Originally Posted by
Joe Nerv 
That sounds like an invitation to start blaming people for things... or equally as bad, view ourselves as victims.
It sounds to me like that "guide" was something someone from coda blogged at one time or another. I've done lots of 4th steps, but nothing that looked like the OP. Though I'm not a bigbook thumpin kinda guy, I have to admit that the way it's laid out in the bigbook is the simplest and most to the point. Pretty much covers it all, and isn't terribly complicated. Search through our flaws (some people use the 7 deadly sins), list our resentments and do the columns thing in the book, then take a close honest look at how fear has affected us, and review our sex history. I know the "columns" has become a big thing with the 4th step, but doing it as laid out didn't really resonate with me. I did it none the less, but I felt almost as if I were taking a quiz in grammer school. Tony screwed my girlfriend, I resent him because.... because... HE THREATENS MY SEX RELATIONS!!! NO, NO... SELF ESTEEM!!! Sorry to make light of it, but that's how it felt to me. I had to write a bit about each of those relationships, to get a little more connected with how it affected me. And the most important part of the process for me was realizing my part, and then praying for the people I resented. I didn't realize the affect this had until I went to do another 4th step a few years later, and most of the people who were listed in the original were gone. I really had no resentment whatsoever with them any more. It worked.
There are lots of guides to doing a 4th step online that are much better than the one in the OP. I'd search a little more and find one that fits the model in the BB. I think that would be your best bet.
And like Uncle Meat said, worked for me for 29 years too. It's a pretty good deal we got goin with stuff
.
You know what's been amazing for me is I have encountered quite a few people through the years from the
"Class of 1985." It was a very good year as Sinatra would say.
I did it from the book as you described but added a little process that really took me deep into the sub-conscious where I opened a whole plethora of buried resentments against not only people, but institutions and principles.
Many of the inventories I hear tend to focus only on people and omit a lot of institutions (schools, criminal justice system, social inequality, etc.). How about how my alcoholic thinking evaluated the principle of powerlessness or moral and ethical standards, etc.
When I got them down on paper and looked at them, I began to realize that they drained my power from me like alcohol drained my life from me because all any resentment is, is unresolved pain and alcohol became the anesthetic of my soul by briefly taking away my pain - until it stopped working. Now the promises I achieve in working the steps remove much of the pain. It's like you said, years later we can look back and see the resentments and fears are gone because the steps do remove them - even better than booze - and they stay removed instead of piling up and up like a trash dump that stinks to high heaven. It really is the easier, softer way.
PS: Let me know when I can send you a cake.
Joe