Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP FOUR

foggy scene. As we persist, a brand-new kind of confidence
is born, and the sense of relief at finally facing ourselves is
indescribable. These are the first fruits of Step Four.

By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the fol-
lowing conclusions: that his character defects, representing
instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of his
drinking and his failure at life; that unless he is now willing
to work hard at the elimination of the worst of these de-
fects, both sobriety and peace of mind will still elude him;
that all the faulty foundation of his life will have to be torn
out and built anew on bedrock. Now willing to commence
the search for his own defects, he will ask, "Just how do I
go about this? How do I take inventory of myself ?"

Since Step Four is but the beginning of a lifetime prac-
tice, it can be suggested that he first have a look at those
personal flaws which are acutely troublesome and fairly
obvious. Using his best judgment of what has been right
and what has been wrong, he might make a rough survey
of his conduct with respect to his primary instincts for sex,
security, and society. Looking back over his life, he can
readily get under way by consideration of questions such
as these:

When, and how, and in just what instances did my self-
ish pursuit of the sex relation damage other people and
me? What people were hurt, and how badly? Did I spoil
my marriage and injure my children? Did I jeopardize my
standing in the community? Just how did I react to these
situations at the time? Did I burn with a guilt that nothing
could extinguish? Or did I insist that I was the pursued
and not the pursuer, and thus absolve myself ? How have I