[freya]

For me, taking personal inventory everyday is absolutely essential. I mean, how else am I going to avoid piling up a big heap of unaddressed "garbage" that will sooner or later lead me right back into the same kind of thinking and acting that brought me into recovery in the first place??????

In most cases, taking a daily inventory -- or a spot inventory -- is pretty easy for me. Actually, it's pretty much habitual and reflexive as soon as I start to feel uncomfortable about something and/or disconnected from HP. The only time I write stuff down is if I can't easily and/or exactly put my finger on the problem and what's underlying it...because writing it down and, often, talking about it with someone else helps me to work it through and analyze it more thoroughly and carefully.

But, it seems to me like, for anyone who is relatively new and for whom taking daily/spot inventory is not a habit and who is not yet used to really looking at and dealing with his/her own sh*t as it comes up in daily life, writing it down is a good way to get in the habit and to learn how to really work through and understand exactly what is going on with him/herself when he/she behaves in ways that are not consistent with good recovery and/or the desire to live a HP centered life.

For now, you might really need to get input from your sponsor or some other trusted program person in order to really "work things through" and figure out what you need to do to address/amend stuff....but the longer you practice doing this, the more you will be able to just quickly and easily do it for/by yourself and the less often you will need to seek other's input.

But, really, the importance of taking your inventory on an at-least daily-basis cannot possibly be overstated. The better you get doing this, the less often you will need to be doing huge 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th Steps.

freya