Phase Two A: The Inventory

Ah, what can I say about Step Four. First, the mental “stuff” in preparing to do an inventory is a lot worse than actually working the Step. That's why the easiest thing to do is to just do it. Don't project or anguish. Just Do It. If you have been thorough with Step Three, your will and your life are in the care of God. Approach Step Four from this position. Say a prayer, ask God to guide you, and put pen to paper.

That being said, there are two important things to take with you into it, and the clues are given right in the Step. We make a (1) searching and (2) fearless moral inventory of ourselves. The first, searching, means we probe the recesses of the heart and the mind. We ask God to reveal the things we need to put on the inventory, then we open up and explore. The second, fearless, means we do not neglect to explore any area that arises, and we do not skip putting them down on paper. We may face fear, but we do the Step as directed.

Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of AA and the author of the big book, gives the description of the inventory in practical terms. He equates our inventory with a commercial inventory in which a business makes a fact-finding and fact-facing mission to discover the truth about its stock-in-trade, in order to find damaged and unsalable goods, and to eliminate them without regret.

Thus we begin our fact-finding and fact-facing mission to discover the areas in which our ego moves out of alignment with the will of our Higher Power. But relax, its not as difficult as it seems, and the rewards are life changing.

The guidelines for the inventory I will give are the ones which I give to the people I sponsor. Inventories vary slightly, this is the one that works for me, and once we begin living through Steps Ten, Eleven and Twelve, you will find this method invaluable.

The inventory begins by listing your resentments, and will consist of a total of five columns. In the first list the person, institution, or principle which you have a resentment towards. In the second you will list the reason you have the resentment. The third column is what this resentment brings out in you. I will pause here for an example. This may or may not be an example from my inventory: (column one) my mother – (column two) her controlling behavior – (column three) anger (though usually more than one).

I encourage my sponsees to go through the entire inventory using these three columns first, and then return to the top of the list and complete column four, and then back to the top for column five. If it flows better for you it may be done all the way across. You can always come back and add more to the list later, but search the past and put all on this list that arises for each of the columns.

For the third column, some inventories suggest using the seven deadly sins. This seems to be a good place to start, but don't limit to these, put whatever arises. Sadness, grief, sense of betrayal, disgust – whatever you feel columns one and two bring out in you.

In column four we list how we react to the feelings in the third column. Going back to the example, my anger at my mother's controlling behavior makes me rebellious in my actions, causes me to treat her in a mean manner, and causes me to ignore her when she gives suggestions. Again, I find it easier to move all the way down column four, and search through my behavior patterns when these situations arise.

For column five, focus on each aspect of the previous four columns, then ask yourself what, at the core of the resentment is the fear it springs from. Sit with it, meditate on it, and find the fear. I could trace each one of my resentments to a core fear. My first sponsor gave me a list of six core fears, and I will pass them on. He also told me not to limit myself to these six, to add whatever I identified the fear to be.

The six core fears are: 1) fear of not being good enough or less than 2) fear of not belonging or not fitting in 3) fear of being found out 4) fear of not getting what I think I want 5) fear of losing what I think I have 6) fear of the unknown. As I said, this list is a good starting point, but the important thing is that you identify what fear sits at the core of the resentments and behaviors you have listed in the previous columns

Back to the example, my resentment toward my mother and her controlling behavior, the fears (there are usually more than one) I traced this resentment to are not being my own person, which traces to fear of being less than, and fear of not being in control of my life, which traces to not getting what I think I want.

So this is the process. Again, Pray for your Higher Power to reveal all the things you need to list on the inventory, be thorough, put everything on the list that arises no matter if it seems trivial or too immense, and don't strain yourself in the process (more than necessary). There will more than likely be things that arise later that you did not recall in the first inventory. This is natural and perfectly acceptable. Those will be dealt with in their proper time.

So there you have the Step Four inventory. I include Step Five in this phase, but in going back to my inventory in the writing of this article, this is enough for now. This Step will bring about enormous growth, especially when coupled with Step Five, but we will call this Phase Two A and Step Five (which will follow in a week or so) we'll call Phase Two B.

Remember, the MOST important thing in this inventory is to JUST DO IT!