Alcoholics Anonymous | April 7 2013 | DonInLondon | Step 4 "Fear Less Inventory" who would've thought that a journey full of rocks and hard places, emotional disturbances now erupting on the journey from step one to step four. The first ninety days: step one, powerless over alcohol and life unmanageable, rocks and hard places, the eruption of feelings we have never really experienced sober on this emotional and spiritual journey into sobriety…
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Step four: from step one, and feelings are mad, step two coming to believe that a power greater than us can restore us to sanity. My higher power in the early days was any friendly voice in fellowship, not trying to push me either way, simply the hand of friendship which I felt I could not trust in the beginning. As I listened to many people share their experience strength and hope, they too have come through the madness and emotional eruptions. Then letting go self will, and the confusion that by letting go of my will, I would be truly independent if I just kept going. Independence and freedom was where I started in life, and then decades later, starting to see that independence and freedom comes from living the truth of now, and learning to cope, and learning to ask for help…
Step four: the fearless moral inventory! All my life at work, had been about helping people by them understanding their strengths and weaknesses. And for many years I was engaged in developing the right sort of training for people and how to undertake safe self-appraisal without breaking people into pieces. I was very aware of my own assets and liabilities, and yet denial made it very possible for me, simply to scratch the surface and not look too deeply. I made a promise to myself to try dig and delve out the truth of who I was and who I could be. All that I really needed to be was open, honest and willing, with courage to change. All those nagging doubts, and the resentments had always made me responsible, I often took the heat when things went wrong in the past, my pride and ego played their part in this. And I started to see through the self-appraisal my assets and liabilities, which was helping me understand how to be human, no more important, no less important than anyone else on the planet today…
Step four: rocks and hard places when we do a self-appraisal. Anger and resentment at myself for not being able to make things better, for not being able to fix things, that I had become materialistic, that I had become casual in all my relationships and superficial and indifferent. Why could I not cherish more, love unconditionally and be useful and happy in my endeavours? And then my best friend in the bottle had stopped working, and oblivion became harder and harder to achieve. Even though people sought me out to try help put me back together, the fear of contact with another human being was repelled at all costs because I did not want to break down further, because I never thought I would survive, and really didn't want to survive back then. And writing step four, visiting all those rocks and hard places, it taught me that I am as human as the next person, I'm not superhuman, I needed all the help possible to keep this journey going through step four. One day at a time…
Step four: fellowship helped me realise that the worst burnt out case is still a human being. I had no love for myself and the friendship given freely was difficult to comprehend. When fear, pride and ego kept me locked away, and the suggestion that it was okay to have all these horrible feelings erupting because there was nothing in between me and them, my feelings were me. My emotions are me, the feelings we have are what we are. And attached to our feelings, our emotions is a thinking capacity, which can confuse and suppress everything that we are. We feel life and it affects our mood, and whatever mood we are in, we feel the impact on our thinking. We feel something and we act on it often without thinking of the consequences. When we were drunk, we felt all manner of emotions, and usually acted on them immediately, without thinking. Just remember the old days, getting blitzed and finding a stranger in your bed the following morning, often a happy awakening with all the confusion that ensues from those times…
Step four: as we start to understand how we used a fix, either a substance, people, places and things to allow us to continue to tread and trudge our journey, we can see clearly that heightened and extreme emotions led to heightened and extreme actions. The part we took away from the old days was love most often, and we had no thought of the consequences. Emotion to action, without the thinking part in the middle made us feel powerful in our choices and free from worry about the consequences. And in step four, as we go through our fearless moral inventory or "self-appraisal" we get to see how emotion to action, without the thinking and the consequences being considered led to resentments. Very often because we were not ourselves and the people we were with were not themselves, we made pretty bad choices and the old blame game came to the fore, it was the drink that made me do it… Or the substance, the people I was with, the place where I was, and the things we were all doing back in the day…
Step four: clearing the wreckage of the past and seeing our part in it, we get to share it with a higher power and another human being. Regarding the higher power, really depends on your beliefs. The higher power, God as you understand him, for agnostics and atheists, it's not a problem, you too have a higher power: "the truth of now, the love we have now," denial, becomes useless to us, because denial is only required when we live at extremes and cannot cope. Coping with the truth of now, how to love and be loved back, living in the moment, we can ask for help at extreme times. And when feelings are extreme and we are sober, we are less likely to jump to action, without thinking about the consequences today… We are human and sometimes we will jump straight from heightened feelings into heightened actions because… Simply because we are human and sometimes we need act quickly to save another, we need act quickly to stop something which is wrong, and we are probably right to move from emotion to action, because we are learning sober when we need to do this one day at a time…
Step four: letting go, pride and ego, letting go being the champion who speaks for everyone, letting go the notion that we know better. We will still feel like we know better on many occasions, and still with all that knowledge and a crusade at our fingertips, we can shout at the world, we can shout at politicians, we can shout at organisations and institutions. And still we are powerless over them, and the resentments can flow. Every human who needs help of one sort or another is probably in a queue when it comes to organisations and what they can do. And this powerlessness as a crusader and a champion of a cause, in the face of all adversity can stop us from asking for help when we need it most. And we are living at extremes of feeling in the moment of now. If we put ourselves on a pedestal, and start shouting the odds, the odds are that we move back into resentment, pride and ego keep us valiant and we have lost the courage to change, faith in looking for the next right thing, and not asking for help, simply bellowing at the world for being unfair to every human we represent on the planet… Better to step off the pedestal, ask for the help from the right people at the right time, and sometimes let go, and let someone else fight that battle, or we end up being at war with ourselves and feeling less than human with the mind and intellect of a superhuman battering ourselves to death… We are not superhuman, and we need not fight battles on behalf of people and rob them of their voice, sometimes we need encourage others to stand and speak for themselves today...
