There’s a saying in 12 Step meetings that in the Program there’s a wrench that fits every nut ... and we have our fair share of nuts.
There is a simple kit of spiritual tools we use, as the Steps are so described in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the tools in that kit perform miraculous repairs, restoring families, rebuilding lives, constructing communities and even fashioning amazing works of art in the human condition.
Throughout my journey on this path of recovery, my experience has shown me time and again, that while I have probably accumulated enough additional tools for dealing with life sober to fill a whole shed, there is one particular wrench that was part of the initial kit, which still serves me. It is not a tool I use once then store away on a shelf to gather dust. I use it over and over in many ways, on a regular, and even daily, basis.
That tool would be the inventory process.
The 4th Step in the Program of recovery is making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This inventory, a simple self-analysis that efficiently uncovers the ick in our souls, allows us discovery of the energetic and emotional congestion blocking us from the Sunlight of Spirit or connection to a Power greater than ourselves, which is necessary to expel the obsession to drink or use. Not only is the personal inventory a life saver, but a life preserver. It is the beginning of an internal housecleaning and start of a transformational process that should continue to be part and parcel of a design for living to assists in one’s sobriety and spiritual evolution.
Now, in all of the 12 Step Fellowships that are based on the original AA formula there are a number of misconceptions about how to work the Program, especially the inventory process. This formula is really NOT a matter of opinion. There are clear-cut directions that are laid out in the Big Book text, that if read and studied, reveals a specific way and time-line to work the Steps, based on the experience (not opinion) that was and has proven to have a healthy success rate for recovery.
One could argue that the literature says these are suggested steps but then, as you jump out of an airplane, the flight instructor “suggests” you pull the rip cord on the parachute AND tells you precisely when to do that.
I also have heard over the years in meetings that an alcoholic or drug addict should “wait until they are more sober” to do this 4th Step work. This makes no sense in light of the real alcoholic and/or junkie’s plight. It implies that we are not powerless. The Big Book on page 45 says “Lack of Power, that was our dilemma.”
Note drugs and alcohol are NOT the problem – the power, or lack thereof, is the issue.
Here’s the Catch 22 – the chronic alcoholic or addict has proven they can’t stay sober on their own power or they wouldn’t have come for help in the first place. The reason they can’t keep away from the substance is because they are blocked from accessing the needed Power to stay drug and alcohol free, due to obstructions. So how are they going to keep themselves clean and sober until some unspecified date in the nebulous future?
I have yet to witness a person take inventory too soon, but I have attended many funerals of those who waited too long.
The book says that after taking the 3rd Step, “next” and “at once” are the time references for when to take inventory. (More on this is in my blog about the nitty-gritty of the inventory itself.)
Another misconception that is perpetuated in certain recovery settings is that a personal inventory is some frightening, unbearable, daunting, impossible journey into our sordid, regretful pasts and that turning around to meeting one’s Shadow automatically turns them to stone like Medusa.
It’s just an inventory, people. It’s a series of lists, for crying out loud. It is “taking stock” of the manifestations of Self or a self-centered attitude and existence. It’s not a litany of what a terrible person you are, to be used for fodder for self-pity. “I am so rotten. Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.” This is just the flip-side of Ego. It is false humility.
Look, inventory is basically a list of resentments, fears and sex conduct. We say a few prayers, get a few realizations, see some patterns and get a reality check, some insight and, hopefully, some willingness to change and be different.
Okay, so it’s a sharp tool and it might sting a little on first incision, but it cuts away all the stuff that is NOT the real me, the person I was created to be, a spiritual being that is a Light meant to shine beauty and truth. (How do you like that for lofty?)
Finally, let me address one of the most harmful misunderstandings in the Fellowships – that “if you work the 4th Step once and do a 10th Step regularly, you never have to take the 4th Step again.”
Unfortunately, our co-founder, Bill W. was of this very school of thought and he suffered from severe depression for the majority of his sobriety. Please understand, I am not bashing Bill – I am eternally grateful for the man and have the utmost respect for the fact that he was used as a channel to help millions of alcoholics and other addicts of various and sundry addictions. I am simply stating a fact and suggesting that perhaps had he been willing to go through the entire process more than once, he might not have had to suffer so.
Furthermore, when Bill wrote the commentary, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, he included some conflicting information on the inventory process in Step 10 with what is written in the Big Book, perhaps leading to some of the confusion in the Fellowship. Many people think that what they do at night before retiring is the 10th Step. Actually, the nightly review is part of the 11th Step, because it keeps us seeking through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with our Higher Power as we understand It. The 11th Step is the bookends of the day, disciplines morning and night found on page 86-88 and the 10th is what we do throughout the day, according to the Big Book.
Many times I find I must do more than just “run a few columns” at night. Several times a year, I may end up writing a full blown analysis of the things that have cropped up for me that are currently blocking me from the flow of Power, preventing me from being an open channel to help others and the free spirit I truly am striving to be today. I am no longer comfortable in the bondage of Self and cannot remain that way for long. The Ego reconstructs and with it, the spiritual malady that will kill me, cutting me off from my life line, Power.
Maybe you are like me … I am an undisciplined person, so it takes perseverance (a principle of the 10th Step) to continue to stay on the path, doing the “do” things to grow in understanding and effectiveness and stay sober and/or clean. That is how I “keep in fit spiritual condition.”
If the inventory tool works so well and so effectively, why would I only do that once? And where it “suggests” to “continue to take personal inventory”, I see that word “continue” to mean CONTINUE the transformational process (Steps 4-12) so I can get a deeper and deeper relationship with myself, my Higher Power and the people about me so I can fulfill my purpose of “maximum usefulness’ to you.
