Making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves in Step 4 is fundamentally a spiritual enterprise. Yet it is at the same time intensely practical and uncompromisingly moral. Indeed, as we have seen, in AA the spiritual is understood to encompass the practical and the moral. The interaction of these three, the spiritual, the practical, and the moral, makes self-examination in AA markedly distinct and helps to differentiate it from related practices in the various traditions—philosophical, religious, and psychological—which have influenced it. How that plays itself out in practice is the subject of the rest of this work.
The Big Book Sample
A moral inventory is an examination of our character defects and the emotional liabilities associated with them. These are described in the Big Book as manifestations of self, of our spiritual malady of selfishness and self-centeredness. Elaborating on this fundamental AA premise, the 12& 12 describes them further as representing “instincts gone astray.” These are understood as innate drives and natural desires that are essential to our survival and wellbeing. Their selfish pursuit causes them to exceed their “God-given” purpose and get “out of joint” (p. 42), turning them into the physical, mental, and spiritual liabilities that account for most of our emotional difficulties and the problems that we face in life.
In Step 4 we seek to discover what these liabilities are, the ways in which, under the relentless drive of distorted instinct, self becomes manifest in our lives. We seek to make a survey of our conduct with regard to our primary instincts, which using a handy mnemonic formula the 12& 12 broadly identifies as our instincts for “sex, security, and society” (p. 50). This provides the conceptual and organizational framework in which to build our inventory. It guides us as we try to answer the practical question of exactly how to go about taking inventory of ourselves.
The Big Book suggests we start by zeroing in on anger, fear, and resentment, three emotions which are especially troublesome for alcoholics and which, if left unexamined, may lead us back to the bottle. It therefore takes these three emotions as the subject of what an initial inventory might look like and provides us with a sample, introducing a basic format that can lend itself to inventories of other emotional and character defects.
Components of Inventory
We will therefore examine this Big Book sample closely. We will try to flesh it out and build on it in the context of the full text of Step 4 in that work. While we will make some necessary references to the 12& 12, we will leave a full exploration of Step 4 in that book for later, where we will seek to reconcile the two texts and show that they complement each other. The Big Book sample is reproduced below. Inside borders have been inserted for clarity.
Table 1. Big Book Sample
In the sample we are given three columns, listing the persons we are angry at, the cause, and the things about us that are affected. To facilitate our discussion, let us refer to the one doing the inventory in the third person. Let us call him Anonymous John and name his wife Jane. Let us also deduce, as we can from the context, that the main setting is the workplace.
John lists a series of resentments against four people: two co-workers, his boss, and his wife. Starting with Mr. Brown, he gives three reasons for his resentment: Brown seems to be paying too much attention to Jane, told her that John was having an affair with another woman, and appears to be jockeying for John’s position at the office. The first two of these situations affect John’s personal and sex relations; the third his job and material security; and all three his self-esteem and thus also his emotional security.
Seeing these things “hurt or threatened” (p. 65) in the various situations involving Mr. Brown, John reacts not only with anger and resentment (to the hurt), but also with fear (to the threat). These three emotions in fact are aroused in the situations involving the other individuals as well, all of which affect John in areas that are personally important to him.
This is obviously the case with anger, since it is the basic emotion underlying resentment. But it is equally the case with fear, which the Big Book notes in parenthesis next to the affected area. This interplay between “Cause” and “Affects,” which by implication is what triggers these three emotional reactions, may trigger still other emotions. It would be useful therefore to replace the parenthesis with a full, fourth column. This will allow us to list what these other emotions might be and, along with our fears, review them “thoroughly” (p. 68).
In discussing the sample, the Big Book notes that, in addition to these emotional liabilities, we need to look at the character defects associated with them, asking ourselves not only where we had been angry, fearful, and resentful, but where we had been selfish, dishonest, and self-seeking (p. 67). Such character defects, it suggests, are implicated in the conditions (“ Cause” and “Affects”) which arouse our anger, fear, and resentment. We want to place them before us “in black and white.” We will therefore want to add a fifth column where we can list these defects.
This will help us to explore exactly what these defects are, how they are related to various troubled emotions, and how they impact each situation under review, so that, as we move through the self-examination process in succeeding Steps, we can admit to, surrender, and make amends for them.
But our goal is not only to let go of these negative traits in our character. It is also to acquire their positive counterparts, thereby altering the Cause-and-Affects dynamic which arouses harmful emotions and thus making it possible for healthy ones to arise in their stead. The Big Book mentions in this context such traits as honesty, kindness, patience, and tolerance (p. 67).
