Step 4 is not only about what we did, but about what we are. It is not only about the wrongs we did to others, but about the wrongs that are in us. Though most of these are tied to things we did, some may also be significantly tied to things that others did. In fact, in some cases what we did itself may be tied to what was done to us, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. We are looking at our character and at our emotions and not just at our actions. Indeed, looking at our actions is a means to the end of seeing our defects. We can hardly surrender or make amends for them otherwise. We cannot even begin to understand the real nature of the wrongs we did without understanding the nature of the wrongs in us.
A moral inventory has as one of its primary purposes bringing us to a point (in Step 8) where we can forgive the harms others have done to us. But if there is no one to blame but ourselves, then there is nothing to forgive. In AA, the virtue of forgiveness is practiced through the discipline of self-examination. These two principles work together. We cannot forgive unless we know what there is to forgive, and we cannot know that unless we have thoroughly and fearlessly examined the harm in question. As C. S. Lewis notes, to forgive is to forgive the real wrong done to us in all its hurtfulness: the unadulterated, unmistakable evil that is left over after all allowances have been made—and to reconcile with the person who has done it. This is what makes it an actionable, practical virtue rather than a sentimental and Pollyannaish ideal. We cannot downplay that wrong. If we do not forgive well, our wounds will not heal well either, whether they take the form of resentment, shame, depression, or some other emotion.
Some of us have been abandoned by our parents as infants or children or put out on the street and left to fend for ourselves while still going through the pains of adolescence; we have been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused; we have been discriminated against in a variety of ways at home, in school, at work, or elsewhere in the larger society. In some cases, we have been persecuted and unjustly imprisoned. Loved ones have been the innocent victims of violent crime, including rape and murder. These experiences have left scars on us, and we need to look at them and reexamine them from the vantage point of recovery, in relation to our disease as alcoholics, if our healing is to be complete.
These experiences are real, and they are hardly rare. They are not the kinds of experiences that can be “put out of one’s mind.” Nor should they be. That would be denial and self-deception, not honesty; it would be suppression, not surrender. It wouldn’t work. It would bring no healing. Obviously, these are not the types of situations dealt with in the Big Book. Its sample inventory is rightly focused on the more ordinary variety that most readers would readily identify with.
Of course, looking at the ways we have been hurt can be problematic. In the Big Book sample, for instance, John was patently focusing on largely contrived “wrongs” to hide the real wrongs he had done. He was engaging in a more familiar form of self-deception and denial. We will have a tendency to do that whenever we look at the harm others have done to us. Hence the need to be unsparingly honest and to keep in the forefront of our minds the purpose of our inventory. But that doesn’t mean sweeping things under the rug and pretending that what was done to us doesn’t matter. Considering the harms done to us presents another temptation. We may reason (correctly) that if we were hurt in a particular situation but did not hurt anybody in return, then we obviously don’t owe amends. But then we may go on to conclude (incorrectly) that we don’t have to take inventory regarding that situation. This too is a misreading of Step 4 and the inventory process. Not owing amends does not obviate the need for us to take inventory. Even when we haven’t done harm, if we are hurting and experiencing harmful emotions, there is something the matter with us and we have to find out what that is. Again, the goal of our inventory is not only to find out what we did wrong so that we can make amends, but to find out what is wrong with us so that we can change and thus stop doing wrong.
There is a third temptation, to which we have already alluded. This is to go the way of psychology. AA is grateful for the emphasis psychology and psychiatry have placed on the need to search for unconscious motivations (cf. As Bill Sees It, p. 267). Yet a moral inventory is not a psychological analysis of our childhood and upbringing, of family dysfunction, parental failure, or adverse social conditions. Again, this is not to say that we ignore these things. But we need to let go of our old ways of looking at them and arrive at a properly spiritual understanding of them if we are not to allow the past to continue to negatively impact our lives in the present. When looking at them, we need to keep the focus on ourselves and on who we are today. In considering any harm done to us, particularly as children, we want to find out how those experiences influenced our view of life, our character, and our emotional makeup, so that we can change and become healthier, happier people.