Week 13: Step 4 Introduction

“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”- Step Four

Dozens of other workshops with full 4th Step recordings can be found on the audio page of www.bbaworks.com.

Now on the fourth step, we suggest you use the third step prayer both in your morning meditation and in your evening meditation, that is to say preceding your daily 11th step in the morning and your 10th step at the end of every day. We suggest you ask God for help with your fourth step inventory and seeing your truth plainly in the morning and in the evening.

The set-aside prayer for this section is “God, please help me face and be rid of the things and myself which are blocking me from you, other people and myself”.

Last week, we were asked to make a list of people, institutions and principles that we were angry with...We were asked to sit in prayer and meditation and write down every name that comes to your mind that needs to be on the list. Continue to make your list after praying and meditating, you will intuitively know when your list is done.

We read on the fourth step this week, remembering we’ve been brought to the third step decision by the ABC’s in paragraph three page 62 of the big book: I can’t, he can, he will. Saying my third step prayer morning and evening is merely an affirmation of my decision while I am carried in the grace of the prayer from step four through seven.

In our reading, we begin to get a picture of the admittance we described by taking step three; that my life run on self-will has been a complete failure, that self-reliance continues to fail me despite my greatest efforts. Therefore I have a deep and abiding need for a power greater than myself in order to recover. Next we launched into action…

We learned that we write inventory to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us from this power. We conduct our fourth step inventory not to find out who we are, but to become clear on who we are not. We see the various ways in which we play God in other peoples lives, or make them our higher power. This human reliance must be smashed, and replaced with a much more powerful God reliance for us to be made whole. But first we must uncover the things that are blocking us. This is why we write inventory.

We get down to the business of being plain spoken, and address the causes (Col 2) and conditions (Col 3) This is revealed in the second and third column of my inventory. But for this particular assignment week 13, we are only writing columns one and two.

We are reminded that our (fact-finding) searching and (fact facing) fearless mission is not about right vs. wrong, not good vs. bad, but from the perspective of....is this sick or well? My spirit has been sickened by the resentments I’ve been carrying around- driving my food addiction.  Remember, acting out and picking up with food is but a symptom. 

Here as I begin to write inventory I approach it with the new attitude (set of beliefs) as described in the experience we read about in Step 1, back on page 27...that is to say, from the perspective of “I can’t, he can, he will”. Now looking for, “where has my spirit been sickened?”, I consider my life decade over decade or all my relationships - perhaps from closest to farthest away -  and make my list. When writing column two,  I keep it simple.

I write with some objectivity and detachment - like a theatergoer 50 rows back, watching the show of my life. What can I see from this perspective? I sum up my condition (Col 2) target statement in three words such as “s/he shuns me” or “s/he abused me” “s/he lies to me” or “s/he rejects me”. We may hone these later, but this is a good start. We just went to get the offense down on paper; no need to write them perfectly. God knows what is in your heart. More will be revealed…

I do not judge myself or judge what I find in my honesty— for that will not help me recover; it will only block me from being honest. I am the only one who will see my inventory during my fourth step process. I only share with others in the group or my step partner what I want to.

I need not judge what I find about myself because I am not on a moral quest – I am on a fact-finding and fact facing mission...to face and be rid of the things that are blocking me from recovering completely from my food addiction, and all that encompasses.

I let the truth guide me in what is revealed, and trust the process. For when we sort out spiritually, we sort out mentally and physically. This is our promise.