Lesson 8 – Step 4: Moral

Lesson 8 – Step 4: Moral

Chances are if you are in recovery you have baggage from your past that you are carrying around.  Some of this baggage may be self-inflicted, some of it may have been forced on you.  Sometimes our baggage can become more than we can handle, other times we get so used to carrying it around we can even forget it is there.  If you’re like I was then perhaps you don’t have a way of effectively dealing with these issues.  My experience was that resentments kept piling up and that fears and guilt continued to build up over time.  The good news is that the 12 Steps provide what I have found is a very effective way of dealing with this baggage, and it starts with building a moral (or honest) inventory of our past.

Our acrostic for this lesson is MORAL:

M – Make Time

O – Open

R – Rely

A – Analyze

L – List

Let’s look at each one in more detail:

Make Time

Building an inventory will take some time, and it is best if you can find some place to go where you will not be interrupted.  The process of building this inventory will require taking a deep look into your past and analyzing those events.  This will be very difficult to do if you are getting interrupted constantly or are otherwise distracted.  If you have already setup some daily time for study or meditation this would be an excellent time to incorporate this work, if you have not then perhaps this can be the beginning of some habits that will serve you well in recovery.

Open

When it comes to building a “searching and fearless moral inventory,” this for me is the most crucial piece.  I know it was easy for me to say to myself, “you can leave that off your inventory, after all who’s going to know.”  I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t have an inventory problem, I have a drinking problem, how is this going to help me stay sober?”  This was my denial telling me that it was fine for me to keep doing what I had been doing, that it wasn’t important for me to listen to the experience of others that I had found what I hadn’t – long-term sobriety.  I found that this denial was rooted in fear and pride.  My fear told me that I dare not open the door to some of the events of my past, that these events were too painful or too embarrassing to deal with.  My pride told me that I didn’t need to open the door to past events.  After all I told myself, my resentments were created because I was wronged and all of my actions were justified.  In order to build my inventory, I had to get past my denial telling me I didn’t need to take this exercise seriously and I had to get past the fear and the pride that wanted to keep me from doing it thoroughly.

In order to help with triggering your memories there are several questions you can ask yourself.  First of all, are there any items from your past you feel guilty about?  Guilt can be an indication that there is something you need to take a closer look at.  The next question is do you have any resentments?  Personally, I was shocked at how many resentments had piled up in my life – in fact I had resentments reaching all the way back to high school (which was decades before I did my first inventory).  I never had a way of dealing with resentments so the list just kept growing and growing.  In addition to resentments, are there any fears that you have?  Are there fears of people or places from your past that you carry with you?  Do you have fears such as fear of failure or fear of not getting your way?  If so, list those in your inventory.  Finally, do you have any self-pity, alibis or other dishonest thinking going on in your life.  I know for me I thought that as long as I didn’t start something or if I believed the other person had done me worse, I was justified in my actions.  I had to learn to own my actions and focus on what I had done and not my false justifications.

Rely

Taking a hard look at our past can be very difficult to do.  There are good reasons why we haven’t done this already, there may be pain from past abuses or embarrassment from our own past behavior.  When things get tough it is important to go back to where we can draw our strength – our relationship with God and the relationships we build in recovery.  God is of course the ultimate source of strength for us in our recovery, and when things get tough this is always the first place I recommend you turn.  The group can also help when we have doubts or need encouragement to continue.  I used to think that I was so unique, that I was the only person on the planet who had ever done the terrible things I had done.  The shame I felt made exercises like doing a moral inventory difficult because each memory brought more regret and embarrassment.  After being in recovery for several years now I have come to realize that I am not so unique, that there are others who have had the same thoughts and experiences that I have.  I don’t have to hide myself from others for fear of being ostracized by the group, chances are somebody has done the exact thing I have done or can readily relate to it.  That is why I know I can bring things up to the group and use their encouragement.

Analyze

I found this part of the moral inventory to be particularly useful.  I am an analytical person by nature so this part came naturally to me, but I was amazed by what I found.  In my experience it was not enough to just fill the inventory out, it was also important to look closely at individual events and also to look at my inventory as a whole.  Doing so allowed me to discern truths I would not have and to see trends in my life.  One of the most unexpected outcomes of doing the inventory was how my view of the past changed.  When I began the inventory there were people that I had justified resentments against that later ended up on my amends list.  By analyzing the scenario without rationalizing my own behavior I realized the mistakes I had made and the hurt that I had caused.  Going from resentment to amends was a 180-degree switch for me!

Looking at my inventory from a high level also proved beneficial.  There was a defect of character that I saw repeated over and over again that I never would have thought was an issue.  But there in black and white, over and over again in my life was this same issue.  I began to realize that this was something that I needed to take to God and to be aware of because it was causing resentments to happen repeatedly throughout my life.  I also found some behavior trends I did not expect to see.  For example, I found that I had done a really terrible job of dealing with conflict in my life.  I saw that whenever there was conflict I consistently either retaliated or ran away from the problem rather than resolving it in a healthy way.  This method of dealing with conflict was causing resentments and broken relationships throughout my life, but I would have never seen this had I not put together a thorough summary of my life’s events and analyzed it.

