Step 4 advice

Life in Recovery
1

Any advice for step 4?

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Don’t hold anything back

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Start writing.

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Pen to paper. Start with column 1, work your way down, repeat for the next column.

Def don’t skip the sex inventory.

I waited until I was going crazy before starting mine. Definitely don’t recommend that. My sponsor had me focus on the people that were on my mind the most.

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I’ve struggled with this Step for a while. Mainly because a lot of my inventory involved different points of trauma in my life. I don’t know if this applies to you, but recently came across this rewording/amendment to include trauma informed activities.

“When addressing trauma or abuse in AA’s Step 4, searching for your “fault” or “part” can cause re-traumatization if misapplied. Abuse is never the victim’s fault. Instead of looking for blame in the traumatic event itself, reword “my part” to mean how you reacted: how you (quite understandably) carried the resentment, or how old survival habits affected your later life.”

I found this helpful because it doesn’t place the blame on me for the traumatic events that occurred. I feel a bit more confident in tackling Step 4 now

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Fearless and thorough - don’t scrimp and ‘forget’

it’ll probably come out you have a lot of defects but that’s ok, that’s the point

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Yep sex inventory is important

I was quite lucky when I got to step 9 as luckily didn’t know half the people I’d done wrong :rofl: :face_exhaling:

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Thank you for this advice. I personally have struggled with this language and how to guide a sponsee thru those events and your language is perfect! Thanks for the tip @Techno_Tequila

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My advice is to be willing, open, and honest. Write down all those resentments and fears but also look at your positive characteristics. Be as thourough as you can be.

** Follow the guidance of your sponsor and dont sit on it too long.

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My sponsor got me started by telling me to start writing about those people and situations that I thought about (ruminated or obsessed on) when I was drinking. That unlocked it for me.

I did not think I had any resentments at the time, and this is not unusual. So I started with what I had done that was wrong, people I had mistreated, fears and sex inventory.

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Yip speak to your sponsor

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Consult your sponsor and be fully honest when writing. Also there are like 8 million 4th step guides so it can be too much if you look those up. I got confused by it and my sponsor’s advice was just go by the book and the example provided in there

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