We need to identify not only what negative traits tend to dominate us and shape our character, but what positive traits can displace and replace them. It would therefore make sense to add a sixth column to list what these traits might be, the character strengths, assets, or virtues that we need to practice in order to reshape our character and be free from its defects and the resulting emotional handicaps.
It becomes evident then, that following the logic of the Big Book, our inventory actually has six component parts, of which three are made explicit in the sample and the other three implied in the text. We will therefore make these implied parts explicit by adding them to the sample. This gives us an expanded and more complete format with a total of six columns, as shown below in Table 2. We will now proceed to examine their contents.
Table 2. Expanded Big Book Sample
The Cause
We have already identified the individuals listed under “Person” in column 1. Looking now under “Cause” in column 2, we notice that the items listed all refer to the things John claims these individuals did to anger him. We have added the word “Construal” in parenthesis under “Cause” to indicate that the cause actually has two constituents. One is the objective data, the things actually said or done by the other people in each situation. The other is John’s subjective take on that data, his own perception of what occurred. This includes not only what he heard and saw, but the motivations and intentions which he attributed to the other people, all of which form part of his view of the situation.
Now, John’s construal of the data can be off, and this for a number of reasons. One is a faulty memory. Memory is selective and is generally biased in our favor to support our own account of events. This compromises our recollection of the data. The problem is aggravated when our memory is formed under the influence of strong emotions like anger and fear, because of necessity the data is then filtered through the lens of these emotions. This filtering includes the attribution of motives and intentions, which is thereby prejudiced. All of this brings into question the objectivity and the accuracy of our account. We may list certain reasons under “Cause,” but these are liable to be skewed to our advantage.
Under the sway of anger and resentment, John’s initial tendency will be to take an inventory of the other people. He is likely to focus on what is wrong with them and how they hurt him, to cite only such “facts” as will support his views, and to overlook, downplay, rationalize, justify and even deny his own part in the affair.
But regardless of the extent to which John’s construal accurately reflects the facts, it is nevertheless this construal, the way he sees the situation as it affects him personally, that actually drives his reaction and accounts for the emotions he experiences and for the character defects he displays.
Since the inventory is of John and not of the other people, his transition from a resentful to a recovering John requires his putting on a different pair of glasses and looking for the “cause,” not in them, but in himself. This is an application of the spiritual axiom that when we are disturbed, there is something wrong with us (12& 12, S10, p. 90).
His resentment is a sign that there is something the matter with John, and its immediate cause is his view of the situation. It is his construal, made evident by his “reasons,” which has occasioned John’s resentment. An inventory of our character and emotional defects begins with an examination of how we are looking at things, of the way we see ourselves, other people, and a given situation. We therefore need to refer to our list again, says the Big Book, put out of our minds the harms others have done, and look for our own wrongs (p. 67).
As it stands now, his list shows John blaming the others for his resentment and seeing himself as the aggrieved party and innocent victim. But if we look again at the three “reasons” or alleged causes John gives for his resentment against Mr. Brown, we will find that there is an underlying and unacknowledged cause that may have initially created, contributed to, or aggravated the difficulties that he describes. This is of course the fact that John has been having an affair with another woman. John has been in denial, deceiving himself about his role in the matter.
Affects My
Looking next in the third column, we will find a list of the things that John claims were affected by what the other people did. These are his personal and sex relations, self-esteem (pride included), and security. When we are angry, fearful, and resentful, says the Big Book, we will find that in most cases this is because our sense of self-worth, our ambitions, our pocketbooks, or our personal relationships, including sex, have been hurt, threatened or otherwise interfered with (pp. 64–65).
These things represent the kinds of basic human concerns which in the 12& 12 are correlated with instinctive drives and natural desires. We have therefore inserted the word “Concern” in parenthesis under “Affects My” to indicate that they involve areas of our lives that are of primary concern or importance to us. Emotions are typically aroused by those aspects of a situation which we perceive or construe as impacting the things we care about or attach value to. If the perceived impact is negative, the emotion instinctively tends to be negative. By the same token, the greater the concern and the perceived impact, the stronger the resulting instinctive emotion.
Hence, just as we need to examine our construals, we also need to examine our concerns. We need to take a good look at what is really important to us. We need to probe deeply into our attachments and examine them thoroughly and fearlessly. This is because, just as our construal or the way we view ourselves, people, and situations can be skewed, so can our concerns or the things that we value. When our desires for sex, for self-esteem, and for material and emotional security are out of joint, says the 12& 12 (p. 42), they can dominate us and wreak havoc with our lives.