List

It may seem like building an inventory can be a depressing process, so it is important to keep your inventory balanced.  Include the good things you have done in your life to keep this balance.  All of us have done things to help others and we should remember and include those things when building our inventory.

Other Thoughts

Robert Frost is quoted as saying, “the only way around is through.”  I have found this to be true when it comes to facing my guilt, fears, resentments and dishonest thinking.  I have of course tried other techniques.  I have tried to ignore the past in the hopes that if I never thought of these things again it was like they never happened, but that of course was not true.  I have tried to rationalize my own bad behavior in order to justify my actions, but that just led to more bad behavior.  I have tried to just live with the burden of my baggage, but periodically it seemed like there was something that would remind me of the load I was carrying around.  Working Steps 4 and 5 are the most effective way I have ever found of dealing with my past and getting closure on it.  Like Frost alluded to, the best way to deal with my past was to face it and go through it, trying to find ways to go around it did no good.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is said that resentments are the number one offender, meaning that resentments are the number one reason people go out and drink again.  I can certainly understand that idea.  I have used my resentments to justify all manner of bad behavior, especially drinking.  For example, if I didn’t think my employer was treating me right, why should I care if I show up to work with a hangover, after all I’m the one they’re not treating well enough.  My resentments can also lead me to act out in defiance.  In treatment I learned the phrase, “I’ll show you, I’ll hurt me.”  This alcoholic perfectly understood what that meant.  If my wife made me mad, I’d retaliate by getting drunk.  But who was I really hurting?  I was the one on the verge of losing my family, I was the one who was ruining good jobs, and I was the one who was experiencing body rot from all the drinking I was doing.  I may have thought I was getting back at her, but in reality I was the one that was being hurt by my actions.  I know that if I don’t deal with my resentments I am just giving the enemy more ways to get to me.  Whether it is using resentments to justify drinking again or acting defiantly by hurting myself, resentments are an opportunity the enemy has to sabotage my recovery.  That is why I am so glad that the steps provide a healthy way of dealing with my resentments so they can’t be used against me.

Lesson 7 – Step 4: Sponsor

In our last lesson we talked about how critical it was that we establish a lasting relationship with Jesus Christ and accept Him as our Lord and Savior if we are to continue on with our recovery.  This week we will talk about the most important human relationship in our recovery – our sponsor.  Finding a sponsor will be key to moving forward as working the 4^th and 5^th Steps will require guidance and aid from your sponsor.  In our lesson this week we will discuss key questions you may have around sponsors to help you in finding one.

1. Why do you need a sponsor?

Our first question is perhaps the most obvious, why do we even need a sponsor?  There are several reasons having a sponsor will be important to your recovery.  First of all recovery, like our Christian walk, is not meant to be done alone.  I have never heard someone be told to go and work the steps on their own and then report back on how things went, the steps should be worked with somebody with experience that can guide you.  The concept of working with others is also based on scripture.  In Proverbs 27:17 we are told that “…iron sharpens iron…” and in Ecclesiastes 12:4 we are told that “Two are better than one…”.  There’s good reason to follow these Biblical principles and involve somebody more experienced in your recovery.  Your sponsor will act as your mentor as you navigate your recovery journey.  They will use their experience and their perspective to help you to find your way.

Having a sponsor is also the best guard against relapse.  When you develop a close relationship with your sponsor they will get to know your habits and patterns and will be able to see changes in your life or your recovery journey.  Your sponsor will help you to see when you are starting to get off track and provide suggestions on how to make sure you don’t end up relapsing.  Your sponsor will be able to provide you advice from their own experiences or from the experiences they have heard others share.  This advice can help you to maneuver through both crises and your daily struggles without derailing all the work you have done.

2. What are the qualities of a sponsor?

Now that we’ve established why we need a sponsor, let’s talk about some of the qualities we can look for in a sponsor.  Foremost you are going to want to find somebody that is “walking the talk” and has a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  These are critical aspects to a thriving recovery and you want somebody that has them.  Obviously since you are going to be asking this person to help you it will be important to find somebody that is interested in helping others.  This person should be able to show compassion and care but not pity.  Having compassion for someone is important for a sponsor but you don’t want someone to show you pity.  A sponsor is there to help you to find a better way of life, not to stand there with their arms folded feeling sorry for you.

You are also going to want somebody that is a good listener, after all you are going to be spending a lot of time talking to this person so being a good listener will be important.  Your sponsor will also need to be somebody that’s not afraid to confront your denial or procrastination.  Previously we mentioned the Bible verse that “iron sharpens iron,” and this is one of the ways your sponsor will do this in your life.  If your denial is blocking you from seeing the truth or if you are unnecessarily delaying important parts of your recovery process your sponsor should not be afraid to point these things out to you.  Although it’s not always easy to listen to advice you may not want to hear, as the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:5, “It is better to be criticized by a wise man than praised by a fool!”  As such, your sponsor should be somebody that is willing to offer you suggestions based on their experience to help you in your recovery.  In addition to the qualities listed above, a sponsor should be willing to admit their own struggles.  After all, if somebody does not believe there is anything wrong in their own life they are probably facing denial of their own.

