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Step 5 - how far back in the past do you go?

Old 12-02-2013, 07:06 PM
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Step 5 - how far back in the past do you go?

How far in the past do you admit the nature of your wrongs?

Do you only admit the wrongs that bother you?

Some of the wrongs I've done was when I was not even drinking, but most people do these wrongs, do I even admit these?

What's your experience?
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Old 12-03-2013, 10:18 AM
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My 5th Steps are always based on my 4th Steps. All the things that made my resentment, fear, and sex lists (and the wrongs/harms identified) are discussed in the 5th Step. I make no distinction between things that occurred while drinking or sober. A wrong is a wrong.

For instance, when I was 6-7 years old, some kid pushed me off the stage during one of those holiday school programs. I was furious and embarassed by that. Yeah, as an adult that incident isn't still haunting me, but I still remember it (because it went to all those core 3rd column issues in affecting my self-esteem and pride). Therefore, it went on my first 4th Step. I find it very easy to be dishonest and pre-judge the items in that inventory. I want to believe that these petty little resentments and petty little bits of entitlement and getting one up on other people are way beneath me and I shouldn't be concerned with them. In short, I want to minimize them and leave them off the list. I've found that I sell myself short if I don't include them. I err on the side of thoroughness of honesty, even if it doesn't paint a flattering picture of myself.
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Old 12-03-2013, 12:19 PM
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It's not about what wrongs other people do - the inventory is yours and yours alone. Just because everyone does X, doesn't mean I have to. And if I do, and it bothers me and/or causes a harm, then it goes on my list. What the other cats do is none of my business.

As for what went on my 4th - it doesn't matter if I was drunk or sober, whether I was drinking socially or alcoholically, whether I was 8 or 88 years old...if I caused harm, if I feel resentful, fearful or had harms in the sexual / romantic realm, it went on my list. I had to make an amend to an old girlfriend I hadn't seen in 25 years. (That's a whole other story) - but at the time I wasn't fully alcoholic. I was just a jerk, period. I treated her in a manner that wasn't kind and loving. Far from it. It had nothing to do with my drinking.

In the end, if it's still on top of mind, or keeps coming to me in mindfullness and stillness, if it's a burr on my psychic and spiritual side...I put it on the list.
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Old 12-03-2013, 12:27 PM
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Are you doing the steps alone or with a sponsor? I too err on thoroughness of my core column and step #4. Resentment toss it on. But before you go to step #5 you should be going over your inventory with your sponsor or a group. I am currently on step #4, as I have had to go back to step #1 and step #3 a couple times.
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Old 12-03-2013, 01:48 PM
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Originally Posted by jdooner View Post
Are you doing the steps alone or with a sponsor? I too err on thoroughness of my core column and step #4. Resentment toss it on. But before you go to step #5 you should be going over your inventory with your sponsor or a group. I am currently on step #4, as I have had to go back to step #1 and step #3 a couple times.
yes I am doing it with a sponsor.
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Old 12-03-2013, 02:15 PM
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how free do you want to be? if oyu want to be 1/4 free, go back 1/4 of your life.
if you want to be 1/2 free, go back 1/2
if you want to be totally free, go back as far as possible.
but remember..more will be revealed.
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Old 12-03-2013, 02:18 PM
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"but most people do these wrongs, "
ill disagree. I have met one other person in AA that has said they caused the death of another human while drunk.
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Old 12-03-2013, 05:16 PM
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Originally Posted by keithj View Post
My 5th Steps are always based on my 4th Steps. All the things that made my resentment, fear, and sex lists (and the wrongs/harms identified) are discussed in the 5th Step. I make no distinction between things that occurred while drinking or sober. A wrong is a wrong.

For instance, when I was 6-7 years old, some kid pushed me off the stage during one of those holiday school programs. I was furious and embarassed by that. Yeah, as an adult that incident isn't still haunting me, but I still remember it (because it went to all those core 3rd column issues in affecting my self-esteem and pride). Therefore, it went on my first 4th Step. I find it very easy to be dishonest and pre-judge the items in that inventory. I want to believe that these petty little resentments and petty little bits of entitlement and getting one up on other people are way beneath me and I shouldn't be concerned with them. In short, I want to minimize them and leave them off the list. I've found that I sell myself short if I don't include them. I err on the side of thoroughness of honesty, even if it doesn't paint a flattering picture of myself.
That reminds me of my first grade teacher, Sister Gertrude Frankenstein, who put a dunce hat on my head and sat me in the front of the class with all my peers laughing at me.
That set in motion for me a pattern of behavior that is still intertwined in my personality - namely that I am less than and not part of.
I discovered in my 4th. Step that pattern permeated all my social interactions. It was only when I started drinking that alcohol enabled me to feel part of and quash those feelings
for a while until it stopped working. I also think that all my patterns were locked in about the time I reached puberty and that is why it is crucial to dig into the childhood
experiences. After all, I took my first drink at 17 and emotional maturity stopped there until my last drink at 40 when it began again. Its like those flicks where the kid
switches bodies with his parent but still has the mind of a kid in an adult body. For the alky it is not a movie, its reality.

