Of the myriad facets of recovery, I think inventories are what have helped me the most. Like an inventory of a store, the purpose is to identify what is good and should be kept, and what is not and should be removed. An inventory is the guide I am going to use as I fix _me_ and turn me into a better person.
What works for me is to first read the step _backwards_.
"Ourselves". This is in plural. This is not a step that I am to do alone, it is to be done _with_ other people. That is why there are step meetings, and sponsors. Digging thru my innnermost guilt is _not_ an excercise to be done in isolation, it is to be done as a team. Which is what we are doing in this thread
"Inventory". This is a list. Nothing more. There is no judgement, no grading, no recrimination, no acusation. It is just a list, with a very practical purpose.
"Moral". The list is very simple. It will say what is good and can be kept, and what is not. No justifications, no explanations or excuses, no minimization. Just simply keep or toss.
"Fearless". That's a fancy word for "no cheating". No denial, no pretending, no avoiding for dissembling. Just the facts, nothing more, or less.
"Searching". This means I have to take my time and find all the little, nit-picking stuff that keeps me awake late at night. The stuff that's embarasing, frightening, or just plain disgusting.
"Made". This is an action word, so there is going to be a concrete result. Something on paper. Not just something to think about, talk about, discuss, consider or evaluate. We will _make_ a list that we can hold, review and use in the future.
As someone who has spent a lifetime ducking and dodging the unpleasant realities of life, this was a very different and confusing sentence. It is also liberating. I am going to speak the full and complete truth, without fear, for the first time in my life.
I've done a number of these during my recovery. The first few were broad, and showed me the major areas in my life where I had messed up, and where to start repairs. Later, I inventoried specific issues that had "snagged" my recovery and caused me deep and unexpected pain. I recently did one about my fear of death, and discovered that it wasn't death that scared me. I had been afraid of _living_.
One fourth step I shared with my sponsor a few years ago had to do with my marriage. I had been refering to it as a my "failed" marriage, and although divorced, I was unable to take the wedding ring off my finger. My sponsor suggested I write down _exactly_ why I described my marriage as "failed", and why I still wore the ring.
I do my inventories the old fashioned way; three columns, on paper, the way it says in the grand-daddy Big Book. I'm a rather simple-minded guy, and this method keeps it simple.
I first listed the people, places and things that caused me strong emotions involving my failed marriage. My wife, of course, but after a little thought, my daughter, my mother, my friends.... and pretty much anyone I came in contact with. Even people today, who never knew my wife.
Next I listed the circumstances where those strong emotions came up. I was a little surprised, after I wrote it all out, that every single time I felt those deep emotions about my marriage was when I was trying to make a good impression. When I was trying to get people to think highly of me. Having figured that out, the third column was pretty much superfluous. It was all about my ego.
Somehow, I had picked up the notion that in order to be a good man, I had to have a good marriage. I was using my marriage as proof of my righteousness in the eyes of other people. Not my actions, not my behavior, not my acomplishments. In one of those weird, insightful moments that recovery surpsises us with I remembered my parents marriage, and the train wreck that had been. I realized, in that moment, that I had spent my entire life trying to prove to the world that I was _not_ like my father, and that being married was some kind of public proof of that.
My parents were long dead. Nobody would ever know, nor care, if I were like my father or not. Yet I was hanging on to the ghost of _their_ marriage, and using it as a standard for _my_ life today.
What an incredible waste of my time and energy, to try and prove to the ghosts of my parents that I was better than them. They are _dead_, for heavens's sake, what ever am I trying to prove?
That quick, all my tangled, strangled pain just simply vanished. My marriage was not a failure. It was a wonderful, beautiful gift that God have given me for twenty years. I helped raise a young child into a grown woman, who now had a family of her own. I had looked after the elderly in-laws, built a home and welcomed friends to our love nest. I had done my very best as a husband to make my corner of the world a better place, and done it very well indeed.
Pride had caused me to hang on once the marriage was over, and in turn caused me to enable my wife's addiction. For that I am to blame. But the end of my marriage was not some kind of failure on my part. It ended simply because it had reached it's natural end, just like all things do some day. It was time to move on to the next adventure in life, this one had run it's course.
The very next day I went to the Salvation Army and donated my wedding ring. It was time for that ring to start it's own new adventure, to help some struggling young couple start their own marriage, and their own path in life.
I am on a new path myself. I have been blessed with a wonderful marriage of 20 years, and all manner of amazing gifts from the HP. I have left that marriage behind, but I will be forever grateful for each and every day, even the ones that were filled with pain. I am living in a new town, with all new friends and even a fresh new relationship. Today I know I have been the man I always wanted to be, and that my life has been far more succesful than I ever dreamed. Had it not been for that painful fourth step, I would not know that, I would still be stuck in the past, judging myself by the shadow of my father.
Mike