An Inventory of Morals

Moral Betrayal

It has been said that a Fourth Step inventory is not an inventory of our “morals” – but it is an inventory that we perform “morally” — hence the term, “searching and fearless moral inventory”.

With as opened a mind as is possible – no matter how many times I read it, it just never means that. I cannot see that at all.

The inventory is a consideration of our morals. “Searching” and “Fearless” are words that are clearly being used as adjectives – but “Moral” is still attached to the word “Inventory“, modifying it. No matter how many times I read that step it just does not jive with the “Inventory which is moral” interpretation. It is most definitely an inventory of our morals.

Many people will will disagree – but let’s still be friends. Ok?

It shouldn’t be a problem – but why the resistance to such an idea?

When I did my first inventory, I gladly accounted for my immoral behaviors. If one can fins and face character defects, how much further does on need to go to acknowledge the behaviors stemming from those and that they could hardly have been moral.

I not know about anybody else,but when I was out there, I WAS immoral. I did immoral things. Oh bullshit! Let’s just be perfectly honest — WE ALL did immoral things! We had character defects and those defects caused us to act and behave in an immoral fashion. Period. There is just no escaping that. “We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.” (45:0)

Our MORALS were fine – we had them “galore” (See 62:2) – but those morals were betray by our actions. Get it?

I was judging myself by my intentions (my morals) when I should have rathered to include my actions in the assessment – like the world judged me by those actions (my immorality). Of course I felt cheated because they didn’t know how “GOOD” my intentions were – so to that extent the world was working with an incomplete picture – but still, our thoughts are not very useful to the world – only our actions are.

To live with this type of rub – the difference between our intentions and our actions – is pure hell for anyone. This is the friction – when fueled by pride and resentment – that psychosis, suicides and most aberrant behaviors are made of – for all of the human race – not only us alkies. If it weren’t for pride and resentment there would be no wars. There would be no disease. There would be no alcoholism, drug addiction – all the problems of mankind would cease and we would have a heaven on earth.

But alas, we are human after all aren’t we – screwing it all up and struggling with our own immoralities and character defects until such time as any of us stop struggling and turn our lives and wills over to God for His care.

Then what happens? He doesn’t fail – He solves our screw-ups for us. BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

Character defects are NO LONGER as problematic for those of us who walk in the Sunlight of The Spirit as it seems to be for those in AA trying to stay above water WITHOUT a Program.

I didn’t say they never exist – I said they are no longer as problematic – because we now have at our disposal a spiritual Genius caring for us. After a short while our God consciousness becomes a part of how we think and live our lives. It happens automatically without much trying. We don’t even have to exert much effort to act morally in situations in which we would have faltered before. We just act morally. Common sense becomes uncommon sense.

Some folks find this idea troubling – folks who cannot fathom it. They insist that it must not be true – but I say, “Have an opened mind and try our way of life. It doesn’t suck.” – and THEN if it doesn’t work, if you are still a miserable, dishonest, still recovering, still suffering alcoholic THEN speak from THAT experience. Then I’ll have to believe YOU!

Bill W spoke about morality in a talk he did in 1960. I’ve quoted those below. *

Peace,

Danny S

* “Some strongly object to the A.A. position that alcoholism is an illness. This concept, they feel, removes moral responsibility from alcoholics. As any A.A. knows, this is far from true. We do not use the concept of sickness to absolve our members from responsibility. On the contrary, we use the fact of fatal illness to clamp the heaviest kind of moral obligation onto the sufferer, the obligation to use A.A.’s Twelve Steps to get well.”

“In the early days of his drinking, the alcoholic is often guilty of irresponsibility. But once the time of compulsive drinking has arrived, he can’t very well be held fully accountable for his conduct. He then has an obsession that condemns him to drink, and a bodily sensitivity to alcohol that guarantees his final madness and death.”