It is my belief that these ingrained negative behavior patterns and thought processes attach themselves to the alcoholics libido and unless placed on paper, in black and white,
will dominate us and prevent any type of real recovery. That is why I agree with you Keith that we should not analyze what comes out of our subconscious - just let it flow
and do columns 3, 4 & 5 after the list is done.
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Old 12-03-2013, 06:34 PM
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Originally Posted by UncleMeat69 View Post
That reminds me of my first grade teacher, Sister Gertrude Frankenstein, who put a dunce hat on my head and sat me in the front of the class with all my peers laughing at me.
That set in motion for me a pattern of behavior that is still intertwined in my personality - namely that I am less than and not part of.
I discovered in my 4th. Step that pattern permeated all my social interactions. It was only when I started drinking that alcohol enabled me to feel part of and quash those feelings
for a while until it stopped working. I also think that all my patterns were locked in about the time I reached puberty and that is why it is crucial to dig into the childhood
experiences. After all, I took my first drink at 17 and emotional maturity stopped there until my last drink at 40 when it began again. Its like those flicks where the kid
switches bodies with his parent but still has the mind of a kid in an adult body. For the alky it is not a movie, its reality.

It is my belief that these ingrained negative behavior patterns and thought processes attach themselves to the alcoholics libido and unless placed on paper, in black and white,
will dominate us and prevent any type of real recovery. That is why I agree with you Keith that we should not analyze what comes out of our subconscious - just let it flow
and do columns 3, 4 & 5 after the list is done.
Thanks a lot to everyone. This forum helps me a lot. I am currently going through all the steps again and left a lot out, i can't wait to do them again.
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Old 12-03-2013, 09:06 PM
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Originally Posted by soberhal9 View Post
Thanks a lot to everyone. This forum helps me a lot. I am currently going through all the steps again and left a lot out, i can't wait to do them again.
That is great. Keep on trudging.

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Old 12-23-2013, 10:39 PM
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I recently did a 4th and 5th step with my sponsor, and it was very thourough. and fearless. I went back to when I was 5. all the resentments that bothered ME. and the harms done, fears, and sex-inventory. although some of the stuff seemed trivial they bothered me. After doing the 4th and 5th step I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I forgave people whom I had deep resentments towards, even though I played no part.

These steps are amazing.
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Old 12-24-2013, 02:44 PM
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It didn't matter to me what others did or do, this was about ME.

My first one over 2.5 years ago, I did what was bothering me today as I needed "triage" (quick relief or I was going to go drink again).

I believe I went back to the doctor who slapped me for my second or third 5th step! (childbirth--joke inserted here)

Yes, what is bothering me still???? I did go back to birth.....
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Old 12-27-2013, 11:49 AM
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First of all, I've found that it's very, very important to realize that the book says my mistakes, not my wrongs, or my parts.

For me, both as a sponsee and as a sponsor, this has been a really vital distinction, especially when we are looking at things that go way, way back to early family of origin, perhaps even pre-verbal times of our lives. The fact of the matter is that a small child's mistakes are not wrongs or parts in the same way that an older persons mistakes are

And, yes, I did have to eventually go back that far -- actually ended up doing a 'rebirthing' excercise. It took awhile -- and several times through the steps -- to get down to that because Ihad to deal with a lot of bias and prejudice and just-plain-resistance to a phrase/concept ('inner-child work') that I had resented and belittled for a very, very long time (which, BTW, was the part of the issue that could accurately be referred to as my part or my wrong, because resisting that concept and the work it entailed as stubbornly and as hatefully for as long as I did, even though a lot of people -- many of whom I respect -- had been hinting I needed to look into it for a long time was something that I was responsible for as my adult self.)

So anyway, the basic issues that had come up in various ways on several successive 4th Steps were a totally irrational fear of and resentment toward mainstream medicine and then (and I had no clue how these 2 were even related until after the rebirthing thing) a vague, kinda general free-floating resentment toward masculine-energied authority figures.

Anyway, finally a program friend who's into a lot of new-agey spirituality and healing stuff just kind of got me over to her place one day with some other women and said: "How about we practice this rebirthing exercise I've been trying to learn to facilitate?"

And so we did.

And what it was was basically she had one of those tunnels you buy for kids to play in, like probably 12-15 feet long, and we took turns like massaging/pushing each other through the tunnel -- after having done this prayer and guided meditation that was somehow related to getting us into a place to access very early, pre-verbal memories (I don't remember the details.)

