Anoronha

I sat and wrote 4 pages of everything I am ashamed of. 20 percent still isn't written I'm not ready to face that yet to scared to look at it on paper. I haven't decided who or when I will share it with. But I feel a little better that I did that now. I have decided to get a new sponsor since she won't let me do part of a 5th step with my therapist. I will tell her I. Two weeks time.

Wastinglife

I wouldn't let a sponsor interfere with what a professional therapist is working on with you. A sponsor is no expert and is just a guide through the AA program. Listen to your therapist!

MemphisBlues

If you want to follow AA, I suggest doing as the book Alcoholics Anonymous suggests. Without quoting line and page number, I believe the 5th step explicity states that you can do portions of your "confession" with a priest or any trusted spiritual adviser. Why not a therapist?

If you want things to work with this sponsor, why not sit down with the sponsor and read what the book has to say about the 5th step?

sugarbear1

It's a list of resentments, not shame......

DayTrader

It's great that you;re doing some work. I've done 5th steps with a therapist and I didn't tell parts to my sponsor. I can tell you from experience, it likely will cause problems for you just like it has for me. --it's kinda tough to go to a sponsor for advice when you know the sponsor doesn't have all the pertinent information. Perhaps you just need a sponsor you can trust......

Additionally, as Sugarbear mentioned, what you're doing isn't a 4th step inventory. It's interesting......and it may be revealing......but it's not what the program of AA calls a 4th step. ......hence, the importance of using a sponsor who's familiar with the program and the steps so they can save you the trouble of writing things that you don't need to write and direct you to do what you are recommended to do - assuming you're trying to work the AA program.

You are, of course, able to do whatever you want and work whatever program you want...... but if it's AA you're looking for, I'd suggest following the directions/instructions.

sugarbear1

If I wrote a List Of Shameful Things I've Done, you'd probably have to commit me to an asylum........

I prefer the 4th step, as written in the big book, with the guidance of someone who has had a spiritual awakening as a result of working the 12 steps of recovery, or program of recovery.

The relief and freedom are real, step 3 came alive (it says we came to believe) as a result of working the steps.

I had a choice, work the steps or die a slow and painful alcoholic death.

Spiritual way of life or death?

I had no higher power when I began those steps, I had a willingness to believe and a willingness to believe in the steps.

I worked with my sponsor on step 5, because she had done one. Most of step 5 was her telling me about her 4th step and other things in life; we noted my patterns of behavior, we continued talking, a discourse.

She never saw what I wrote. I barely knew this woman. Trust? I couldn't trust me, how could I trust another? I had faith in the steps and in the process and I did it.

I have the utmost trust in this person today.

I am also forever grateful she was put in my life.

For me, the action was most important. Thoroughness and honesty. A mutual discussion.

neferkamichael

You are certainly getting a lot of what the 4th step is, and here comes some more. I am certainly glad that you are seeing a professional trained therapist and by all means a sponsor is a tough call to make. I started my 4th step quite some time ago and am still doing it. I too in the beginning focused on the "moral" aspect of the inventory, but have gradually shifted to personal character defects. Those faults that are internal to me. I consider ambivalence and procrastination the biggest problems I have in my life. What you put in your brain come out as behavior. If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. Early on I fell for chemicals substances and would probably still be going at it if I hadn't went flat broke. Anoronha, sounds to me you are actively working your program, so take your time and get it right. Rootin for ya.

Anoronha

I must be confused. I have tons of resentments can write that down. I have read the big book on the steps and I read a womans way through the 12 steps.

Anoronha

I can't believe I've had the wrong idea all this time. Now I'm going to wait to get it right. Now I feel kinda stupid.

BruceJ

The 4th and 5th steps were the most difficult, and most liberating, things I've ever done.
I suppose that we all have things in our past that we are ashamed of....and that we'd "go to the grave" before admitting them outloud to someone.... We write those down. I even did it in some sort of code in case someone found it It's funny now. I walked out of the 5th step session with my old sponsor laughing...yeah, laughing. It still amazes me that I let that crap live in my head for so many years.
My advice, for what it's worth, is dig out those things that are bothering you....resentments, things that you wish you hadn't done, things you wish you had done, IOW everything that wants to live in your head and hinder your progress....write it down, spill it out, and be free of it.
All the best.

sugarbear1

We work that step (and the other 11) with the guidance from someone who has been there.

For me, when I've stopped in the middle of a step, or took a long period of time, I was so uncomfortable in my own skin that I went back out drinking. I did that for 25 years. In AA, working the steps, not working the steps, back out. Fighting all that I thought AA was. I was wrong, very, very wrong about AA.