This is apparently what has happened to John. His desire for the “sex relation” (p. 50) seems to have been such that it has driven him to seek its satisfaction outside his marriage, causing his wife harm and damaging their relationship. Possibly, too, his illicit sexual relations may have been part of an unconscious and misguided effort to prop up his self-esteem and emotional security, both apparently battered by the effects of his drinking on his home and work life. As for his material security, he has evidently placed too much of a premium on that, enough to make him steal.
John may have allowed an overweening, inordinate, excessive, or misdirected desire for these otherwise good things to so distort them that they have come to control him, driving him to satisfy them in selfish and self-seeking ways which have clearly failed and backfired on him.
Emotions
Seeing these things under threat, John is gripped with fear. It is understandable that he should be afraid of Mr. Brown’s intentions regarding Jane, and that his self-esteem and sense of security should feel threatened. Based on the information we are given, these feelings have their origin, at least in part, in John’s own actions, actions which have been set in motion by out-of-control concerns and desires and the character defects which his attempts to satisfy them have brought out in him. John has been driven by a distorted view of what is really important.
The same obtains with regards to John’s perception of Mrs. Jones, his boss, and his wife Jane. Whatever their shortcomings and wrongdoing, John’s unfaithfulness and dishonesty have helped to create circumstances that make for the fear and other negative emotions which trouble him and which now color the way he sees these individuals and the various situations he describes.
If Brown knows about John’s mistress, perhaps other people in the office do too, as the matter may have become a subject of gossip, involving Mrs. Jones among others. This may have undermined John’s standing at work, feeding his insecurity and his fear that Brown may take over his job. Moreover, his dishonesty with his wife has evidently spilled over into thieving and padding his expense account, and this, coupled with his drinking, may give his boss sufficient cause to dismiss him. Hanging menacingly over all of this there may be another, unspoken fear: that Jane may want to commit him for drinking, as Mrs. Jones did with her own spouse.
Anger, resentment, and fear are the primary emotions under scrutiny in John’s inventory. But these may be tied up with other emotions, and we have noted some of them in brackets under column 4. Fear can generate worry and anxiety, as well as a gnawing suspicion about people’s intentions toward us. Fear is also connected with jealousy, as is in a different way anger. Anger can generate resentment, and a well-nursed resentment can foment bitterness. John seems to have experienced one or another of these emotions in his relations with one or another of the persons involved, all of which emotions may have added to his already warped view of the situation.
Character Defects
Similarly, in addition to unfaithfulness and dishonesty, which we have noted under column 5, there may be other underlying character defects on the part of John, and we have listed some of these as well. Competitive pride may affect his work relationship with Mr. Brown. John’s choice of words under “Cause” may betray hurt pride and intolerance with regard to Mrs. Jones (“ a nut,” “snubbed me,” “a gossip”), self-righteousness in relation to his boss (“ unreasonable,” “unjust,” “overbearing), and self-justification and rationalization vis-à-vis his wife (“ misunderstands,” “nags”). Last but not least, John has been patently unjust. Unfaithfulness is an injustice. So is stealing. When he accuses his boss of this defect, he may very well be projecting his own.
These various defects of character all reflect distorted concerns and construals, warped—because selfish and self-centered—ways of caring about things and of viewing how they are affected in the various situations involving John. They are the cause of his troubled emotions and of the harmful actions they generate.
Whatever John’s other character defects may be, there is one that can hardly be in doubt. This is unforgiveness. It affects his relations with all the parties involved. If resentment springs from holding on to anger over a perceived injury, what stokes the anger and keeps the resentment burning is always a failure to forgive. Where resentment is the problem, forgiveness is always the solution. It is the corrective virtue.
Corrective Virtues
This brings us to column 6. Once we have identified our defects of character and the defective emotions associated with them, we are in a position to identify the countervailing character traits in the virtues. Character traits are dispositions to perceive, care about, think, feel, and act in certain ways in certain situations. A defect (or vice) is a disposition to function out of these capacities in ways that do not match the situation to which they respond and which as a result bring about harm. A virtue by contrast is a disposition to function out of them in ways that fit their situation and which consequently foster the common good.
