Step 4
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
How It Works
……Taking commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.
We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.
-A.A. Big Book p.64
… Step Four will help us toward our recovery more than we imagine. Most of us find that we were neither as terrible, nor as wonderful, as we supposed. We are surprised to find that we have good points in our inventory. Anyone who has some time in the Program and has worked this step will tell you that the Fourth Step was a turning point in their life. …..We are trying to free ourselves of living in old, useless patterns. We take the Fourth Step to gain the necessary strength and insight which enables us to grow.
Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, Chapter 4/Step 4
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Dear diary,
I want to attend the church service at 7am, I need to wake up at 5am today.
Thoughts
I woke up but tell myself I am very tired,
I could not sleep last night,I only manage to sleep at 3.30am
Feelings
I feel tired from lack of sleep and body aches from the jog.
I focus on the tiredness and aches / pain
The more I focus on that the more I feel like going back to sleep
Action
I went back to sleep
This is me, I am imperfect,
My desire to sleep was more important than meeting God.
I have a big problem here. I still have a problem with letting go of my self-will completely
I need to work harder in this area.
The daily slow jog I just started and quiet time is helping me.
The deep thoughts as I am walking home from the park after the jog really peel off my outer layer, strip my mask and reveal who I really was inside.
I am going to attend the 7pm church service and pray later.
I fed my desire and push God aside today, I must pray to God for forgiveness and help.
Does my actions show that I was complacent in recovery or was I ungrateful to God or was it just a case of bad habit ?
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I have seen the Grace and Mercy given to me by God.
I was able to buy sis and mum a decent lunch from the restaurant immediately after I woke up. I used to reserve those money for my gambling capital. Everything changes now.
I want to pray and give thanks to God for that and all the love given to my family.
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I just return from the evening church service, the pastor says that we all have a choice;
we can choose between the pain of discipline
or the pain of consequences.