Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP TEN

make all the other hours of our day better and happier.
And at length our inventories become a regular part of ev-
eryday living, rather than something unusual or set apart.

Before we ask what a spot-check inventory is, let's look
at the kind of setting in which such an inventory can do its
work.

It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed,
no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with
us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the
wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What
about "justifiable" anger? If somebody cheats us, aren't we
entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self-
righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous excep-
tions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to
those better qualified to handle it.

Few people have been more victimized by resentments
than have we alcoholics. It mattered little whether our re-
sentments were justified or not. A burst of temper could
spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us mis-
erably ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating
justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it, our wrath
was always justified. Anger, that occasional luxury of more
balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefi-
nitely. These emotional "dry benders" often led straight to
the bottle. Other kinds of disturbances—jealousy, envy,
self-pity, or hurt pride—did the same thing.

A spot-check inventory taken in the midst of such dis-
turbances can be of very great help in quieting stormy
emotions. Today's spot check finds its chief application to
situations which arise in each day's march. The consider-