4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Inventory:
Purpose of inventory: – acquire deeper self-knowledge that can lead us to self-acceptance. To face the truth about our behavior. To identify our behavior patterns so we can surrender them to God and ask Him to make lasting changes in us.
Can’t change what we don’t know.
An inventory is not to judge, shame, blame, condemn but to take responsibility.
Removes guilt by acknowledging our part and asking for forgiveness – and forgiving ourselves.
There is healthy sorrow over harms done; we have regret.
Look carefully and fully; don’t let the fear of what we learn derail our efforts.
Search by asking God for His light to shine into the darkness of self. Keep searching but let God direct the process because He knows what we need to learn so He can free us from the control of the defects.
Fearless: anxious – ok, ask for courage!
What is our conscience saying to us? Violations of our moral value systems.
Defects of character, or shortcomings are pieces of information we would choose to ignore. But this step asks us to look at our part in all the unmanageability in our lives. The chaos, the brokenness and the harm to self and others we have done. We have to make an accounting, with help, of our wrongs not so we can guilt and shame ourselves, but to begin to understand our part and then receive forgiveness and healing. Absolutely vital if we are to live in sobriety. The patterns of behavior that we uncover that are coping patterns created in our childhood. No one has a perfect childhood as there are no perfect people who are parents. We all have a broken childhood. We all have defects.
Resentments:
Anger is the most dangerous or as the Big Book states, it is our “number one offender.”
Re-sentment is feeling old pain again and again, to continue to re-feel. That person, place or thing is controlling our will and life and that blocks the will of God for us.
Resentments are fake power; anger makes us feel strong and in control. The Good Book says to be angry and sin not. How do we do that? Sometimes we need the anger power to protect ourselves from danger. But once the danger is over, then have to let it go.
One remedy is to pray for that person 1 time a day for 2 weeks to break the control of the resentment. The Good Book in 1 Peter suggests we pray for the person’s welfare, happiness and protection. Make a decision no matter how we feel.
Letting go of resentments can make us feel afraid because we feel vulnerable to that person, place, or thing. Taking those fears to God for protection is the remedy.
Fear, guilt, remorse, and shame are some other defects or shortcomings. Where did they come from? Exploring their origins can move us into letting them go.
Our part? Selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, inconsiderate, lying.
Fear – in any aspect of our lives – blocks us from God. We lack trust. We can ask for God’s help to rebuild our capacity to trust that a dysfunctional childhood robbed from us. We learned to live in dis-trust. Waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
There are 7 fundamental human passions: pride, envy, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, and anger. Which of these can we own?
Where is there fear? Despair? Hatred?
Pride evidence: anger, covetousness, list, gluttony, envy, sloth. Judging others and try to make them conform to our standard. We wrongly believe that we alone know best.
Pride or reverse pride is that I am the worst – spiritual pride “oh what a bad person I am.” I am the best of the worst! Ridiculous.
Big Book says that selfishness: that we think is the root of our troubles. Our flesh-self that wants to be in control.
Basic human Instincts/needs: sexual, financial, and emotional security, social or the need for companionship. If don’t get -> fears and resentments
Myth of perfection -> compulsively – multiple demands we alone have to meet.
Our defects live no room for gratitude.
Where are the elephants?
Many years ago, two men were riding side by side on a train moving through the open spaces toward a town. The area was largely uninhabited and quite lovely. The train was an older model, one that had windows that would open. A blessing on a warm spring day.
The man next to the window was older, a bit unkempt but clean. He had a big stack of newspapers on his lap. Often, he would crumple a sheet up and looking carefully out the window, then would toss it out.
The man sitting on aisle was younger and in casual business attire. He asked the man who was crumbling and then tossing out the papers, “why are you doing that?”
The older man replied, “to keep the elephants away.”
“But there are no elephants here!”
The paper-tossing man turn with a great grin and said, “see it’s working!”
Delusions are created by the faulty thinking caused by addiction. Our brains, until sobor, are trapped by the chemical or behavior. As we heal, we can stop tossing paper.
Sobriety is not entirely a time or a period of life. It is a state of mind and heart. It is not wholly a matter of walking, talking, and speaking clearly…without the influence of alcohol. It is a temper of will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of emotion.
Maturity is the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction.
Maturity means dependability, keeping one’s word, coming through in the crisis. The immature are masters of the alibi. . . confused and disorganized. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, former friends, unfinished business and good intentions which never happen.
Without sobriety, so our brains heal, and without owning our defects so we change, we can’t experience maturity.
