How to Work The 4th Step
4th Step Personal  Inventory Tools
by Nick M.

By Nick M.

As best as I can describe and as far as all of the therapists and psychologists that I have seen in the past I have been diagnosed me as being “Cross Addicted”, “Poly Addicted”, and having “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”. All of the above are medical terms to describe a condition that not only I suffer from, but millions of other people from all walks of life suffer from. In short I suffer from a condition called “Chemical Dependency”.

 Now let us ask ourselves this, what is chemical dependency? Chemical Dependency is a condition that causes us to use mind or mood altering substances against our will. Chemical Dependency is a condition that is “Chronic” meaning that it is a permanent affliction. Chemical Dependency affects all areas of our lives, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

The term “Chemical Dependency” simply put means that somehow we have come to need some sort of stimulus from a mind altering drug or chemical to try and function in a normal manner in our everyday lives. A person who is Chemically Dependent is usually classified as an alcoholic, or a drug addict. These are pretty harsh terms in the world that we live in today. Most people feel that drug addicts and alcoholics are skid row bums and total losers with names like Junkie, Crack Head, Wino, and so on.

The truth couldn’t be further; when you take a closer look you will find that the disease called chemical dependency has no bounds. It affects doctors, lawyers, executives, construction workers as well as all classes and races of people. You will see that chemical dependency is an issue that is more widespread than the common citizen could even realize. Therefore when you fall into the class of being “Chemically Dependent” as far as society considers we are misfits and undesirables.

From this point forward I will make no distinction between alcoholics and drug addicts, I will simply use the term addict because alcohol in and of itself is a mood and mind altering chemical. In the past there were many arguments about this from all different points. Perhaps people may think that being an alcoholic is not as bad as being a junky or a crack head. From my own experience alcohol is not my drug of choice however I believe that it has caused more damage to me physically, mentally, and spiritually than any other substance that I have used. Personally I believe that this is due to the fact that alcohol is more acceptable in our society than other so called hard drugs, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and pills to name few. To help this along even further alcohol, is legal and controlled by the government and widely socially acceptable.

Now here comes the million dollar question: How did I become an addict and alcoholic? Did I come from a bad family? No. Was I abused outside the family? No. Did I learn it in school classes? No. Then how did I learn this negative behavior that affects every area of my life? There is a lot of argument in this aspect of addiction however there is no clear cut evidence as to exactly why some people become addicts and others do not. There is a great many people that believe that we are genetically predisposed to become addicts because our ancestors were alcoholics or addicts. This may be partially true but if it was the complete truth all of my “normal” brothers and sisters would be addicts or alcoholics like me. The bottom line to all of this is unless you are going to college to become a specialist in addiction treatment it really doesn’t matter. Once you become an addict you are an addict for life. So instead of trying to figure all of this out what we really need to do is learn how to correct this negative behavior before it destroys us. As it say’s in the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous “The ends are always the same, jails, institutions, and death”. If you are a rational person there is a pretty good chance that you don’t want to end up in any of those places.

Now that we know this much, and we think or know that we may be an addict, what are we to do about it? There is one thing in a particular part of the NA Basic Text that I didn’t mention; there is another option for us, it is called recovery. Such a little word with so much meaning, make sure that you look at that word closely, It say’s recovery, not recovered. As soon as you can learn to make this distinction you can be on your way to leading a normal life.

Before I go any further; what is normal? Well if you are an addict the definition of normal would be to use drugs and/or alcohol every day. With this would come all of the behaviors that normal society in general has deemed unacceptable. Lying, Cheating, Stealing, Drug Use, Un-employability, and many other types of other outrageous behavior as these are the habits that most drug addicts and alcoholics become accustomed to, therefore they become normal and acceptable to us. On the other hand, as far as society is concerned, normal would be defined as a person who is socially acceptable with certain qualities like having a job, being honest, not being addicted to drugs or alcohol and so on. In the NA basic text it states that “Social acceptability does not equal recovery”. This is true in every sense of the word; there are many socially acceptable people that still have many character defects that they can hide from most of the people that they encounter.

