Having eradicated resentment through prayer for tolerance and patience with others, we now look at ourselves. Where am I to blame? I have to now identify my defects of character and list them on paper. The reason for this is to eradicate my faults so I can live in fellowship with other human beings. We are now 1 step closer to living as God intended us to. Our drinking was but a symptom of a deeper spiritual disease, which was hindering us from having meaningful relationships with others.
Ahh...Step 4. A clear picture of ourselves from the outside looking in. I heard it described as The Truth About The Lie. I liked this step....I did as much praying as I did writing.
The good news, we will learn, is that we are not expected to eradicate all our defects all by ourselves. "Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid..... Neither could we reduce our self centredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's hep."
To me, this knowledge offered tremendous hope. It showed me that, rather than zooming in on self and the futile businesss of trying to fixit, my priority needed to be finding God, whose help I would need. The first step of this was to begin clearing the things which had been blocking me, starting with an inventory, step 4.
To me, step 4 is the true turning point. It took everything I had to get through this step. There were plenty of tears and temper tantrums during the time I was writing this step out. I was seriously unhinged. Everything I thought I knew about who I was, my life and the people I'd encountered, the whole world, really was turned upside down and twisted inside out and smashed to pieces. I found myself standing amongst this emotional, mental, and spiritual wreckage wondering how the heck I was gonna put this back together. Then I realized there WAS no putting it back together- I had to kick it aside and start from scratch. It was very powerful for me. Sorry- went on a bit of a tangent! I'm very passionate about this step. It changed me completely. I'm sure many of you feel the same.