“But when he is made aware of this condition, he is under pressure to accept A.A.’s program of moral regeneration.” (Bill W. in a talk ,1960)

Playing God

If I look up the word “Resent” it turns out the Latin word “Sentir” means “To feel” , and when I put a “Re” in front of any word, it means “Again” , so the word resent means “To feel again”.

Once someone wrongs me in some way I usually feel some sort of negative response. If I am on “Top of my game” it just rolls off me like water off a ducks back. But then after a while, after I have reviewed in my mind what happened – and have felt the anger or anxiety again, I shift to the next step, which is resentment.

I’m feeling it again even though it isn’t really happening again. If my guard is down, and as a non-saint this happens frequently, the first little twinge of annoyance, anger or frustration gets the “Playback” in my head, I feel it again - and it is a resentment. A fatal condition for an alcoholic.

Even worse, as I playback the real or imagined harm done to me in my head, I become less and less involved in the incident and the OTHER guy becomes guiltier and guiltier.

Now it is easy for me to see that a resentment is a JUDGEMENT TOO! I am judging who’s good and who’s evil just like a God might do. I am “Playing God”. In my mind, I AM GOD. And there can be no god who is a power greater than I – while I am He.

Sometimes I can let an incident go without moving into resentment, but as a self-centered alcoholic, that can be difficult since drunks like to keep score of these things so to bring it back up later. Maybe to get even or play a little one-ups-manship.

So this is why my 4th Step Inventory resentment list is so long. I had been operating in this fashion for forty years. And if these type of little incidents are happening in my life day in and day out for that long – well, there is no way my resentment list could be anything but a LOOONG LIST.

By the way can you imagine how worn out my body would be getting – what with all this reenacting of events over and over -that aren’t even happening anymore? If my body is producing adrenalin. If my muscles are tensing – my brain biochemical actions are pulsing like crazy and I am preparing for “Fight or Fight” – meanwhile all I am really doing is driving down the road in my car or quietly fuming over a cup of Latte at Starbucks . . .

. . . it’s no wonder so many of us get so old and ugly before our time.

Our bodies get worn out like overused door hinges. You old haggard folks – aging poorly – who are forty and look sixty – might know what I am talking about. If you are honest. It ain’t all from the bottle baby. Alcohol didn’t do it to you. YOU did it to you – and you are dying from the inside out!

Peace,

Danny S

Playing God

If I look up the word “Resent” it turns out the Latin word “Sentir” means “To feel” , and when I put a “Re” in front of any word, it means “Again” , so the word resent means “To feel again”.

Once someone wrongs me in some way I usually feel some sort of negative response. If I am on “Top of my game” it just rolls off me like water off a ducks back. But then after a while, after I have reviewed in my mind what happened – and have felt the anger or anxiety again, I shift to the next step, which is resentment.

I’m feeling it again even though it isn’t really happening again. If my guard is down, and as a non-saint this happens frequently, the first little twinge of annoyance, anger or frustration gets the “Playback” in my head, I feel it again - and it is a resentment. A fatal condition for an alcoholic.

Even worse, as I playback the real or imagined harm done to me in my head, I become less and less involved in the incident and the OTHER guy becomes guiltier and guiltier.

Now it is easy for me to see that a resentment is a JUDGEMENT TOO! I am judging who’s good and who’s evil just like a God might do. I am “Playing God”. In my mind, I AM GOD. And there can be no god who is a power greater than I – while I am He.

Sometimes I can let an incident go without moving into resentment, but as a self-centered alcoholic, that can be difficult since drunks like to keep score of these things so to bring it back up later. Maybe to get even or play a little one-ups-manship.

So this is why my 4th Step Inventory resentment list is so long. I had been operating in this fashion for forty years. And if these type of little incidents are happening in my life day in and day out for that long – well, there is no way my resentment list could be anything but a LOOONG LIST.