Then what would normal mean if you were in recovery? I suppose normal for a recovering addict would mean changing their old behaviors. This all sounds simple but change is one of the hardest things that anyone can do regardless if they are someone in recovery or someone who is socially acceptable and clean. Change means doing things different than we are used to and can be both uncomfortable and frightening. For instance even though we may be using drugs and alcohol and living a so called toxic lifestyle that is causing us pain there is a certain amount of comfort to it because we usually know what to expect. Change means taking a chance by doing things we are not accustomed to and not knowing the results. Change takes courage and risk and has kept many an addict from growing because of the fear of the unknown.

How does an addict get the courage that they need to make the necessary changes in their lives to improve the quality of their lives and stay clean? In my experience both the program of Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous offer an excellent solution for this question. Both NA and AA are 12 step programs that supply us with a set of steps to live our lives by that give us guidance in living our lives in a responsible and productive manner without the use of mind or mood altering chemicals.

There are more 12 step programs than Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous but for the purpose of this article we will deal with the NA and AA 12 Step programs. You may think that you know yourself but trust me; after you read all of the steps of either program you will learn that there is a whole new person inside of you that you had no idea was there. Things that used to bother us will no longer have the effect on us that they once did and as time goes on our lives will become better. Perhaps at first the cravings to use may be tough but as time goes on things will become easier. This is the purpose of 12 step meetings and that is to share our feelings with our recovering friends and listen to the feedback from the other members to get some insight on how they got through those tough times.

I would like to tell you about the most important thing that helped me change in recovery. In order for me to explain this I will need to familiarize you with at least the first four steps of the NA or AA 12 step program as I interpret them.

As you might have already guessed there are 12 different steps that we go through to learn to change our lives around and become responsible productive members of society. Now the question is how do we get started on this new way of living? First off we begin by asking for help.

Your Very First Step

The first thing to do is to pick up a phonebook and look up either an NA or AA meeting in your hometown and attend your first meeting. Being a newcomer you may have a lot of fear doing this but remember that everyone at that meeting had to take this first step. At most meetings there is a greeter at the door, let them know that this is your first meeting and ask them if you could sit at a first step table. At most meetings people will sit around a table and share reading some text either from the AA Big Book or the NA Basic Text. After reading a step the table usually opens up and people will share their experiences at the table one at a time and at times members that have some clean time under their belt will give the person some positive feedback. You do not have to share if you don’t want to: all you have to do is pass. One thing that I find amazing is that I will find a little of myself in almost everyone at the table. Another thing that is critical is buy yourself a book and read it! Trust me, my book saved me more than once!

Step 1

Due to Copyright issues I am unable to explain all of the steps as they are written however I can give a summary of the steps from the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text to give you an idea of how they work.

Step 1 gives you an introduction to the program and talks about being powerless and the unmanageability that this causes in our day to day life. We may think that we are in control of our lives but the evidence points to the contrary. Ask yourself some of these questions. Has my drug or alcohol use caused me problems in the past? For instance has my using lifestyle caused me to be late for work? Has it caused me to lose a job at some point in my life? Has it caused me to lie to cover up my using? Has it caused problems with my family, friends, and loved ones? Has it caused me financial problems? Have I spent money getting high that was supposed to pay other bills that I was responsible for? These are just a few signs that point to an unmanageable lifestyle, there are many more. If you are an addict or alcoholic you should easily be able to pick out some of these examples of having an unmanageable lifestyle as well as add several of your own to this list.

Now let’s think about the powerless aspect of drug and alcohol use in our lives. Once you pick up and start using can you predict what you will do next? Do you think you are in control? Not only are we powerless of our drug usage but we are also powerless over people, places, and things. Think about this, when you call your connection to order some dope and he tells you it will be an hour, can you be sure that he will be there in an hour? When you wake up in the morning and promise yourself that you are not going to use mind or mood altering substances, can you be sure that you won’t use that day? When you decide to use and stop at 2:00 am, can you guarantee that you will stop at 2:00 am? No you cannot because we are powerless over people, places and things. This is a fact whether we are using drugs and alcohol or not. When we add drugs and alcohol into this you can be sure that the unmanageability of our lives will become quite clear. This concept leads us to Step 2 and opens the door to recovery.

