After taking the Fifth Step, many of us spend some time considering "the exact nature of our wrongs" and the part they'd played in making us who we were. What would our lives be like without, say, our arrogance?

Sure, arrogance had kept us apart from our fellows, preventing us from enjoying and learning from them. But arrogance had also served us well, propping up our ego in the face of critically low self-esteem. What advantage would be gained if our arrogance were removed, and what support would we be left with?

With arrogance gone, we would be one step closer to being restored to our proper place among others. We would become capable of appreciating their company and their wisdom and their challenges as their equals. Our support and guidance would come, if we chose, from the care offered us by our Higher Power; "low self-esteem" would cease to be an issue.

One by one, we examined our character defects this way, and found them all defective after all, that's why they're called defects. And were we entirely ready to have God remove all of them? Yes.

Why is coming from love so difficult sometimes?

Practicing the principle of unity in all of our affairs—and coming from a place of love while doing it—so often seems to require superhuman powers.

Sometimes coming from love is hard because a friend has truly wronged us or hurt someone else we love. Or maybe it's the member who stole money from the group or the one who gossips constantly. Or a newcomer from a treatment program uses language from another fellowship. Or, at dinner after the meeting, that guy is chewing with his mouth open. Again.

At other times, coming from love is a challenge because we know we are right! Yet our group's conscience runs counter to this indisputable fact. "There's no way in hell that our collective Higher Power is being expressed through that ridiculous decision!" We want to throw a chair across the room or break down in tears of frustration.

Clearly, coming from love may not be our first reaction to most any distraction. The good news is that we're teachable. We can learn to empathize with others, to trust group conscience, and to let go of our desires to control everyone and everything. The more we're able to absorb this lesson and practice unconditional love, the more relief we experience from our anger and self-righteousness.

Tradition Two reminds us that the group's conscience is expressed through a loving Higher Power. To support this idea, we've heard members say, "We are acting out of either love or fear." Maybe it's not always quite that simple, but as we grow, we come to understand how critical unity is to our own recovery, and we become willing to examine whether a chosen action squares with spiritual principles.