Inventory

OK, so most of this blog will be how I'm feeling and my progress in going through the 12 steps. Some are easier than others. Here they are: 1. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. 4. Made a searching a fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Let's stop there. I'm on #4. #1 and #2 were pretty easy. My history makes it painfully clear to all of us that I was powerless over alcohol and that only God could restore my life to sanity. No problem. #3 was pretty difficult. I could say I was turning my life over to God, but actually doing it took a lot of soul searching and prayer. I accept that if I turn this over to God, he can handle it. And if I try to do it, I do a really shitty job of running that part of my life. As I said, I'm working on #4 now. It's pretty difficult. In the first part of this step, you need to write down all the people, ideas, institutions, etc... that you have resentment for. My list was pretty long. Next you need to pray for each one of these people understanding that, like an alcoholic, they may be suffering from a spiritual sickness. You pray for patience and understanding and that you can deal with it without anger or seeking retribution. Finally you go through each one and determine where you may have been at fault-- specifically were you selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or fearful. Working through these parts of step #4 requires a lot of soul searching and is not a fun experience. Once through this, I need to go to the next part of step #4 which is where I caused anyone harm- this would include pretty much everyone in our family. The final part of step #4 is to go through things which cause me to be fearful. As with everything is step four, I need to go through it with a sponsor (or two) and reconcile each issue I have. All in all, step #4 is probably very good for your mental health but one unearths issues you don't want to deal with and have suppressed. You are strongly advised at the beginning of the process to work through this with your sponsor. I failed to do that and had to go back and do things over. Tonight, I'm staying after AA with one of my sponsors to go through my inventory step my step. It won't be fun, but it's something I need to do. I'll write more on the other steps later.