Step 2

In step 2 both of the books talk about a “power greater than ourselves” to help us stop our drug use and lead us back to sanity and normal lifestyle without the use of mind and mood altering chemicals.

In step 2 we come to believe that we cannot control our use of mind or mood altering chemicals by our own sheer willpower and need help. If we can accept that this is true than we should also be able to accept that we need help to stop our addictive behaviors.

Step two is a spiritual step however it is not a religious step. Religion and spirituality are two separate things. In the past many addicts and alcoholics were put off with this step believing that Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous was some religious program and would have nothing to do with it.

What then is a power greater than ourselves? Many people call it god however there are also a great many people that do not believe in god and this concept would not work for them. So then, what do they do? I have heard at many meetings that if you cannot believe in god than use an ashtray as your higher power. To me this statement is absurd, as far as I am concerned the only thing an ashtray is good for is to put out your cigarette and catch your ashes.

A much better way to think of a higher power would be to think of a group consciousness as a higher power. A table full of recovering addicts all seeking the same goal is group consciousness that has the power of changing your way of thinking just by pure suggestion. As human beings we all want to fit in and no matter how resistant we may be at first if we continue to go to meetings and surround ourselves with recovering people eventually it will affect us. There is an old saying that goes like this, “Stick around the barber shop and eventually you will get your hair cut”. The same is true of recovery, if you stick around people that are in recovery eventually some of it will rub off on you. This is one of the reasons that they suggest in recovery that we go to 90 meetings in 90 days. An addict left to his own thinking is in bad company, after all look at where you’re best thinking got you. With this step we are admitting that we cannot stay clean by ourselves and that we need help.

Step 3

In step number 3 of the12 step program it talks about turning our will and our lives over to the care of our higher power as we understand it.

The basic meaning of this step is that we agree to stop trying to run our own lives and turn our lives over to our higher power of our understanding.

The first three steps that I have written out are what I have called the 1 2 3 shuffle. These first three steps give us a basis on staying clean however they do not address the real problem of our addiction. What is the real problem? The real problem is our own thinking as well as the way that we look at ourselves. The way that we see ourselves is completely different that the way that other people see us. So what do we do to make the real changes in our lives that will give us quality recovery? We move on to step 4 and take a good look at ourselves and our motives. I have been around meetings for many years and I have always seen an attitude towards the 4^th step with comments like these. “Just worry about being clean today” or “You’re not ready to take the 4^th step yet” It is statements like these that have caused many an addict to skip over this step or avoid doing it for many years. If I knew then what I know now I would have done this step a long time ago and I would have avoided a lot of pain that I suffered from not doing it. I believe that if I would have done this step sooner it may have opened the door to recovery and let me see the true person that I really am.

The single most important part in my recovery is that I finally decided to do the 4^th step. I believe this was the turning point of my recovery and opened the door to quality recovery and a true understanding of my life.

Step 4: The most important thing that changed my life in recovery and where the real changes took place.

Step 4 is all about taking a personal inventory. It say’s in the basic text and the big book “A searching and fearless moral inventory”. For maybe the first time in our lives we had to take a good hard look at ourselves and our actions instead of taking everyone else’s inventory. We finally had to take a good hard look at ourselves and take responsibility for the part we played in making our life they way it is. This meant no more blaming other people but rather accepting our own character defects as our own and not someone else’s fault.

This step is not designed to see only how bad we are but to also see all of our good qualities. It is kind of like cleaning the garage and trying to get rid of all of the junk and keep all of the good stuff.

Now then what is step 4 and why did it have such a positive impact on my life. Step 4 is where I had to take a good hard honest look at my character defects for the first time in my life. Dislikes and resentments played a major role in keeping me sick. I desperately needed to take a look at many of my character defects as in the following list.

