Thorough and Honest

Step We Are On: Four

Page: 64

Chapter: 5 "How It Works"

Subject: Resentment Inventory, Honesty

Good morning. We are going through the columns of the 4^th step directions. Hope everyone in the NE has everything battened down and you are all safe and comfortable.

• How definite should we be?

We were usually as definite as this example:

Comment:  We will be referring to this list again as we study Page 67.

I'm resentful at:	The Cause	Affects my:
Mr. Brown	His attention to my	Sex relations
	wife.	Self-esteem (fear)
	Told my wife of my	Sex relations
	mistress.	Self-esteem (fear)
	Brown may get my job	Security
	at the office.	Self-esteem (fear)
Mrs. Jones	She's a nut -- she	Personal relation-
	snubbed me. She	ship. Self-esteem
	committed her hus-	(fear)
	band for drinking.
	He's my friend
	She's a gossip.
My employer	Unreasonable -- Unjust	Self-esteem (fear)
	-- Overbearing --	Security.
	Threatens to fire
	me for my drinking
	and padding my
	expense account.
My wife	Misunderstands and	Pride -- Personal
	nags. Likes Brown.	sex relations --
	Wants house put in	Security (fear)
	her name.

The temptation is to be even more definite than this example. Not only is is not necessary, it is HIGHLY suggested to stick with the directions and keep it this way.

• How far back do we go in listing those we resent?

We went back through our lives.

This is a process designed to handle a lifetime of past anger. We go back ad far as we can; to the crib if possible.

• Only what counts in doing our inventory?

Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty.

Why is that? Because this is the only time we are ever going to be asked to do this in this book. There will be 'spot inventory' as we go, incident by incident, in real-time––and there is also a nightly “review” (in Step 11) …THIS columnar, 4th step is the only time we are EVER going to have to do this kind of analysis, so it needs to be complete and true.

• When we are finished, what do we do?

When we were finished we considered it carefully.

• What is the first thing that becomes apparent as we study what we have done?

The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.

Peace and  Love,

Danny S – RLRA

Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

http://stepelevencomesalive.blogspot.com/