As a character defect, unforgiveness is an inclination to hold on to anger (which then turns into resentment) against a person for a perceived
culpable offense or hurt. As a character virtue, forgiveness is an inclination to let go of that anger. Where the offense is objectively true, the virtue acknowledges the fact (otherwise there is nothing to forgive), but surrenders the emotion. It holds no grudge and seeks no retribution. It makes it possible for feelings to heal and for relationships to be restored.
It works the same with other defects of character. Each has its corrective virtues. Surrendering the defect and practicing the virtues is how we can begin to replace our liabilities with the assets we are all capable of developing, for these are innate capacities in us whose full realization we have fallen short of. We can replace dishonesty in its various forms with honesty, unfaithfulness with faithfulness, jealousy and suspiciousness with trust, intolerance and unkindness with tolerance and kindness, and the multiple varieties of pride with humility in its many expressions.
The process of self-examination is one of progressively identifying the two, defect and virtue, examining each and understanding their relation to one another, to our emotions, to the way we see people and situations and attach value to things, and hence to the way we think, feel, and act in those situations and with respect to those people.
If John honestly examines his own behavior in relation to the way he has tried to satisfy his drives and desires in the areas of “sex, security, and society,” he will find that “instinct run wild” (12& 12 S4, p. 44) is the underlying cause of the problems he has brought upon himself and of the harm he has done to others. He will see that the concerns that have driven him remain out of order and are still distorting the way he looks at those people and generating the troubled emotions and character defects that continue to rule him.
As he goes through this process, he will come to see how cheating on his wife, drinking on the job, and stealing from his boss have caused much of the trouble he is now facing. If he is able to look behind his actions to his character defects, he will see how dishonesty, unfaithfulness, injustice, jealousy, suspiciousness, and pride have damaged his relationships and his standing at work. This will help to mitigate his anger and resentment, for seeing his own guilt, others will appear less culpable. He will no longer be in a position to self-righteously judge and condemn them. If, as the Big Book proposes, John goes further and is able to see both his and their defects as issuing from a common spiritual malady (pp. 66–67), he will begin to gain a vision of others, less as adversaries out to do him wrong, and more as fellow sufferers who often hurt others because they hurt themselves.
As he does these things and so humbles himself, he will gradually let go of his imaginary grievances, come to a place where he will be able to forgive what real harm others may have done to him, and make amends for the harms that he has caused. Surrendering his anger, resentment, and fear, he will be relieved of them.
Our brief analysis of the Big Book sample shows that the format it uses can and indeed needs to be amplified in order to incorporate all the elements the book itself considers necessary for an inventory of resentments to be thorough. We have expanded that format from three to six columns, replacing a partial with a full column to list our fears as well as other emotions, and adding a column each to list our character defects and the virtues that can replace them. We have also modified the heading of two original columns to reflect a key idea latent in the Big Book and in the 12& 12: that the real cause of our emotions is the way we construe or perceive a situation as it affects our concerns or the things that we care about. Using this expanded format, we have tried to show what a full inventory of our resentments would actually look like.
On first impression, this might sound like a lot more than what the Big Book is proposing. It isn’t. The sample inventory is deceptively simple and can easily be underrated or dismissed. Big Book meetings generally rush through it and usually skip reading it altogether. Seldom do we discuss it in the context of the rest of the text. We therefore miss all that it might teach us if only we would dig a little bit deeper. If we mention it at all when we talk about how we did our own inventory, it is only to stress that we did it “the way it says in the Big Book.” This points to another impression many of us appear to have. And this is that the Big Book and the 12& 12 offer us two different ways of doing Step 4. Next, let’s examine why this perception is also false.
Big Book and 12& 12: The Synthesis
The Big Book gives a number of good reasons for focusing on resentment as the first subject of what is in effect a two-pronged inventory. We noted these reasons in the preceding section. Now we wish to elaborate on one of them. This is the fact that, as newcomers, we are typically in the grip of strong and sometimes even overpowering emotions. Our lives are unmanageable. Like Anonymous John, many of us tend to blame others for the dire straits we find ourselves in. We are reeling from the harm we believe others have done to us. If we are to stay sober and gain a minimum of sanity, we have to deal with these issues. We have to deal with our hurts. An inventory of the anger, resentment, and fear that we are still harboring in connection with those hurts is absolutely essential. Some of us have failed to do one and have paid a steep price.