Dishonesty, cheating, jealousy, false pride, suspiciousness, rationalizing, distrust, envy, self centeredness, egotism, arrogance, vanity, manipulating, being phony, people, pleasing, self pity, helplessness, selfishness, controlling, promiscuity, intolerance, overbearing, irresponsibility, procrastination, avoidance, indecency, lack of confidence, fragility, indignation, hostility, sexual abuse, despair, overindulgence, excessiveness, and many more.

These also came with a variety of other feelings such as, fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of pain, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of responsibility, fear of commitment, fear of growing up, fear of failure, and fear of the unknown. I found I had more than these and the above are just some of the things that I needed to look at and change to gain true recovery.

I also needed to take a good hard look and take responsibility for the part I played in the resentments I had in my life and how I acted them out.

For example,

Dislikes: Intolerance.

Words that I say to others.

1. “God other people are so stupid”.
2. “They’ll never learn”.
3. “Why don’ they learn to do it right”?
4. “Don’t they look in the mirror before they go out”?
5. “There is a right way and a wrong way”.
6. “You and your family are a bunch of idiots”.

Words I say to myself.

1. “How dare they go against what I say”?
2. “What the heck is wrong with them, don’t they know what’s right”?
3. “How many times have I told him or her to……..”
4. “I’ll prove I’m right if it’s the last thing that I do”!

Non Word Behaviors.

1. Pouting.
2. Giving the silent treatment.
3. Pursed lips, glaring eyes, rolling my eyes, (giving dirty looks).
4. Anger, (Stomping out of the room).
5. Throwing things.
    

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Dislikes: Resentments

Words I say to others.

1. “They had no right to do that to me”.
2. “They can’t do this to me”.
3. “You can’t trust anyone”.
4. “My turn will come”.

Words I say to myself.

1. “I’ll get even with them someday”.
2. “God will punish them”.
3. “They won’t get away with this”.
4. “My boss or whomever has it out for me”.
5. “Nobody treats me this way”.

Non Word Behaviors.

1. Angry looks.
2. Avoidance.
3. Giving the Silent Treatment.
4. Crying.
5. Ignoring people, and withholding attention.

Dislikes: Self Pity

Words I say to others.

1. “Nobody knows the trouble I have seen”.
2. “Look how much I have suffered”.
3. “Nobody understands me”.
4. “Nobody cares if I live or die”.
5. “What if you were in my shoes”?
6. “I, I, I,….Me, Me, Me.”

Words I say to myself.

1. “Why Me, Poor Me”.
2. “What did I do to deserve this”?
3. “I always get the short end of the stick”.
4. “Why are people always picking on me”?
5. “How can they do this to me”?
6. “Don’t they know who I am”?

Non Word Behaviors.

1. Crying
2. Pouting
3. Moping
4. Avoiding people
5. Sulking
6. Whining
7. Looking sad
8. listlessness
    

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I have found that I have many likes of myself due to living a recovering lifestyle.

1. I have the ability to share;
2. I have learned to tell the truth and be honest;
3. I have learned through the fellowship that I enjoy Scuba Diving and can now fit in with normal people that never have had a drug problem;
4. I have learned acceptance and the ability to admit when I am wrong;
5. I have now repaired many years of damage with my father and now see him on a regular basis;
6. I am now able to take my time to help not only recovering addicts but normal people in my life when they need emotional support or just a helping hand;
7. I have the ability to listen to other peoples problems and offer constructive criticism;
8. I have learned to be on time;
9.  I have learned that I like gardening and I enjoy sharing the vegetables that I grow with my friends;
10. I have learned that I now like to go to meeting that I couldn’t stand going to in the beginning;
11. In a nutshell I finally realized that I was not a bad person trying to get good, but rather a sick person trying to get well.

The above are just a few examples of portions of how I worked my 4^th step. The complete list is extensive and it gave me an idea of how to take a look at these defects and how they manifested themselves in my life. I didn’t get these character defects in one day or one week. It took my whole life to get these defects of character and it will take work one day at a time throughout my recovery to identify and make the changes that I need to get address them. At first I kept it simple and as I gained more time in the program I find more character defects but as I become stronger in my recovery I will be more able to deal with them. One day at a time, and one issue at a time.