And for me - and one other woman there -- it was like this huge, emotional experience...and there was a lot of fear and anger associated with it, and I was really pretty much a hysterical wreck for like 30 minutes afterwards.

So, my friend helped me to identify the exact feelings and then suggested that I talk to my mom and try to get some more details about my birth. I mean, she had told me like all the basic, general things many times, but when I talked to her about it that time I found out (and, BTW, I was her first child.) that she had specifically told the doctor (male) the she did not want to be anesthetized, and about half way through, he put her under anyways, without even telling her he was going to do it. So she was out (not present) when I was born, and then, the very first time that they brought me to her to let her hold and feed me, she was nursing me and that doctor came into the room. He said: "Mrs. C. you have such a natural way of holding a baby." and she just lit into him, starting with: "I could have had a natural way of having a baby, too, you bastard!"...and the fight was ON...and my mom is a nasty, go-straight-for-the-juggler fighter.

(This was 1959, so the weirdness of my mom's desire not to be knocked-out for the delivery was only exceeded by her willingness to go full-out, toe-to-toe with a male authority figure.) Obviously, my mom got another, female, doctor for the rest of her deliveries.

Like I said, I had always had this big fear -- close to hatred -- of doctors and mainstream medicine (I actually had my kids at home with a lay midwife.), but I found out, too, when I was talking with my mom, that even as an infant/toddler she could not take me to a doctor's office without my grandmother being there to carry me out as soon as the doctor was done seeing me because I would cry and scream so loudly that people couldn't even hear each other talk and just make everyone crazy.

*******

So, going back to the wrongs vs. mistakes things. It is obviously impossible that a newborn child commit a wrong or have any kind of intentional, needs-to-be-held-accountable part in a situation like the one I just described....my mistake was that I allowed that one pretty-much 'first experience' of my life to totally control my perception of and behavior toward masculine-energied authority figures, especially those in the medical field, for close to 45 years.

I've also found with sponsees that the whole wrongs thing can be very, very problematic for people who have suffered childhood abuse of any kind -- I mean like problematic to the point that it can keep them from finishing their 4th Step, so I always have this discussion about the difference between wrongs, parts, hurts and mistakes upfront. And we write and talk about mistakes.

freya

P.S. Just FYI, For me, knowing exactly what was at the bottom of my fears and resentments around my birth experience ended up being super important in terms of really identifying the character defects that had grown out of them and then becoming truly ready and willing to let them go. And, over the last 2 years, God has removed all of my old insanity that was the result of this core wound. It has been a total miracle and absolute fulfillment of the 10th Step promises for me. It is friggin' unbelievable, and there are no words to adequately to express my gratitude.
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Old 04-12-2014, 10:14 AM
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A thorough house cleaning was necessary. We look squarely in the eyes, and we get everything off our chest. It all boils down to what we felt. So having a million people, places and things on the list, boils down to a handful of feelings.
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Old 06-29-2015, 12:22 PM
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Originally Posted by soberhal9 View Post
How far in the past do you admit the nature of your wrongs?

Do you only admit the wrongs that bother you?

Some of the wrongs I've done was when I was not even drinking, but most people do these wrongs, do I even admit these?

What's your experience?
I was taught via the Big Book Step Study, Hyannis Format. I was instructed to go back to age 0-5, or my first memory of my first resentment. I was also taught to write down every resentment that came into mind, no matter how trivial it seemed. I was told it's not about the resentment persay (hurt people hurt, that's not meant to be invalidating), it's about my thinking/perception about the resentment, and my actions I took in response to the resentment.

I was also told that if a name pops up into my mind but I don't know why, write the name down anyway.

Going so far back into the past saw how early on my incorrection reaction to life started, and how long it has been going on for. It was absolutely eye opening. I've been so focused on what people have done to me that made me angry, that I had no idea how my thinking and behavior that resulted from it, hurt other people. It was all about ME.
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Old 06-30-2015, 07:38 PM
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my first resentment was when I was 4-5 years old.
It was really 3 resentments against a Dr
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Old 11-27-2015, 07:45 AM
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We go back to our lives nothing counted but throne as an honesty as we go back to our life year by year as far as the memory will take us we are bound to construct a long list of people resentment fancy or real I'm to write down whomever I had a resentment against from the beginning of time until now or from now till backwards then all we do is write down who were angry at and why what was affected they give us the answers then the most important part the best kept secret the turnarounds the exact nature of my wrongs the part I played whether I was a victim or not then fear then the sex inventory my conduct my behavior how I treated every person when I was in a relationship it's an autobiography we have the answers it's our life and step 4 becomes our 8th step list our ninth step reference book it doesn't get burned although it comes down to one thing honesty being honest like we've never been on it before or we die we have to identify the fear yet walk through it because inevitably is what runs and controls our life
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