Larry_H wrote:

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The Fourth Step is the hardest one for many newcomers in the Program. It is so difficult, in fact, that some of us still waiting to do it are no longer newcomers.

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The Funny thing is the Fourth step is actually really incredibly easy, and it's liberating in a mind and life changing way when followed by 5-9

What is hard is putting it off and then not being able to get started and then expecting to do a "perfect" fourth step, put it off long enough and one of 2 things end up in peoples mouths, a drink or a gun, or they actually get off their ass and do it, and then are amazed at how easy it was.

It only takes a few hours of actual writing the first time one does it

write down all the names of people who piss you off

write down why you are pissed off

write down your fears

write down the people who you have had relationships with

Take it to your sponsor, where you go over:

What part of self was affected

and

What was my part

 

But what we have is all these people giving their opinion about an experience they have never had (people who have never done a fourth step) who talk about how hard it is to do a fourth step, and how scary it is who live these pain filled lives full of relapses and drama talking about their day and their feelings and sharing tips and tricks on how to not drink today in meetings scaring other newcomers from working the fourth step because their "sponsor" who also never worked a fourth step told them to "take their time" and "don't drink and go to meetings"

 

 

123 slip

123 slip

123 slip

Larry_H wrote:

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Easy but painful if as you and I did we do a COMPLETE and HONEST inventory

The single most important and liberating part for me was extracting my deepest and darkest secrets.  The stuff I was so afraid and ashamed of that I had vowed to take to the grave with me.

While the people that pissed me off had some importance.  My actions and thoughts on a wide variety of stuff was far more revealing.

Larry,
-----------------
Surrender means being willing to follow someone else´s direction.

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Yeah but it's getting stuff out that was already there, like removing an infection, or like in another thread, having a giant painful ummm...."movement" with incredible relief afterwards, it's removing pain you didn't even know you were carrying until it's gone, like pulling a giant splinter out, or pulling a giant scab off that was hiding an infection underneath, which is literally what you are doing to your brain with steps 4 and 5, removing the stuff that blocks you off from God, any pain experienced is of fear and ego trying to desperately hang on to your old way of life and thinking.

The only thing really painful is breaking the denial and smashing the ego, which are both ultimately unhealthy anyway, and  All I ever remember is the relief, same with therapy, like this isn't painful, this is liberating

The only tears I have ever cried from a fourth step were of relief

But my friends all tell me I am very strange because I seek and speak the truth with no fear, and that is terrifying to most people, and even speaking with people sometimes my friends say I frequently make people uncomfortable because I just speak truth in a manner that most people are uncomfortable to do, so perhaps our experience was different, I hear about people having painful fourth steps, it's just not my experience even after doing them eight times, some with enough writing to put War and Peace to shame

Many of my sponsees have also cried during 4-5th steps with me as they let go of pain, fear, ego driven delusions, and their deepest shame filled experiences but their experience is all the same, incredible relief afterwards and after step 9 they are no longer carrying things they had been carrying their whole life.

I also had good sponsorship, sponsors who knew when to listen, when to hug, when to be hardassed and break denial, and when to tell TRULY horrifying stories to make me laugh, "A goat huh? That's nothing kid, I used to be a zookeeper with these giraffes see? and this one time I got this ladder right? .....

Yeah, I'm trying, and yeah there was pain and tears but it was all relief, that's all I remember, does that make sense?

So now I truly don't understand what there is to be afraid of, I just don't.

Anyhow, that is all stuff from the Fifth step anyway, where we admit to God, ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, not the fourth step, which in and of itself is pretty important, the grudge list is a big part of it.

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.

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.

We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.

We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look for it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill.

I wonder what Bill is trying to say there about resentments...

grave
fatal
insanity
die
poison
kill

The fourth step is the first time one actually begins to take any meaningful action, something tangible, the first 3 are processes and can be done just by reading the first 63 pages with a sponsor who stops and asks frequent questions to see if the sponsees identify as an alcoholic , believe they can be restored to sanity, and jump off the cliff and ask for help halfway down (third step), step four actually starts asking for tangible and quantifiable action so it's a double whammy we have people telling the newcomer how scary and painful it is then encouraging them to put it off usually until they aren't in so much pain, which makes it doubly hard for them to do it.

Next we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us had never attempted.

I always worked the steps with my sponsees as thoroughly as possible when someone is still new but fast and dirty and had them on their second go around within a few months, once they realized the benefits and how much relief the steps brought they were eager to work them much more thoroughly a second time.




-- Edited by AGO on Thursday 29th of April 2010 01:07:33 AM

Howdy,
If you knew who I really was, would you still like me ??
When I arrived at the doors of A.A. I brought some things with me that were unacceptable to society and God.
I knew I liked Lust. I knew I liked to hurt people. I knew i liked depravity.
I knew I liked stealing. I knew I liked the Seven Deadly Sins. I was not going to bow neither to God or man. (real alcoholic).
So you damn right I was scared. I had found a way to cover that stuff up and now
they wanted me to expose it to the Light?????
I am truely grateful to have had a "sufficient bottom" that created a willingness
to take the risk and start exposing these nasty "likes" on paper. I guarded those papers with my life.. Finally I was ready to share this stuff with another human being.
I felt that this honesty could cost me my very life. Yet some how I had to open it up.
I did. I shook, I bawled , I ranted, somewhere during the share the man who was receiving this Fifth step said " God forgives you-------- Forgive yourself. Or are you
bigger than God ?????? That was it the icy cold dam had broken. No i was not bigger than God. I wanted to forgive myself. I started to . Then the tears of relief flowed and flowed.
I continue to use the steps to get to that deep place within me to find out why I liked what I liked. To heal, to grow. To become more honest and to become more safe.
I have done quite a few Fourth steps as each one reveals a deeper truth.
More Relief !!!!!!!!!! Yes !!!!!!!!!!!

I don't get it either. I did wait a year to do the 4th step but I wasn't afraid to do it. I'm fine with the timeline I've been working on. In general, I knew it would not be this hugely dramatic thing once I got to it cuz I spent years beating myself up for crap. When I actually did the 4th step and put it all on paper, very few things were a surprise. It was nothing to be afraid of.