DoubleDragons

Okay, I need to preface this by saying I have never worked a 12 step program. I have never "worked the steps" for any recovery work. I am eight months sober primarily by staying connected to SR. So, I have often heard people getting stuck on Steps 4 and 5. These are the touchy scary steps from what I gather. I would really appreciate those of you who have done step work to really help guide us here. Thank you in advance!!

Step 4 Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

I think one of the biggest aha moments for me in doing all of this "recovering" is learning that I am just not everything I cracked myself up to be. :P I am coming to terms that some of my most "wonderful" traits of thoughtfulness, rigid organization, having a hard time accepting gifts, being a fixer of anyone's life whether they asked for it or not, are not quite the altruistic traits I wanted to believe that that were. Mostly I am learning that everything I did was for some kind of payback for me, which laid the ground for a lot of resentment because I never seemed to get the "payback" that I felt that I deserved to get for doing a lot of unsolicited (possibly dare I admit it, unwanted) "help" for anyone and everyone that I deemed needed it. Ugh. I have been humbled in the last few months and a little muddled, too. I was trying explain this to my sister and she said to me, "Well, I don't think there is anything wrong with being nice." Which hit me right in the stomach, and started a guilt trip in me, second guessing whether I might just be in a hormone induced, whacked out pity party.

I am more selfish than I care to admit or portray. I have made a lot of rash decisions in my life without giving as much care or concern as to how these decisions may have affected others. I have taken my body and health for granted for most of my life with very little self care. I am too impulsive. I am more judgmental than I care to admit or portray. I have gossiped too much. These are just the ones that come right to the top of my head.

Any thoughts on how to make this step particularly meaningful and life altering would be greatly appreciated by me!

ladyscribbler

For my formal Alanon step 4, I used the Blueprint for Progress workbook. I did about 20 minutes a night four nights a week. It took me around six weeks to finish the whole thing. It unearthed a lot of old memories. Some of them were really hard to face. Some nights I had to put the book aside and come back to it the next day.
A lot of my foo stuff came bubbling up. I realized that people I had idolized, the ones who seemed to have everything under control, were even sicker than the alcoholics. My grandma (dad's mom) was the worst offender. I worshipped that woman with my childish devotion, but she was monstrous. I saw how close I had gotten to becoming her.
The fourth step has shined a light on my flaws, my defects, the dark corners of my soul. It also showed me the best parts of myself, the ones that had been obscured in my fruitless struggle to control that which is out of my control. I remember once in middle school a teacher gave us the assignment to think of our best qualities and write them down, then pick out what we thought was our best quality. I couldn't think of a single one back then, but now I know there are lots.
It was terrifying, but liberating. I still struggle with my defects, but my awareness makes it easier to cast them aside and turn things over to my hp when I want to start old behaviors.

DoubleDragons

I am having a "wake-up" call about my grandmother (my alcoholic mother's mother), too,
ladyscribbler. I idolized her and she idolized me. She felt like the only spark of unconditional love that I had in my entire childhood. However, I am now seeing how she played on my mom's insecurities, was indiscriminately hurtful to her daughters or anyone who was in earshot who she wanted to diss. She talked about my mother to my sister and I in a very gossipy way and was always slipping us kids drinks of alcohol. (my cousin remembers being drunk at age nine at her house) I imagine it must have been hard for my mother to see her children simply adore her mother with the baggage that she had with her mother and her mother's actions. My daughter wrote on my mother's mother's day card that she is the best grandmother there ever was and my father made a big public display of praising my daughter for writing that. I just had to keep with my frozen smile while trying not to gag continually. I realize, now, that my mom probably felt the same way about her mom. These cycles of alcoholism/abuse/control/emotional issues in families don't just pop out of thin air. The dysfunction just keeps cycling until someone really does the work to change it and even after that, there are no guarantees.

Croissant

Wow....looks like I revisited your progress on the step work at just the right time, DD. Step 4.

Oh. Boy.

I went to quote some of your post, to respond to, DD...but as I read on...all of it could have been me.

