What is the Seventh Step prayer, and where is it?
In short:
- It's on page 76 of the Big Book, in Chapter 6, "Into Action." It begins "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad." (p. 76)
- The book introduces it with "When ready, we say something like this" (p. 76). So it's an example, not a set form, and the book doesn't call it "the Seventh Step prayer."
- It asks for defects to be removed for a reason outside yourself: because they stand in the way of "my usefulness to you and my fellows" (p. 76).
Where it sits
Steps Six and Seven read: "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." and "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." (p. 59)
In Chapter 6 they come right after the Fifth Step. Having told someone their whole story, members go home, find a quiet hour, and reread the first five Steps to check nothing has been left out (p. 75). Then the book turns to Step Six, and the whole of Steps Six and Seven takes one paragraph each (p. 76).
Step Six, in the book's words
Step Six is about willingness, which the book has "emphasized" as "indispensable" (p. 76). The question is whether we're ready to let God remove all the things we've admitted are objectionable: "Can He now take them all—every one?" (p. 76) If we still cling to something, "we ask God to help us be willing" (p. 76).
Step Seven: the prayer
"When ready" (p. 76), the book gives the prayer. After its opening line, it asks God to remove "every single defect of character" that stands in the way of usefulness to God and to other people, and asks for strength to do God's bidding "as I go out from here" (p. 76). Then: "We have then completed Step Seven." (p. 76)
Two things stand out when it's read in place: - It's about usefulness. The defects are to go because they get in the way of being useful to God and "my fellows" (p. 76), the same outward aim the Third Step prayer has (p. 63). - It leads straight to action. The very next sentence says more action is needed, "without which we find that 'Faith without works is dead'" (p. 76), and moves to Steps Eight and Nine.
Read it yourself
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 72–88), with the prayer on page 76, free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- Chapter 5, "How It Works," where the Steps are listed (pp. 58–71): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Related: What is the Third Step prayer, and where is it? · How does the Big Book say to make amends?
- The full book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org.
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" (Steps 6 and 7) | 59, 63 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 6, "Into Action" | 75–76 | 1939 |
Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi), but our sources have no first edition to compare page numbers against.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.