I spent some time hanging out and working with those in 12-step recovery programs (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous). While I was always amazed by their stories and the journeys to where they are today, what really struck me were the systems they had in place to keep them on the path to recovery.

I learned that recovery really boils down to honesty.

Specifically, being honest with yourself.

Often, they would joke with each other that if you were having trouble sleeping at night, to do a thorough step four. It took me a bit to understand what they meant, then I realized they were referring to step four on the twelve steps to recovery:

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Step five takes it further with admitting the exact nature of your wrongs, which leads to step six where you stand ready to have God remove all the defects of character. These are ridicuously tough steps, not just for recovering addicts, but for all of us.

However, I can’t help but think if we all took the time to commit to a thorough step four, being truly honest with ourselves, how much further along we would be as people… and as a society.