Week 17: Fear Inventory

Week 18: Fear Inventory. 

In the second half of the call (which, we apologize, is not recorded) we said the fear Inventory prayer and went over how to complete the fear inventory grid. You can find instructions on how to complete the fear inventory  in your BBA workbook on pages 64 and 65.

Fear is the underlying problem that FUELS the resentment. It is the root of our troubles. Fear touches every aspect of our lives. 

The Big Book explains it like an evil and corroding thread in our lives. Fear is like a thief, stealing our peace. I cannot "wish" or "will" my fears away. Only God is able to remove what fears are blocking me from Him. 

Fear can be healthy warning system that danger is ahead, but for most of us our fears are distorted. Here we list our fears and see how they manifest in our lives, seemingly almost endlessly one after the other. 

Start your grid with the fears you listed on your resentment inventory and be sure that on your grid, no 2 fears end up in the same column.

Ask yourself for each row, why do I have this fear? Example: I have a fear of being wrong because i have a fear of being shunned. I have a fear of being shunned because I have a fear of being shut out and lonely. I have a fear of being lonely because I have a fear of being unable to care for myself. Therefore i have a fear of suffering. And that leads me to fear of pain, which leads to fear of overeating and that I am going to die this way, fear of being unrecovered, fear of death. This is what my life looks like run on fear, without God, in my life. Therefore I write No God, SRF (self reliance fails me) at the end of my row. So i write my fear Inventory across the row like this...

Wrong>Shunned>Shut Out>Lonely>inept>suffering>pain>binge>unrecovered>die>no god > self reliance fails me. 

Continue to write the fears that come from other fears across the page from left to right until you run it out completely or you hit upon another fear already in the row above. 

Can you see that with you running the show, and without God, all of your fears end with self reliance failing you? But with God all things are possible. If God is everything, all of your fears have no footing. If God is nothing, your self reliance fails you. 

You were asked in the previous step if you wanted to go on to the bitter end, blotting our everything -  or if you wanted to accept spiritual help. You were asked What is your choice to be? Is God everything or is he nothing? Can you see this choice more clearly in your life today having completed some of your inventory? 

Remember a central experince in our fourth column was to consider if God were everything, would I have this fear? The fear which causes the delusion that drives the attitude which places me in a position to be harmed or harm others? 

Can I see if I did not have the fear, then it would not drive the delusion, which would not cause me to adopt the attitude, and I therefore would not take the action that places me in a position to be harmed or harm others. By asking God to remove my fear, I remove harm from my life and other peoples lives around me. Can I see that fear is really my problem, and not the person in column one or the behaviors and column two? My problem is fear, not other people and institutions. 

If I could see that God were my father,  principal and director, I would know I am already whole and that nothing another human being gives me will make me complete. We are beyond human aid, but not  beyond God’s aid. If I believed God is everything, I would not be trying to get anything from the person in column one. 

Now consider if God is nothing and me on my own power is all I have, can I see the problem? The problem is not the person in column one - the problem is my fear. My fear is blocking me from being the woman God would have me be: already whole in my soul. 

Assignment This Week 

A. Complete the Fear Grid as shown on pages 64 + 65 in the BBA. If you find yourself jotting down a fear that you’ve already written in the columns above, stop writing from left to right in that row and simply enter No God - and then then the abbreviation SRF (self-reliance fails me). If I have written all my fears out from left to right in the column above, I already can see where that same fear takes me. Therefore there is no need to repeat it in any other columns on my fear inventory. 

B. Read the AA Big Book page 69 (bottom) “Now about sex... - page 71

C. As you read BBA pages 71-74, put them in your AA Big Book pages 68 – 71.

D. Make a list of relationships. (Make a list of only your major relationships the first time

through)

E. Put each name on the top of a separate sex inventory sheet as explained on page 69 of the BBA.