Step four: how am I feeling today? It's Sunday, the sky has been blue since dawn, there are contrails over London, big jets of people coming and going. The air is sparkling cool and fresh, and I can feel life deeply. The emotional life, the spiritual life. Feeling right in the moment of now. Not being caught up in small matters, not being caught up in the big world of news, politics and organisations which are far bigger than me. And even though all those big things would benefit from my opinion and running them, I don't go there because I'm not superhuman, and nor are the people in them right now. The truth of my situation? Do I want to be right? Do I want to be happy? Can I be right and happy? I can be right and happy about having the freedom to choose my priorities, my choices in life, and to comment in a productive way on the big issues If I can. I've got my life back, my feelings in the moment of now work, it does not mean I am always happy, it means all my feelings work depending on life being good, when life is bad, and when life is ugly. Every feeling works. Contingent on my spiritual condition, which is living in the moment, I know what to do, what I can do, what I cannot do and still learning the wisdom to know the difference today…
Alcoholics Anonymous | April 7 2012 | DonInLondon | Step 4 "Fear Less Inventory" Today's AA daily reflection: "a wide ARC of gratitude." My personal wide ARC of gratitude is continually growing as I encounter more people in sober living. Fellowship kicked off the understanding that I am equal to others and others are equal to me. And that experience strength and hope from any source can be the most wonderful gift, including as we say in the UK, "the man on the Clapham omnibus!"
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Contingent on the day I remember to ask the help, my day is likely to run more smoothly by being inclusive and understanding the needs of the people around me. When I ask the help, it is a practice of humility, not being servile, simply asking myself to listen to other people around me who may have a clue when I have no clue what to do. Daily meditations, a reminder to me of steps 1 to 3 and the serenity prayer. And a reminder to myself that I'm responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out the help I want the hand of AA always to be there and for that I'm responsible…
When I remind myself of the AA pledge, "I'm responsible…" It does not mean I am the one with the answers, indeed often I don't know the answers and the responsibility is if I don't know maybe I know somebody who can help. The serenity prayer reminds me there are limits to what I can and cannot do on a daily basis, and when I don't know there is probably a man or woman who does. Fellowship is a goldmine of experience strength and hope, and developing wisdom day by day…
"What have I done to deserve this?" Something I often hear which is fed by unrealistic expectations of luck and good fortune at the expense of hard work and endeavour. Sometimes we need make the best of what we have and be grateful there is opportunity to keep living life. Not so easy when life is depressing and bleak. Every newcomer and every person in recovery knows there will be endarkenment as much as enlightenment in any day, and thank goodness it is one day at a time in sobriety…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
Emotional and Spiritual ~ How am I feeling? Why? What can I do? This is Assertive ~ How are we feeling? Why? What can we do? This is Empathy. I need to be assertive about being sober and knowing how I feel and what is good for me. And I need empathy to be included, find the truth of now, to love and be loved and learn wisdom. Freedom and informed choices today...
In our world we can become watchers of life, judging reality of others and forgetting we live our own reality passively or actively ~ Bebe Moore Campbell "As I grow older, part of my emotional survival plan must be to actively seek inspiration instead of passively waiting for it to find me" Like/Dislike, Voter/Doer, What am I actively going to do today?
Our feelings can be driven to extremes by: Real events, our own perceptions about people, places and things, "reality TV," theatre, movies, books all evoke our feelings. At times its hard to see what is real, our choices. Reactions at extremes have consequences, responses as we reflect and find balance, have consequences too, in recovery we have a chance to choose...
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AA Daily Reflection: A WIDE ARC OF GRATITUDE And, speaking for Dr. Bob and myself, I gratefully declare that had it not been for our wives, Anne and Lois, neither of us could have lived to see A.A.’s beginning. THE A.A. WAY OF LIFE, p. 67
Am I capable of such generous tribute and gratitude to my wife, parents and friends, without whose support I might never have survived to reach A.A.’s doors? I will work on this and try to see the plan my Higher Power is showing me which links our lives together.
As Bill Sees It ~ Debits and Credits Following a gossip binge, we can well ask ourselves these questions: "Why did we say what we did? Were we only trying to be helpful and informative? Or were we not trying to feel superior by confessing the other fellow's sins? Or, because of fear and dislike, were we not really aiming to damage him?" This would be an honest attempt to examine ourselves, rather than the other fellow. Inventory-taking is not always done in red ink. It's a poor day indeed when we haven't done something right. As a matter of fact, the waking hours are usually well filled with things that are constructive. Good intentions, good thoughts, and good acts are there for us to see. Even when we have tried hard and failed, we may chalk that up as one of the greatest credits of all. 1. GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1961 2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 93
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Alcoholics Anonymous, 12 Steps AA, AA Step 4 Inventory, DonInLondon, Don Oddy,
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Just For Today, and every day cherish always...
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April 2013 | AA Big Book Playlist
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF5F3EC98C6012A4
April 2013 | AA Twelve Step Playlist
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3BFA6062268A289D
April 2013 | AA Step Four Reading Video Link:
April 2013 | AA Video Reading How It Works:
April 2013 | AA Video Reading A Vision For You:
April 2013 | Video Daily Playlist Step Four:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC9C8658CBFCF357E
AA Official Online Site: Daily Reflections
http://www.aa.org/lang/en/aareflections.cfm
AA Official Online Site: Big Book And Twelve And Twelve
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