I know we've discussed this briefly in other threads, but oh boy, I had the biggest eye opener to my own quagmire of martyrdom a month or so back in the aftermath of a death in our family.

I also realised I REALY honed this behaviour when drinking as day by day, year by year I tried to over compensate my deep seated guilt of drinking, with altruistic deeds.

In establishing boundaries...I have to protect me, but what I learned is it also protects OTHERS from me...wtf??

So I guess part of what I've learned about the moral inventory is, it's mine. My morals, the essence of what I hold true is also another part of it. AND that the way I run my life, is not necessarily how others would run theirs - so offering to help when I think someone is in CHAOS...is not necessarily my responsibility and they have their own path of growth to forge out. (Who would have thought?!)

Also, the taking for granted health etc. yep. That is me. I can lose weight shape up, work it up, whenever I want.....ummm, not so fast little lady....you've just wreaked havoc on your body, hard, for at least the last 5 years. Now you will have to do the time. Oh, really? Can't I just quick fix it? I love a quick fix? What's that you say? I'm middle aged, no way....what...I wasted the last 5 years but I can't quickly get back into shape? What? Noooo.

Anyway...clearly, I have some inventory to be doing. I will commit to sticking with this thread for this step because, yeah...it's right for this time on my recovery and I've made a start on it.

Will a week be enough time for this step DD? Hehe!

Croissant

Ditto. That's part of what came out in our family with the recent death....it was like someone lifted a beautiful rock and all the creepy crawlies that were sitting underneath it were exposed.

It's almost like time has stood still from years ago from a behaviours and dynamics viewpoint. Scary stuff. I also realised the other day that my Father (non drinker, but alcoholic mother)...has had no spiritual growth his whole life that I can tell. And in some freaky way, I've now become his Mother. (Yeah, that effing scared me!)

DoubleDragons

A week, Croissant?? No way!! Honey, I was just getting warmed up . . .

DoubleDragons

Ugh, mothering your father. Just double ugh. My narcissistic father reminds me of Lucy and I am Charlie Brown. My whole life, he has opened up to me, poured out his heart, gotten me to feel so sorry for him, only to slam me back down to nothing because he can't stand that he allowed any of his "weaknesses" to show through and I will be punished for it. I know this game; I have played it since I can remember, and yet, I manage to fall for it again and again . . . .

Croissant

Oh, ha, cool!

Yeah, my relationship with my Father now I'm sober is like I've woken from a dream and been dropped in a nightmare!

Ugh....this step is hard! I just went to do a moral inventory on him....ugh, back to me. Yikes.

DesertEyes

I love step 4. Most of the time I skip the first 3 steps and go right to #4

.... until my sponsor finds me out and makes me start from #1

What works for me is to follow the analogy of a business doing a _physical_ inventory of merchandise. What are my _positive_ traits? my negative? which do I have too much of? not enough? What _should_ I have to be in balance?

That is just the beginning. Having once been a business owner I understand that just knowing what you have won't help much. I have to know _why_ I have too little or too much if I want to correct the imbalance. Having this "list" shows me what areas I need to work on, and in what priority.

What I found out with the inventory is that I am very critical of other people's work habits. The reason I am critical is because I am a workaholic. Classic, out of the textbook, over the top, workaholic. Instead of working to reduce my critical attitude I focused on reducing my "workaholism". As I slowly healed from the need to over-work my critical attitude just slipped away, all on it's own. Imagine that. The inventory showed me how almost all of my "defects" arise from just a few "base" issues.

Once I understood the workaholism and it's causes I continued with the merchandise analogy. I clearly have skills in the field of business, I was just using them incorrectly. I was doing it to excess instead of doing it with expertise. No different than stocking too much of a low quality piece of merchandise. So I went back to school to get an MBA. Not only did that help me in my recovery, I learned how to be a business owner from _experts_. I see that as surrendering my workaholism to the "Higher Power" of the instructors at the University. They showed me how to do it with balance.

One of the things I have always bemoaned is that when I came into the world nobody gave me an owner's manual. This inventory is how I write my own manual for my own life. This inventory, this list of items that need attention, is the "Table of Contents" to my owner's manual.

