FreeOwl

Well, for the better part of a year and a half now, I've been on Step 4. That is to say, I've done a proper Step 1-3, including a workbook and meetings with my sponsor along the way. We reviewed feedback and talked about my experience and my answers. Then he gave me a Step 4 workbook and I got a start on it - then began to delay.

Step 4 is about getting pretty hardcore honest with ourselves. It's not easy to do. It's not easy to find the motivation to sit and face it. It also, for me anyway, introduced a lot of questions and confusion. What SHOULD I be including here? I'd make a list of things, but then I'd set it aside. More things would gradually creep up. Some of the things I'd felt I'd already done a sort of step 4 and 5 on in my past. Did I need to do them again (I decided, yes - may as well).

Though I am not "done" with step 4 in the sense that my workbook is still evolving and my official review of the step and preparing with my sponsor for a step 5 - I feel like it's progress regardless. Along the way over the past year, I've done step four work on my own, in my head, sometimes on paper, sometimes not. It happens as my day-to-day life and my participation in recovery continue to bring greater clarity to my own history.

I've done Step 5 along the way, too.... Sharing with my therapist, sharing with fellows in AA, sharing versions and parts of my story at the detox unit where I volunteer, sharing here. By the time I get to the "formal" step 5, it's starting to feel like it will be pretty easy and not at all scary - since I will have already spent a lot of honest time with these issues and shared a lot of the stuff already.

Now, my path through the steps isn't "right", but I like to think it's also not "wrong". It's working, in the sense that it is helping me stay sober and deepen my sobriety. A lot of old-timers and purists will tell you that's not how it works. And for many, it's NOT how it works.

But just for the sake of sharing and communicating to those who may be somewhat off-put by messages like that, I thought I'd share a little about where I am and how it's working for ME. Because maybe I'm not the only one this might be beneficial for.

sugarbear1

Everyone has their own way of working through those steps. I happened to be in and out of AA many years before I was ready to finally stay stopped. Oh, no! What's a gal to do when she doesn't have her alcohol? Well, I met a woman who guided me through those 12 steps in 2 days, for relief at 2 weeks of sobriety (or I was going to drink or hurt myself).

I was guided through them again at 4 months (another 4th and 5th step, along with the rest), 8 months and 18 months of sobriety (when I was getting "squirrley" or complacent). At 8 months, I began to sponsor others.....

For me, step 2 came to life after step 7. Each time through the steps I learned more about me.

That was how I worked them. There is no right or wrong way to work those steps!!! Just work them!!!

FreeOwl

You also raise a very good point about the iterative nature of the steps.

Honestly, I view them as something that on any given day, we might find ourselves in STEP ONE again.... just reminding ourselves we're powerless over alcohol - so DO NOT PICK UP THE FIRST ONE!!!

Or, having not yet completed all the steps, we may find ourselves at Step 12 - carrying the message to those who still suffer..... volunteering to speak, two years sober, at a meeting.

In fact, steps 10-11-12 almost seem to me to be a daily cycle....

bluedog97

I started a 4th step twice now with a sponsor and relapsed both times. The 4th and 5th steps turn me into a frightened little kid, I just don't want to do it! The whole experience drove me from AA.

It's actually good to see others experiences with this. Thanks for sharing.

sugarbear1

Stopping on a step, especially 4, can take us out quickly. I wrote my 4th step while my sponsor was in another room, in about 4 hours. It can be done and we don't have to do it alone. Step 5 was a discussion, by 7, I had relief and haven't had a craving or obsession to drink or use since then. Get through those fears! We can be free of that stuff we walk around with daily.

FreeOwl

Oh Im sure I could do it all at once. In fact I put a lot on paper all at once.... but I keep finding more!!



Im not worried and my approach won't take me out. Just a different way of going about it.

I actually feel like I've gone through all the steps.... some of them many times over. But still, the formal process and the workbooks and the sponsor are imporrant, so I will continue on!

MIRecovery

What helped me was to really work on the things that have bounced around in my head for years or in some cases most of my life. Especially things that involved sex, fear and resentments.

I needed to purge all of that crap once and for all. I needed to own what I should, forgive others and myself, and divulge my deepest darkest secrets to another human being

FreeOwl

I totally agree. And what Ive found is that it has taken time for my deepest darkest secrets to be revealed to ME first.

It's remarkable the difference in a couple years of sobriety.... the things that I have begun to recall through the process of recovery that I hadnt ever thought consciously of for decades.

The 4th step that I wrote when I first started almost doesn't even resemble the REAL 4th step that is emerging.

MIRecovery

My sponsor is bugging me to do a forth step again so I have been thinking a lot about it. You are right what will be on this 4th step has little to do with my first 4th step.

Fly N Buy

Or the one we'll do at 5 - 10 and 15 years.....