“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
Beginning your inventory –
It’s important to approach this step with guidance from your Sponsor. Work your inventory one column at a time and try not to work out each individual situation all at once. We also want to make sure that reading and studying recovery materials continues to be a part of our daily recovery.
We suggest setting a timer for 15 min to do some reading and study, and then restarting it for another 15 min to work on your inventory as well.
The Step 4 inventory has often been a triggering experience in and of itself for a lot of us. Remember to reach out and connect with others often while writing your inventory. For us, staying connected with others in our group throughout this experience has served as a great help and motivator to be honest and to continue to work on it with consistency.
“It is possible to find many reasons to procrastinate on this work, but we found that delay thwarted our spiritual growth and created an opportunity for relapse.” (Step Into Action, p. 59)
Remember, progress, not perfection.
Reading Assignment:
The White Book, p. 97-99
Writing Assignment:
Save the 4th Step Spreadsheet, begin filling out Column 1 with persons, institution, organization, principle, idea, belief, event, situation, or circumstance which trigger negative feelings (sadness, anger, resentment, bitterness, self-pity)