However, by stressing resentment as the number one offender, the Big Book is in no way suggesting that it is the only offender. This would be like saying that a business should take inventory of only one of the main items in stock and overlook the rest. There are lots of other defects of character and emotion that afflict the alcoholic. As newcomers, some of us may be as seriously and as urgently affected by guilt, shame, depression, and self-pity, for instance, as by resentment. Sometimes even more. So much so perhaps that we may not be able even to see our resentments unless we also examine those other emotions. On the other hand, we may be seriously affected by anger and fear, but, at least immediately, these may need to be examined more in connection with the harm that we have caused others—sometimes extremely serious harm—than in relation to any harm others may have caused us.
Looking back over the additional AA experience and recognizing all of this, the 12& 12 leaves the inventory’s subject or topic open, suggesting that each person start with those flaws which are particularly “troublesome” and relatively “obvious” (p. 50). These may very well revolve around resentment, or they may not. They may revolve around other emotions related to the hurts we have suffered, or then again, they may not. They may revolve around the hurts we have caused others. Each person ought to start where the need is greatest and the effort expended most fruitful.
Wherever that may be, the goal is to narrow the task to a manageable level without sacrificing the scope of the inventory or the thoroughness of the search. In this connection we might revisit an issue we raised earlier: that our initial Step 4 inventory is only “a beginning.” What does this mean? Most obviously, it means that we are only starting on what needs to be a daily discipline and lifetime practice. The Big Book and the 12& 12 both emphasize that we will need to continue taking inventory a day at a time for the rest of our lives. Our recovery goes on. It never comes to an end. As we tried to show, however, and as both texts make clear, this does not imply that we should restrict our first inventory to an examination of the anger, resentment, and fear aroused by the harms done to us and leave the rest for Step 10.
Less obvious is the other implication behind the idea that our first Step 4 is “only a beginning.” And this is that such a first Step is necessarily limited. There is only so much we can do the first time around. Obviously, the Step is meant to be done early in our recovery, for the reasons already mentioned. Yet there is no way we can do a complete self-examination of our drinking past in early sobriety. We just don’t have the experience. Nor do we have all the requisite tools. We can only acquire them as we go on to work the other Steps and grow in our spiritual awakening. In all likelihood, therefore, we will have to revisit Step 4 later on. But if we are to work those other Steps fully, and if we are to continue to grow, we need to be as thorough as we can with our first Step 4. For, as we have stressed, we are laying the foundation for the remaining Steps and for much of our recovery.
We believe the modified version of the Big Book format we introduced in the previous chapter can help us to do that. It can serve as a useful guide to examine any subject (defects or emotions) around either type of inventory (harms done by us or to us). Furthermore, it can be used to take inventory not only in Step 4, but in Step 10, and not only in early but in later, long-term recovery. In any situation we examine, we will always need to consider the way we are looking at that situation, what is at stake in it for us, the emotions that are consequently aroused, what character defects are involved, and the corrective spiritual principles (disciplines and virtues) we need to practice.
In Step 4 we are digging into a wide range of experience over a long period of time. An inventory of such depth and breadth is a daunting task. It is easy to get confused, sidetracked, overwhelmed, and discouraged by the enormity of the job. Many of us procrastinate. Some never get started. Others abandon it early on. But even if we have gone through it and completed an initial inventory of resentments, we have barely begun to scratch the surface.
Though we keep hearing how simple the whole thing is, we may not really understand what AA is proposing or how to go about it. Or we may think that what it is proposing doesn’t really address our needs and the problems we have. We may look for help outside the program. We may then come across interpretations of Step 4 and ideas for how to do an inventory that are not based on a close reading of the Big Book and the 12& 12 and do not accurately reflect the foundational experience distilled in those texts.
These ideas may come from a variety of religious, philosophical, and psychological perspectives, often in the popular versions we find in New Age spirituality and the self-help movement. Such non-AA perspectives pervade the secondary 12-Step literature. They also seep into the rooms. Though we may sometimes derive some benefit from these explorations, just as often they add to the confusion and we get sidetracked or give up altogether. In some cases, we may resort to “professional” help. And this may do us some good. It may bring us some temporary relief. But therapy is not a substitute for a searching and fearless moral inventory of our troubled lives.
We need a workable framework and structure that can guide us as we try to deal with all the challenges we are likely to face in what is an exacting, life-long undertaking. Together, the Big Book and the 12& 12 contain the basic conceptual and organizational elements that are necessary for the job. They give us a preliminary format and provide us with a basic understanding of both the defects of character and emotion we need to examine, and of the spiritual principles we need to practice. What is lacking is a fully developed format that can accommodate and facilitate a thoroughgoing self-examination. We believe our modification of the Big Book’s sample can help meet that need.