Two Tongues:
Did you know that you have 2 tongues? Yep, you do. The one in your mouth and the one in your shoe. If I want to know what is really going on with you, I watch the one in your shoe.
You can talk a good game, sound really terrific, but your behavior tells the true story. In recovery we learn to walk the talk. Congruent. Trustworthy. Rigorous honesty. Reliable. These are the evidence of a recovering life.
Abigail Adams said it well, “We have too many high-sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.”
Two Wolves:
A grandfather told his grandson, “It’s like there are two wolves in me. One is good; the other is bad. One leads me to be kind; the other leads me to be mean. One helps me to love; the other makes me hate. A war of the two wolves’ wages in me.”
The boy asked his grandfather, “Which one wins?”
“That,” the grandfather replied, “depends on which one I feed.”
Recovery is about regaining the power to choose. Which wolf to feed? Sobriety or Addiction? Choice. Choosing to feed sobriety with recovery actions, makes sobriety stronger. That brain neuropathway grows by sprouting new dendrites, axions and connections. The neuronal net gets tougher, more resilient. Time passes and recovery emerges from a sober brain. Choose wisely. Removing the defects enables healthy correct choices.
Fear:
F = False
E = Evidence
A = Appearing
R = Real
Addicts and partners have bundles of faulty core beliefs, beliefs that are incorrect. These core beliefs are about themselves and the nature of reality at any given moment in time.
Core beliefs are common to us all and are created by biology and biography. Nature and nurture. We come to believe what we believe from our unique genetic make-up and life experience. Correct core beliefs enable us to perceive life events accurately and to develop patterns of responses from these beliefs that lead to healthy behaviors.
On the other hand, faulty core beliefs create misperceptions followed by dysfunctional choices. Incorrect responses lead to failure and painful consequences. Denial patterns are developed to protect the addict from recognizing the truth. Acting out rituals and control are also the results. Life becomes unmanageable, with the person in the dark as to why.
Sobriety begins the process of uncovering the faulty core beliefs that make false evidence appear real. Over time fear responses lessen considerably, leading to a healthier “recovery” way of life. Sponsors, 12-Step meetings, step work, therapy and interaction with a Higher Power all give opportunity for recognition and hence change.
Feeling out of sorts? Itchy in your skin? On the roller coaster?
Perhaps you are comparing your insides to some else’s outsides, and lost touch with the amazing YOU!
Again, our friend Mark Twain. “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”
Oh, help me God to ask before I speak.
In the central place of every heart there is a spiritual “receiver.” When all the wires are down and hearts are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then and only then do we lose our coveted and serene sobriety.
Is your “receiver” tuned into the right frequency?
Gossip:
My name is Gossip.
I have no respect for justice. I maim without killing. I break hearts and ruin lives. I am cunning, malicious and gather strength with age. I flourish at every level of society.
My victims are helpless. They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face. To track me down is impossible. The harder you try, the more elusive I become.
I am nobody’s friend. Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.
I topple governments and wreck marriages. I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartaches, and indigestion.
I spawn suspicion and generate grief. I make innocent people cry in their pillows. Even my name hisses.
I am called GOSSIP: office-gossip, shop-gossip, party-gossip, telephone-gossip. I make headlines and heartaches.
REMEMBER, when you repeat a story, ask yourself: Is it true! Is it fair? Is it necessary? If not, do not repeat it. KEEP QUIET!
“By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach”
Winston Churchill
“To destroy someone’s good name is to commit a kind of murder”
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
Gossip is a kind of verbal terrorism; it can only destroy. This Step give an opportunity to own this defect of character.
Shakespeare said, “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”
Coming into the rooms of recovery we find unconditional acceptance and love. Most of us have never experienced such love as acceptance was based solely on expected behaviors. As our shortcomings, defects, are owned then we can receive the love that is available.
From the Good Book:
“If we say se have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 1:8-9
“Let us examine our ways and test them. And let us return to the Lord.”
Lamentations 3:40
“Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.”
James 4:17
“I acknowledge my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.”
Psalm 32:5
“I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another. By this shall all (men) know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35
“But if you show servile regard (prejudice, favoritism) for people, you commit sin and are rebuked and convicted by the law as violators and offenders.”
James 2:9
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment? You shall love the Lord your ‘good with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the great commandment, the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:36-39
“But the human tongue can be tamed by no man. It is restless (undisciplined, irreconcilable) evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who were made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come forth blessings and cursing. These things my brethren, ought not be so.”
James 3:8-10
“Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves. For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you use to deal out to others, it will be dealt out against you.”
Matthew 7: 1-2