Alcoholics Anonymous Blog & Video | April 4 2004 - 2014 | DonInLondon | Step 4 "Fear Less Inventory"
DonInLondon April 4, 2014: step four month: "fear less inventory." Fellowship and 12 principles to improve our emotional and spiritual living. The fourth principle of being fearless around the truth of who we have been, and who we are today. Simply improves life in the moment. How difficult is it to get right with ourselves?
By the time I got to recovery, I had no real understanding of how to live life at all. I become a machine processing alcohol and frightened to set foot out of the front door without some sort of courage which came out of a bottle, "Dutch courage." And that simple realisation which took an awful long time to get to was that I could not stop drinking or using anything on my own. That fundamental truth helped me back onto a path of asking for help, listening to the world, rather than judging it and accepted that I could start life all over again, even though I am quite an old geezer! And now I realise life begins when I wake up in the morning and start a new day.
I was just chatting to the wife (we are not married by law, but you never know what might happen) and she is having a great day. She rang me this morning on her way to work, and because she has a mobile with unlimited minutes, and a set of headphones, she was able to chat away as I listened and she was driving very carefully. Listening to the stops and starts, stopping for milk, starting off again, and hearing the greetings of other people. And then she called me back. Just to let me know how good the day was and how different life is in recovery. She now shares with me that if things feel right, most of the time everything is all right. And if anything feels wrong, she knows it's okay to ask for help from wherever and whatever source it might be. She likes the 12 principles which help make every moment in the day, a truthful experience as much as possible rather than worrying and hiding from life as it is today.
Fundamental to recovery is fearlessness about feelings, our needs and our wants. What we need on a daily basis can be different to what we think we want. Needs met in the main, feelings feel right. Wants agitating and causing us to think around in circles is caused by trying to be something we think we ought to be, rather than being the person we are. And the twelve living principles, the twelve steps, work in the moment of now. We live the steps, and we work life which is why the twelve steps work, they work because we know them, embrace them and we absorb them as a process of living.
Getting to the truth of what has happened to us when we start our step four fearless moral inventory, is part of a bigger picture. We all have natural instincts, sometimes we find ourselves at extremes for a great many years because of how we used to be. As we encounter life on a daily basis, and deal with it, we can surrender to the truth of now, without fear, and with more faith, where it counts in our emotional and spiritual living.
DonInLondon 2004 - 2013
Alcoholics Anonymous | April 4 2013 | DonInLondon | Step 4 "Fear Less Inventory" the first three principles: step one, powerlessness and unmanageability. Step two, restored to sanity by asking for help. Step three, letting go self-will and being open. Three steps which yield good news and bad news: the good news is we get our feelings back, the bad news is we get our feelings back… Emotional and spiritual awakenings, good bad and ugly…
Step four: feelings running riot, no longer medicated to oblivion, one minute I feel okay and the world is wonderful, the next minute I feel dreadful and the world is as dark and desolate as it ever was. Feelings do run riot when there is nothing to suppress them in early recovery. It is a harsh shock that we cannot control the way we feel from one moment to the next. Is it any wonder that without help, we are likely to want to go back to a place of self-medication and oblivion? Somebody mentioned that life was okay until they got to step four and then the prospect was so daunting, it could tip anybody over and we might find ourselves going back to the beginning. I do believe this to be true, with all our emotions rising and falling with every life experience we encounter, step four, and can ramp up our rage and anger at the world and what happened to us…
Step four: to admit and accept powerlessness, and we stopped drinking, followed by an understanding of the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and then suggesting that will power will fail! And then, to face the prospect of the fearless moral inventory. Fearless moral inventory, it needs balance, to identify where pride, ego and fear did not help and we were unable to develop courage to change, faith in doing the next right thing, and growing confidence in making as many mistakes every day as we need to, to learn how we can work towards solutions rather than be stuck in problems... We do need to feel the anger and rage and the resentments of the past, because these are often the feelings that we probably provoked in other people over the years…
Something extraordinary happened this morning, I accidentally turned on the TV and caught the end of the Jeremy Kyle show. Jeremy Kyle seems to be a well-intentioned individual, however, his approach is probably the worst way to treat families in distress and suffering from the effects of alcoholism and addiction. He seems to believe that tough love, dressing down people, belittling them and bullying them is the answer to starting recovery. Of course it is easy to provoke already damaged people into the worst of behaviour on television, with a moral crusade against lawbreakers, some of whom are going to be sent to jail today for life. He has become immune it seems to the plight of individuals who are mentally ill, cannot make sense of their situation and then displays them as corrupted people hardly worthy of any consideration as human beings. He may be right in some instances, and the trouble with that is they should not be on TV at all. And mentally ill people should certainly not made scapegoats for the ills of a big broken society…
Step four: the starting point of a lifelong exercise in learning to live to the full emotional repertoire we have. The full emotional repertoire is understanding how we feel when times are good to extremely good, bad to extremely bad and ugly to extremely ugly. And the measure of our feeling depends on the experience happening right now. We learn how to love, we learn how to be loved back and our emotional range becomes enriched with every life experience. We will like some life experiences, and other life experiences, we would prefer not to have had. The spot-check inventory, which is step ten, together with a gratitude list, offers a way forward with courage to change, faith in what we do, and the confidence to keep ourselves healthy, even when life is difficult…