By the way can you imagine how worn out my body would be getting – what with all this reenacting of events over and over -that aren’t even happening anymore? If my body is producing adrenalin. If my muscles are tensing – my brain biochemical actions are pulsing like crazy and I am preparing for “Fight or Fight” – meanwhile all I am really doing is driving down the road in my car or quietly fuming over a cup of Latte at Starbucks . . .

. . . it’s no wonder so many of us get so old and ugly before our time.

Our bodies get worn out like overused door hinges. You old haggard folks – aging poorly – who are forty and look sixty – might know what I am talking about. If you are honest. It ain’t all from the bottle baby. Alcohol didn’t do it to you. YOU did it to you – and you are dying from the inside out!

Peace,

Danny S

Let’s Boogie, man!

Step Four was a boogieman.

Once I got to it, instead of the pain racked, fear producing task that it had been made out to be by people sharing in meetings, it turned out to be one of the most gratifying and joy producing things I had ever done in my life. I had spent years in AA hearing how difficult and hard it was – but it wasn’t.

It seems an arduous job when making the initial first column resentment list- but then as I proceeded down the 2^nd, 3rd and finally 4^th column something happened that I did not expect. There was not “OH NO, I am such a rotten person” feeling. It was much more of a “So THAT’S what’s been going on with me all these years”.

Instead of “Please. I can’t look. No more” – it was “Yes. Thank you God. Show me MORE! Please!”

By the time I was satisfied it was complete – I could not wait to take my 5^th Step with my sponsor. The gratitude for being shown what the problem with me had been all of my life was nearly overwhelming. My fears were beginning to melt like a Mr. Softee cone in August.

I had even heard folks tell stories about how they had heard of people drinking on their fourth step, committing suicide – and other such nonsense. ALL of it heresy and non of it based on their own experiences. Others are discourage from the steps using the fourth step as a great fear producer – instead of encouraging them with the great 4^th Step promises.

I know when a sponsor is having is having us follow the directions as they are presented in the Big Book we won’t have a problem. Its as easy as making Jell-O – as long as we follow the directions without changing them.

(Some sponsors complicate it and DO make it hard and complicated by adding and changing the process. Like writing stories, or not using the columnar format outlined on page 65, listing “assets” along with liabilities. All Extras that spoil the process and transform something simple into a daunting task. Please don’t fall for that. I have )

Don’t add extra water, don’t leave any out. It’ll come out perfectly gelled and deliciously sweet in the end. A fearless, searching inventory is nothing to fear, really. Hell, it’s just lots of swallowing.

I’ve listed the 4^th Step Promises Below. You’ll see that Step Four is a FEAR REMOVER – not a fear producer. That’s’ a Promise and also my experience. Stick to what works and you’ll get them all as you move along. And don’t forget to pray for guidance each time you write.

If I can’t do a fourth step at least ONCE – how will I EVER be able to do a daily inventory – every night before I go to bed?

Some Fourth Step Promises

• 1.When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. (64:3)
• 2. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. (65:3)
• 3. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it (resentment) is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. (66:1)
• 4. If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. (66:2)
• 5. We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. (66:3)
• 6. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. (66:3)
• 7. This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.
• Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were Sick too. (66:4)
• 8. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. (67:4)
• 9. “Fear” This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune. (67:3)
• 10. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity. (68:2)
• 16. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear. (68:3)
• 17. If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. (70:1)
• 13. If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. (70:1)
• 14. If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. (70:3)
• 15. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. (70:3)
• 16. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. (70:3)
• 17. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. (70:3)
• 18. We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. (70:3)
• 19. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can. (70:3)

Peace,

Danny S

Cabbage A Mad Cow Would’nt Eat

If a man is ever given cause to start to think too well of himself during the inventory process, he STOPS the process. I have seen it happen. The prospect that attains a high degree of grief has a much greater chance of finding his character defects objectionable – the more he wants to do something about them.

Give a drunk an out (I’m not so bad”), and he will take it.