It is said that we are only as sick as our darkest secrets this is why to gain quality recovery it is so important to deal with these issues. Doing 4^th step work can be quite scary at first because we are usually afraid of change because we are afraid of the unknown. This is why it is important to get a good understanding on the first 3 steps before we do our 4^th step. In order for this step to work we need to have help and that is why it is so important to have a have a higher power and to turn our lives over to that higher power.

When we begin to do this step is also very important to have a sponsor that we can trust so that we can share this step with them. In my opinion it is not recommended to share all of this in a group setting because no matter where you go people will be in different stages of recovery. Sharing this openly with the whole group could leave you vulnerable and possibly subject you to having other people take your inventory. This step is all about us taking our own inventory and not having other people take it for us. For me the 4^th step was a healing step and I needed to find a sponsor that had multiple years in recovery that I could trust so that I could truly be honest when writing it out.

Not only did I outline my defects of character as in the above examples but I also wrote many pages about each of the individuals in my life and titled it “How I Feel, and Why” so that I could better understand myself. In the example below I will share some of these feelings I have about my father to give you an idea of how I went about on paper.

My Father, How I Feel and Why.

Fear of the unknown has stopped me in the past from trying to do things differently and has also caused communication blocks between us. If I changed I didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t change on purpose. Fear of pain comes when I try to avoid my father because I can’t give a good account of my actions. During my relapses fear of abandonment came into heavy play. At those times I had given up on myself and was very afraid that he would disown me.

Fear of responsibility is always there. I have never been very responsible in the past so I am not real familiar with it. Since it is different and foreign I am afraid of it. (Back to fear of the unknown).

Fear of commitment is always lurking, commitments mean responsibility. Talking with my father gives me a fear of growing up. I can’t even take care of myself with his help, how could I do it without his help?

Fear of failure in his eyes keeps me from trying new things because I might not do it the right way or his way.

Fear of not being good enough comes from me trying to fill the shoes that I do not own.

Fear of not being accepted causes me to freeze up. If I don’t do anything nothing will get screwed up. Many times I feel that it is more acceptable not to screw something new up than it is to screw things up. Is it not?

Fear of success, if I don’t try new things I won’t have to worry about this one will I? Another fear of success and failure is that my father thinks things should be done a certain way and will make statements like these. “Don’t waste your time, that won’t work” or “I told you so”.

Because I feel a lot of the things I do are not good enough I will try to act proud and brag about some of my other accomplishments instead of dealing with the new issue at hand. I call this behavior false pride.

Because I know a lot of the things that are wrong with me I have a tendency to get cocky and arrogant. Such as look at how good I can do this or that. This is a coping skill that use so that other people won’t know how flawed I am.

The above examples were taken from a 4^th step that I did in 1997 and are a very small example of my first real attempt at an honest 4^th step that I typed out on paper. My first try at this step ended up becoming a small book about 25 pages long. Since then I have grown significantly and have had to go back to many of the character defects and take a look at them again as they have a funny habit of occasionally creeping back into my life now and then.

So what then did I gain from doing this 4^th step?

I gained true freedom and self recognition as this step was the one that truly set me free by allowing me to become more self aware of my character defects and more likely to make the necessary changes in my life so that I don’t continue making the same mistakes over and over. Because of this step I have been able to grow and face many difficult situations in my life and make the right decisions accordingly. I believe that it is the most important positive thing that ever has happened in my life and has set me free from the chains that once bound me.

Above all it has made me realize this. “Nothing Changes, if Nothing Changes”!

Written by Nick M. www.nickscape.net/recoveryzone

Reprinted with the permission of Serene Center Sober Living Community – Helping People Help Themselves www.SereneCenter.com  Toll Free 1-TO MY SERENITY

4th Step Inventory Working The Forth Step

 NA Narcotics Anonymous and AA Alcoholics Anonymous