal growth.

Traditional Prayer Text Explained

At the heart of Step 7 lies a brief but powerful prayer found on page 76 of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. This prayer represents one of only two formal prayers in the entire text, making it particularly significant in your recovery journey.

The prayer follows a clear structure:

1. Surrender statement, You acknowledge your Creator and offer yourself completely, including both strengths and flaws
2. Removal request, You ask for elimination of character defects blocking your usefulness
3. Strength petition, You seek power to carry out your higher power’s will
4. Commitment closing, “Amen” signals your readiness for action

You’ll notice the prayer addresses “My Creator,” allowing you to interpret this through your personal understanding of a higher power. This flexibility honors individual spiritual paths while maintaining the prayer’s transformative intent.

Secular Meditation Options

How can you practice Step 7’s core principles if traditional prayer doesn’t align with your beliefs? Secular meditation offers evidence-based alternatives that cultivate the same humility and willingness central to Step 7.

Mindfulness meditation, used by over 60 million U.S. adults, focuses on present-moment awareness without judgment. You’ll observe your shortcomings without emotional reactivity, a skill that mirrors Step 7’s humble self-examination. Research shows both secular and spiritual approaches produce significant distress reduction compared to controls.

Consider these options:

• Focused attention meditation: Concentrate on your breath while acknowledging character defects you’re ready to release.
• Open monitoring: Watch thoughts about your shortcomings arise and pass without attachment.
• Guided imagery: Used by 22 million adults, this technique helps visualize releasing negative patterns.

Eight-week programs like MBSR provide structured frameworks matching traditional spiritual commitments.

How to Work Step 7 With Your Sponsor

When you’re ready to work Step 7 with your sponsor, you’ll find that preparation and honest communication set the foundation for meaningful progress. Your sponsor brings experience, strength, and hope to guide you through this spiritual practice while modeling humility by acknowledging their own vulnerabilities.

Preparation and honest communication with your sponsor create the foundation for meaningful spiritual growth in Step 7.

Before beginning the Step 7 prayer, expect your sponsor to:

1. Review your Step 6 inventory of character defects
2. Discuss mutual expectations and commitments for this process
3. Arrange regular meetings and phone availability for ongoing support
4. Encourage conversations with other AA members about your experience

Your sponsor serves as a guide, not a director. They’ll help you focus on your higher power rather than creating dependence on them personally. Remember, you’re meeting as equals, both committed to AA’s recovery principles and your continued growth.

Why Asking for Help in Recovery Feels Hard

Many people in recovery struggle to ask for help, with 73% of individuals avoiding it until they reach a pivotal point. Stigma plays a significant role, you might fear being judged, labeled as weak, or ostracized by others who view addiction as a moral failing rather than a medical condition.

Asking for help requires vulnerability, which means admitting you can’t manage everything alone. If you’ve experienced broken trust or trauma, opening up feels even riskier. You’re not alone in this struggle, gender also influences help-seeking patterns, with men particularly resistant to reaching out.

Here’s the truth: embracing vulnerability isn’t weakness; it’s strength. Research shows 75% of people eventually recover, often through connection and support. Safe, trauma-informed environments can help you rebuild trust and take this essential step.

Daily Step 7 Practices That Build Humility

Building humility doesn’t happen through a single moment of surrender, it grows through consistent daily practices that reinforce your willingness to change.

These four practices strengthen your Step 7 work:

1. Morning prayer or meditation, Spend 15-20 minutes asking your higher power to remove specific shortcomings identified in Steps Four and Five.
2. Daily journaling, Write for 15 minutes about patterns, struggles, and character defects you’re targeting for removal.
3. Mindful check-ins, Set alarms throughout your day to pause, breathe, and ask for help with small challenges like resisting cravings.
4. Evening reflection, Review your day’s progress and note moments where you practiced humility or fell short.

Share your struggles with your sponsor regularly. Asking for support isn’t weakness, it’s evidence you’re building the humility Step 7 requires.

Step 7 Is About Progress, Not Perfection

How often have you expected Step 7 to instantly erase the character defects you’ve carried for years? This expectation sets you up for disappointment. Step 7 measures success through willingness, follow-through, and course correction, not immediate transformation.

Your progress aligns with recovery’s 24-hour framework. You’re building sobriety one day at a time, asking for help with specific shortcomings as they surface. When impatience flares, you notice it faster and repair relationships sooner. When dishonesty tempts you, you correct yourself in the moment rather than days later.

This foundation of humility supports every step that follows, including Step 10‘s prompt admission of wrongs. You’re not pursuing perfection, you’re practicing consistent, small actions that sustain your recovery. Each humble request strengthens your capacity for lasting change.

How Step 7 Prepares You for Making Amends

The humility you’re developing in Step 7 directly equips you for the amends work ahead. By addressing your character defects now, you’re clearing the guilt and shame that often block genuine reconciliation. This inner work creates the foundation for sincere, responsibility-taking apologies.

Step 7 prepares you for amends by:

1. Building emotional readiness to approach those you’ve harmed without defensiveness
2. Reducing shame barriers that might otherwise prevent honest acknowledgment of your impact on others
3. Fostering accountability that demonstrates sustained behavioral change, not just words
4. Cultivating acceptance of whatever outcome your amends may bring

The spiritual growth you’re experiencing shifts your focus from self-protection to genuine concern for others. You’re developing the mindset needed to make amends that heal rather than cause further harm.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Does It Typically Take to Complete Step 7?

You’ll typically complete Step 7 within 1-3 weeks when you’re working Steps 5-7 together. However, your timeline depends heavily on your attitude, cooperation, and relationship with your higher power. If you’re struggling with spiritual concepts or feeling upset with a higher power, expect this step to extend into months. Taking that leap of faith and staying committed will help you move through this step more efficiently.

Can I Work Step 7 Without Believing in God?

Yes, you can work Step 7 without traditional God belief. You’re free to interpret “Higher Power” in whatever way feels meaningful to you, it doesn’t require a specific deity. Many agnostics find power through the AA fellowship, their sponsor’s guidance, or the recovery process itself. You can also practice developing opposite character assets to counter your defects. While approaches vary, what matters most is your willingness to seek help beyond self-reliance alone.

What if My Shortcomings Return After Asking for Their Removal?

It’s completely normal for shortcomings to resurface, recovery isn’t a one-time event but an ongoing process. When old patterns reappear, you haven’t failed; you’ve simply encountered an opportunity to practice Step 7 again. Many people find that repeatedly asking for help deepens their humility and strengthens their recovery over time. You can return to this step as often as needed, using each recurrence as a chance for continued growth.

Do I Need to Complete Step 7 Before Attending Meetings?

No, you don’t need to complete Step 7 before attending meetings. You can start attending meetings at any point in your recovery journey. In fact, meetings actually support your Step 7 work by letting you hear others’ experiences with humility and recognize you’re not alone. Many people find that regular meeting attendance strengthens their practice of the steps. Consider using AA’s meeting locator to find gatherings in your area.

How Do I Know When I’m Ready to Move to Step 8?

You’re ready to move to Step 8 when you’ve genuinely asked your higher power to remove your shortcomings and notice a shift in your attitude toward humility. You’ll feel less controlled by pride and more open to examining how you’ve affected others. If you’re willing to look honestly at past harms without defensiveness, that’s a strong indicator. Discuss your readiness with your sponsor, they’ll help confirm you’re prepared.