When a sponsor starts to reinvent or adopt things from modern psychology and begins injecting it into the tried and true inventory process – things like “asset taking” which is not in the Big Book – the greater the chances of creating a “balk” during the 12 step process.

I have brought more men through this process in the last six years than many AAs I know. Trust me. The WORSE they feel, the more OBJECTIONABLE their inventory is – the better the chances. The better they feel, the less objectionable their liabilities are to them, the better the chances they will NEVER finish taking the steps. They MAY not even finish the inventory.

We have all heard of “tough love” as a behavioral modification technique of human psychology. That is what this is – developed in Alcoholics Anonymous years before modern brain technicians ever conceived of it.

Tough love depends upon the subject feeling HORRIBLE. It does not work if the pain is buffered. Our own liability inventory taking is very similar. The behavior being modified is not the drinking. It is the human tendency to recreate his self by de-focusing on his own illness by putting on a mask of wellness. Once that mask is donned, he is dead in the water.

If I concentrate on my beautiful red ripe tomatoes and how they make the outside of my produce store look inviting, I may put off throwing out the rotten cabbage inside the store. And that STINKS!

Peace,

Danny S

A Preponderance of Evidence

Tonight I was doing a workshop on Step 4, and was at the white dry erase board illustrating the columnar format, (headings, etc). During Q & A regarding the first resentment inventory, one woman wanted to know how many resentments should she list.

I told her “all of them” - “The more the better” because we are looking for a preponderance of evidence pointing to each of our defects in the later column.

The more “evidence” we can clearly ascribe to each of our defects, the more objectionable they will be to us, since the reality of the defect will be so unquestioningly proven.

By having so much evidence on hand, at step six I was exceedingly willing to have my defects removed. Then in step seven, when I asked God to remove them, I did so from a position of REALLY wanting them removed because I had no doubt they were mine. And they were objectionable.

If a flimsy past behavior points toward a defect, it may not appear so glaring. If they do not glare, then they may not be so objectionable.

Since the directions for taking step six is a scant four sentences I usually find it hard to talk about it without also taking about Step Seven. The usual joke is – “Six and seven is a good step”

When I perform a complete (and long) fourth step containing the preponderance of evidence necessary to create an “objectionable” attitude toward my defects, my prayer in Step Seven has deep meaning. I crave God’s removal of the flaws as much as I craved alcohol on a spree. It was a deep yearning and not an exercise in spiritual rhetoric like so much of my past “praying” had been.

I knew I had taken Step Six the same moment I started Seven. The willingness was there automatically – because my inventories were complete and thorough and “objectionable” to me. I couldn’t WAIT to be rid of that stuff! You can’t “will” willingness. It just comes and the previous steps see to that very well when done as directed.

Since the directions for taking step six is a scant four sentences I usually find it hard to talk about it without also taking about Step Seven. The usual joke is – “Six and seven is a good step”

Peace,

Danny S

Resentment Prayer

The “resentment prayer” on page 66-67 is a noble sounding prayer, as are most prayers, but in order for the spiritual effect of the prayer to be at all effective, I have to first be very aware of what is in my inventory.

By the time we are doing our fourth step we are supposed to be seeing ourselves in a light which we perhaps have never seen. We are looking at all of the things which have caused us to have great negative, emotional responses which have been burning us up, causing us to harm others, being so self absorbed that we are necessarily blocked off from God.

When I viewed these honestly, thoroughly in black and white, there was an overwhelming and clear preponderance of evidence that they ALL point to my defects. We have indeed gotten the ball rolling. It cannot be argued, the facts overpower the excuses.

When this was revealed to me, it became impossible to continue hating someone for character defects I myself also have. I was able to have compassion and even become willing to come helpful to them. I was forgiving them THEIR trespasses at the same time that I was realizing forgiveness for mine. The key is the realization that they, like ourselves, were sick too. (67:0)

Peace,

Danny S