Mike

Croissant

Not sure if this is helpful (OMG I am questioning everything I do as part of my inventory! - please excuse my "helpful" trait!)....but I found revisiting this ACOA Laundry List last night helped me to pinpoint some traits to add to my inventory. Not sure if these have been posted before in the previous steps, DD.

The Laundry List – 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

3. We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.

4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.

7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

8. We became addicted to excitement.

9. We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."

10. We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).

11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.

14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

happybeingme

I too could just copy dd's post and make it my own. But, I added a little twist to mine. I did and did and did and when I martyred myself and didnt get the payback I thought I deserved I used that as further proof that I was unlovable and unworthy. I had a lot of self hatred. But I blamed everyone for it because it was too hard to admit that I hated myself so much.

It took me a long time to realize that I was not getting the payback I sought was because people just assumed I enjoyed what I did and they didnt realize I thought they owed me.

I am a huge work in progress. I still have those tendencies at times. So, before I do things or say things I ask myself my reason for my involvement. If I admit the person isnt really asking for help or if I dont genuinely want to help. I do nothing. I have found to my surprise my relationships are more meaningful and I am mmore at peace with myself.

I think in the long run for me at least a step 4 is something that needs to be a part of my daily life.

CodeJob

I've been using this worksheet for Step 4. That and a lot of paper, posting under Step 4 here periodically, and even a few emails to my therapist and myself. I have used the SR section for Steps 1-3. I also have found meditation very helpful as things just click into place... It is hard to explain.

http://www.sdrconsortium.org/assets/...0Inventory.pdf

I also have a sponsor now and we talk on the phone, text and catch up after a meeting if we can. This week is the first time we are meeting to go over where I am with this process.

IMO I am down to resentments, but we will see if she agrees. It has been a long road. Most recently #11 on the ACOA list has really come into focus for me. It is unnerving to realize that I have a very negative mental caretaker in my head. I run my own stress,anxiety, negativity three ring circus in my head - against my own self. I wish this list had a wider name as my parents were not As. I never knew family dysfunction caused all of this stuff too...

It is worth the work. For me, I look forward to the day to wrap it up for the first time!

DoubleDragons

Thank you, CodeJob. I needed something a little more concrete to work this step.

gleefan

My family were not A's either, but dysfunctional, hurtful caretakers. I'm a recovering alcoholic with a little over 100 days sober.

I've been working on Step 4 in the context of AA and ACoA. This is helping me understand the causes of my behaviors and resentments, and is facilitating profound changes in the way I see and interact with everything and everyone around me.

I'm using this as a guide for writing Step 4. http://barefootsworld.net/aa4thsteptips.html
I'm simultaneously reading the ACoA literature on step 4.

DoubleDragons

Thank everyone for working on these steps together. I really need to do more focused work on Step 4 (those worksheets and tips look to be very helpful), so I am going to delay starting Step 5 until next week. I don't think Step 4 is one that should be rushed. I hope you understand.

gleefan

I have a feeling like this step is going to take a while. That's ok with me because it is incredibly freeing.

ladyscribbler

It took me six weeks to work this one. I'm still hung up on my Alanon step six irl. Working it, but there's more than meets the eye. 4 & 5 are kind of "action steps." 6 is a tricky bugger.
I was worrying that this would be like Game of Thrones where the show is almost caught up to the books and I'll be left behind if the next book doesn't come out (nerd alert, lol).
Take all the time you need.

makomago

It's OK Happy, that's what step 10 is for :-)

EveningRose

I struggle with what this step means to those of us who are children of alcoholics, but have not become addicted to alcohol or drugs ourselves.

I've always felt that, as the family scapegoat, I was told often enough all my problems, that if anything, I needed to climb OUT of the pit and see that I have GOOD points.

gleefan

I did the fourth step on two significant relationships in my childhood. Wow. Far from walking away from that exercise blaming her or me, I walked away understanding the reasons for the choices I've made that hurt me, and having the power to make different choices. It was not blameful at all.