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Step Four: Taking Our Moral Inventory
- by Marc J.
Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
To take an inventory is to give a complete accounting of everything accumulated in a specific place, at a specific point in time. An inventory must be thorough, everything must be accounted for, otherwise it isn't useful. An inventory that is incomplete will throw off - mess up - everything that you try to do in the future. So when we take a moral inventory of ourselves, we are giving a complete accounting of all(underline) of our life's resentments, fears, and dishonest and hurtful actions against others. If we leave anything out, if we leave anything unresolved, it will leave us vulnerable, it will threaten our recovery.
I was in my first year of recovery when I started working on Step Four. As daunting as the task seemed, I had so much hurt and shame in my life that I just wanted it gone. I thought that if I just "banged it out", I could get through it with a minimum amount of pain, dump it all in Steps 5, 6 and 7, and be done with it. I saw it as emotional surgery; get in and cut it all out so that when I woke up it would all be gone and I would be healthy and happy, free to move forward with my recovery. When I told my sponsor this, he warned me that "banging it out" wasn't going to happen, no matter how hard I tried to finish the Step. He told me that after spending a lifetime "collecting my inventory", I had stored up a lot of junk, and counting it all would take a while. He was right.
I worked on my inventory every day. It seemed that every item I listed just led to more items, they just kept coming. It was like tearing out a tree stump; the roots were spread out everywhere in my life, they twisted around each other and they went deep into me (whenever I explain the process to my sponsees, this metaphor is always the best way to describe it). So I worked on it every day, for about two months. I filled up most of the notebook I had bought for the work. My sponsor had been right, it was a long, difficult process. I tried not to, but I ended up re-experiencing a lot of painful stuff. It was very hard to do, but doing a "searching and fearless moral inventory" of myself allowed me to strip everything out of my head and heart and put it down on paper.
What I learned is that doing the Step Four work is just as important as the following three Steps after it. Because I counted everything, there was nothing left to haunt me, to eat at me, to wear me down. Nothing left to trigger my need to drink. Counting everything meant that when I moved forward in the program, there was nothing from yesterday to throw off my count today. And in the process of taking inventory I discovered a lot about myself and about what got me to where I ended up. By the time I sat down with my sponsor to work my Step Five, I had a very clear, and more honest, understanding of who I was... not just the alcoholic me, but all me.
Step Four is a critical Step in the program, it shouldn't be taken lightly, or done half-hazardly. Take your time, dig deep, and get all(italic) the roots. It will make every Step after it honest and complete. Come discuss Step Four in the forums on http://sobrietyweb.com, to find support and to share your experience, strength and hope with others.
keep climbing...
About the Author
Marc is the webmaster and primary writer for SobrietyWeb, and he is currently working on a collection of Step Studies based on his own experience as a recovering alcoholic. SobrietyWeb was created as an online community where people can support and encourage another as they actively work the 12 Steps of recovery. Please visit us at http://www.sobrietyweb.com