Something else extraordinary happened this morning, I could not stand watching the Jeremy Kyle show. And instead put on the BBC iPlayer to watch the voice recorded last Saturday. To hear the extraordinary singing abilities of potential artists was profound and very emotional in a good way. To listen and share the experience, even though as a recording lifts the spirit within and opens our emotional capacities to be moved. And for us to enjoy the absolute wonder of the human voice. A great contrast between Jeremy Kyle, who frankly has lost his temperament and ability to be balanced and sits in judgement in a monstrous way? To the "Voice," where performances were certainly judged, because it is a competition, and at the same time feedback skilfully kept those who were not chosen to go forward, hopeful and respected for the people that they are... On the one hand, Mr Kyle with his pride, ego and fearful judgements, metaphorically flogging the mentally ill in public. On the other hand, the "Voice" challenging and supportive at the same time, building courage, faith and confidence in those performing… Extreme feelings: anger and resentment by Mr Kyle, and gratitude for the BBC voice which pulled at every positive emotion I had this morning…
Step four and five: the purpose of the fearless moral inventory is to understand what happened, emotionally and physically over the years. And as a consequence our eyes are opened to both emotional and spiritual living in the moment of now. Revisiting old wounds, old resentments which have never been resolved, the point is to let them out and deal with them and see our part in what happened. Our personal conduct over the years, will often cause us considerable pain because of what we did. Taking account of nothing in between our raw feelings and what we are doing in step four, I did need fellowship and friends to support me. If I had needed to be taught a lesson about my behaviour and made to feel inferior, I would have been best placed with Mr Kyle, who would certainly have heightened my emotional range considerably. If I wanted to make progress, deal with the awfulness of the past, and then come out the other side with an understanding of consequences and amends, the wise choice was the counsellor, truthful, challenging and able to help me put my life back together. Do I want Jerry Springer/Mr Kyle as an intervention? Or straight talking people in fellowship? I know what worked for me…
It may be unfair to be suggesting anything but good intent, putting alcoholics and addicts on show on TV and I could be wrong in my opinion of the Jeremy Kyle show? When it comes to TV programmes which invite mentally ill people to participate and entertain, I am not sure what the impact of these programs intend. The number of alcohol and drug dependent people in the UK is very high. And certainly TV programmes which show how disabling alcohol and drug dependence is to individuals, families, communities and society need to be made. And I do not know the answers for society, so maybe I ought not to criticise, after all, recovery is just one day long. And the ills that these TV programmes highlight have been going on for centuries… No wonder the balance and content are difficult. And the truth changes every single day…
Alcoholics Anonymous | April 4 2012 | DonInLondon | Step 4 "Fear Less Inventory" Today's AA daily reflection: "crying for the moon" I'm not too familiar with what this means, but what follows is the description of how alcoholism holds us in its grip, and the obsession to do well when we feel inferior continues to hamper our progress into sobriety…
Video For Today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFiMLVaJzrs
I was certainly in the grip of many fears in my drinking years, a desire to be accepted, a desire for a wife and everything including family, a desire to succeed in any enterprise. And I set high standards for myself and tried to sustain them, and alcohol was always my best friend when I had success and when I did not measure up in my own estimations. Drink took the edge off the pain and success and then drink took that edge off me, and without drink now I realise I was simply good enough and no need to be perfect…
The only way for me to drink responsibly these days is to drink water! I now realise just how hazardous self-medication with alcohol was. It may have taken one drink in the past to set me off on adventures which seemed to be very pleasurable at the time and full of encounters I can see would have flourished, and more interesting and meaningful if I had not been so self-absorbed. The journey for each of us is arduous when it comes to recovery and step four; a chronicle of success and catastrophe and how we felt about life is so valuable in learning what I can and cannot do today…
Can do, cannot do and the wisdom to know the difference happens in the moment and just for today. I now understand fully what it means when we ask ourselves, "hungry, angry, lonely, tired H.A.L.T" simply stopping and taking a reality check. How am I feeling, why and what may I do next, it can be something or nothing depending what is appropriate in the present moment. Keeping it simple for a complicated person like me? I think so and always just for today…
DonInLondon 2005-2011
No longer driven by the idea that "life will be better when I get this job, that girl or whatever it may be…" Sober today I may have dreams, and make steps toward the future based on real life, real life as it is. I can be open, honest and willing, share my hopes and put in the foot work today. Unrealistic dreams are resentments under construction...
How do we look after ourselves? My late father, said to me many years ago, "I wished I had cherished your mother more and been less superficial and indifferent" Dad never found recovery. Those words, cherish, superficial and indifferent help me every day. To cherish always and be aware of superficiality and indifference..
Every day we learn more about who we are, how we are feeling, why and what we may do ~ Katharine Butler Hathaway "All I can do is act according to my deepest instinct, and be whatever I must be; crazy or ribald or sad or compassionate or loving or indifferent. That is all anybody can do" -/- We learn to cherish ourselves and everyone, just as we may be today..
-/-
AA Daily Reflection: Daily Reflections ~ CRYING FOR THE MOON “This very real feeling of inferiority is magnified by his childish sensitivity and it is this state of affairs which generates in him that insatiable, abnormal craving for self-approval and success in the eyes of the world. Still a child, he cries for the moon. And the moon, it seems, won’t have him!” LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 102
While drinking I seemed to vacillate between feeling totally invisible and believing I was the centre of the universe. Searching for that elusive balance between the two has become a major part of my recovery. The moon I constantly cried for is, in sobriety, rarely full; it shows me instead its many other phases, and there are lessons in them all. True learning has often followed an eclipse, a time of darkness, but with each cycle of my recovery, the light grows stronger and my vision is clearer.
-/-
As Bill Sees It ~ Foundation for Life... We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms. In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His will that we can have for the day, and that we be given the grace by which we may carry it out There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life. TWELVE AND TWELVE 1. P. 104 2. P. 102 3. P. 98 20
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