Please work with a sponsor. Tell your therapist your shameful acts, but the 4th step is a moral inventory. Character defects? Yes, we all have them. I can't remove them, a power greater than I can do that, but sometimes a character defect can be useful to others, it's not up to me to decide which one, though. It's life long learning experiences.

Feel how you want, you're okay in my eyes, Anoronha, I've done exactly the same thing as you, at one point in my life.

Hugs & love,

Mark75

Please don't feel that way... the 4th step is one of the more counterintuitive steps...

The beauty of the fourth step, for me, is that I was able to "see" myself as accurately as I ever have before... The only way, for me to see myself, was to understand what my resentments tell me about myself.

So, for me to list out all the things I don't like about myself, all the things that I am ashamed of... those are things I already know, or think I know, about myself... In the 4th step I am on a quest to find out that which is right in front of me but I do not see...

And, you know, it wasn't worse, or better than I thought it would be... But it was enormously useful and freeing... and marked the most important turning step in my early journey...

Keep at it... Find a sponsor that will help you.... Prayers to you.

Sapling

I've heard the fourth step called...The truth about the lie...Great post Mark.

hamabi

Getting information that can serve to make our actions effective is smart. Guessing at things and doing what might not be effective is less reasonable, since we have important goals for doing these actions that we want to see come to pass for ourselves.

Asking her "Tell me how exactly you did your 4th step?" and then following suit, not being swayed by any good ideas that might appear to improve on what has worked for her would be a good action to take.

Then you have a template that you know has already been successful to work from.

If she has been comfortably sober a long time you can reasonably believe that doing those same things in the same way will produce that result for you. If she's not done well at staying sober there would be some doubt about the quality of her instructions, and finding better is indicated.

Sure you can read the material and then proceed using your level of understanding, but why not use everything available to you to improve your chances of good results instead of unsatisfactory ones? If good results are important to you.

Anoronha

I tried to ask questions about what the 4th step was like for her and she said it was rough but she got through it that was all. She said not to rush it and she will give me the workbook in a weeks time. The only reason I started writing is because I am going out of my mind with guilt and I need something productive to do about it. I'm trying real hard to not pick up a drink.

hamabi

She says wait for the workbook...whoa.

((((Anoronha))))

tomsteve

1st thing first. yer not stupid!
if yer trying real hard to not pick up a drink, back up a few steps and know a drink aint gonna make anything better.
heres some things about the 4th step:
you've already lived everything rattling around in yer head once in real time. probably a few hundred times over since then. drinking didnt help it. fear= F**k Everything And Run
or Face Everything And Recover.
theres no such thing as an original sin. theres only a few billion people on this planet right now so anything you have thought, done, or said has all been thought, done, or said before. whats gonna help ya? facing it and finding out what make you tick( shortcomings/defects of character).
now, heres what i do as i was taught:
when i got into recovery, i would hear people comin in who had gotten to the 4th step and went back out and drank. it baffled me as i was in the midst of the 4th. i couldnt understand it so i asked a man with great knowledge of the program and a lot of time in AA." why do poeple go back out when they get to the 4th step?"
his reply:" they didnt do the first 3 steps completely. if im not running the show, i have no fear of doing a searching and fearless moral inventory and thats why yer not having a problem with it."

please get a sponsor that has worked the steps and can guide you through this as it is written in the BB.

Anoronha

I am going to attend a step study meeting this week, and a womens group and a young people's meetings. I will be following this for the next month or so. I will go back to my home group after that. Thank you all for the feedback to Steve you are right about fear and the 1st 3 steps.

bbthumper

Ive never been one to agree with the "dont rush" approach. When was the last time you heard of someone going back out because they worked the steps too quickly. Compare that to the amount of folks who went back out because they were not rushing. If you are going out of your mind with guilt, please consider finding a sponsor who is willing to do this with you now. No workbook is needed. A recovered individual with some knowledge of the Big Book can get you through a 4th step in no time.
I wish you the best!

paul99

I admire your jump on this. You've received a lot of input here, great input. Like many have mentioned, you need guidance on this, as we all did. Your sponsor should be the one helping you with the nuts and bolts of it, the mechanics as laid out in the big book, so that you're on the right track and not getting into territory you don't need to be in. Your current sponsor might be giving you all that she herself got. Which might not be enough for you. the big book tells us that we "launch" into our 4th step after doing our third step.