Step We Are On: FourToday we continue to see where from comes that final fourth column.
- What, specifically, are we looking for?
Have you ever heard a confused Big Book “attorney” share in a meeting, or speak from a podium about "surrender," and his ". . . own concept of a Higher Power?" Need I say more?
- Though the situation had not been entirely our fault, what do we try to do regarding the other person?
- Is it all right to place some of the blame on them?
- What do we now seek to learn?
- Why should we do that?
If at this stage of the inventory, we continue to consider their parts – we will render the work ineffective. You will NOT have an effective inventory and you will NOT recover from alcoholism through these steps, no matter how exhaustive you think you are being about it.
- What do we do as soon as we see our faults? (2 sentences)
Page: 67
Chapter: 5 "How It Works"
Subject: Resentment Inventory, column 4, Fault, Blame,
Good morning. We are going through the columns of the 4th step directions. We are looking at the upsetting things others do in the world from an angle quite different from the one we are used to.
Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?
Comment: These are the character defects, shortcomings, exact nature of our wrongs, etc. They are listed in Column Four
Okay, ready? Here is what they, the co-authors, meant by these words. You need to know this in order to do a proper 4th step inventory.[1]
Selfish – When our actions are activated by - or we become absorbed with, our own interests without regard to the rights, comfort or happiness of others, placing our wishes or advantage first.
Dishonest – Lacking in uprightness or fairness 2. Inclined to cheat steal or defraud or deceive. 3. Unchaste lewd.
That’s right, “unchaste and lewd”? (Ladies? Have you ever led a man on? Teased for gain? It goes into your inventory. ALL of them. Yes even that guy whose name you can't remember at the movie theater all those years ago.)
Self-seeking means seeking one's own happiness or interests or giving undue attention to one’s own interests or advantage over others.
Frightened – excited with fear or alarm
Fear – 1. an emotion characterized by dread or expectation of harm. 2. The desire to escape of avoid harm from or displeasure of something conceived as a power.
It doesn’t matter what we THINK these words ought to mean or how close they are to our modern-day understanding. If we want to know what the co-authors meant we need to consider what these words meant in their time.
Though a situation had not been entirely our fault,we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely.Where were we to blame?
We are going to see WHERE some of the culpability lies in each situation. Not that we are all to blame, but just where in each incident lies our involvement. We are simply allocating fault and blame where it belongs.
Blame – 1. An expression of disapproval; censure; 2. Fault, responsibility for anything wrong.
The inventory was ours, not the other man's.
EXTREME WARNING: This is not to say
that others do not have defective items in their own inventories. It’s just not
OUR job to do theirs for them at this time of the fact-finding process.
We already identified THEIR inventory in the first two columns (left side) -
it was a private affair.
Great care needs to be taken. (The resentment “prayer” can
help, even while doing this inventory)
When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
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