3. What is the role of a sponsor?

Once you’ve found a sponsor you will want to use that person to help in your recovery.  A sponsor can be there to discuss items that are too personal or take too long to discuss in a meeting.  There are things that may come up in your life that may not be appropriate or may be too sensitive to bring up with your small group.  In the same way, since sharing in the small group is meant to be kept short, items that will take too long should be discussed with your sponsor.  Your sponsor will also be there during times of crisis or threat of relapse.  There may not always be a meeting available or you may not always be able to get to a meeting when your face a crisis in your life or are close to relapsing.  If this happens your sponsor should be your go to person to help you through these moments until you can get to a meeting.

Your sponsor will also act as a sounding board for your thoughts and ideas.  Your sponsor will provide you with objective feedback for ideas or questions you may have and will not be afraid to challenge your thinking or tell you when you are in denial.  They will also help you to work the steps at your own speed.  They will make sure you don’t move onto to the next step until you are finished with the current one.  If you are working the steps with a study group they may not be able to slow down for you, but if you are working them one-on-one with your sponsor you can go at the pace you need to.  In addition to helping you work through the eight principles, your sponsor will model the lifestyle that results from working the steps.

4. How do I find a sponsor?

We have already talked about the qualities a sponsor should have, let’s talk about finding a sponsor.  First off you will want to find someone that is the same sex as you.  You will need this when you work Step 5 and discuss private areas of your life, but you will also find that having a sponsor of the same sex will help as the struggles men and women go through can be quite different so having a sponsor that has been through the same kinds of struggles will be useful.  Many times you may find yourself drawn to a sponsor that has a similar story to yours; even if their hurt, habit or hang-up is not the same as yours.  Of course you’re going to have to actually meet people in recovery to find a sponsor, and the best way to do that is to go to meetings.  You can raise your hand in small groups and let people know you are looking for a sponsor, or if somebody impresses you with what they have to say you can ask them to be your sponsor.  As with any decision this important to your recovery, seek God’s help in finding the right person for you.

5. What is the difference between a sponsor and an accountability partner?

You have perhaps heard of accountability partners and may be wondering the difference between sponsors and accountability partners.  In sports terms, your sponsor can be compared to the coach of a team or a trainer in the gym.  They are meant to guide and mentor you and push you to grow and face the truth in your life.  An accountability partner on the other hand would be more like a cheerleader or “gym buddy” to keep with the sports analogy.  They are there to celebrate your successes, commiserate with you on issues in your life, and walk the program with you.  For sponsors, the absolute minimum requirement for somebody to serve is that they have completed working the steps.  An accountability partner on the other hand can be at any stage of recovery.  Another difference is that a sponsor can also have any hurt, habit or hang-up while you may find it more helpful to find accountability partners with similar issues to your own.  Finally, a sponsor should meet the sponsor qualifications listed above.

Other Thoughts

I have a friend who once said that he tells his sponsee’s, “if you have a good idea call me, if you have a great idea come see me.”  I know for me before I had been restored to sanity through the recovery process, I had some great ideas.  I thought it would be a great idea to get drunk when my wife was 8 ½ months pregnant.  I thought it would be a great idea to get drunk while my wife was at work and I was supposed to be taking care of our 2-year-old daughter.  If I would have had a sponsor at that point in my life and would have called that person up and told them what my great idea was, I am sure they would have set me straight on just how bad these ideas were.

Sponsors are a powerful tool in recovery, but they only help if you actually use them.  I wonder how many people die each year because their cell phone is too heavy to pick up.  How many people get drunk and then drive, how many people overdose on drugs — and if you look into the contacts of their cell phone you would find the number of their sponsor.  If they had only called their sponsor there’s a good chance they would not have made the same decision, but they decided not to pick up that phone and call.  A sponsor can’t be of help to you in your recovery if you don’t use them, but you have to make that choice.

A final note on sponsorship and picking a sponsor.  Some people think that picking a sponsor is like picking a home, you keep shopping around until you find the perfect one.  For me picking a sponsor would be more analogous to picking a retirement plan, the most important thing is to find one quickly.  The longer you wait to start saving for retirement the more opportunity you lose for your money to start making returns.  In the same way, if you are delaying selecting a sponsor because you can’t find the perfect one, you may delay too long and end up relapsing before you find that “perfect fit.”  I would say this is especially true if you’re waiting to find somebody that agrees with everything you are doing and doesn’t challenge you in your recovery.  A good sponsor is not going to tell you what you want to hear, they are going to tell you what you need to hear.  My advice is that if you find somebody that is willing to work the steps with you, grab hold of that person and begin your recovery journey!

Lesson 6 – Step 3: Action

You may not have realized it, but you have reached a critical juncture in your recovery.  Up to this point your recovery journey has not required a lot of work.  In Step 1 we faced our denial and accepted our powerlessness.  In Step 2 we began to change our thinking to precede changing our actions.  Even in our last lesson we focused on finding the willingness to begin to turn our lives over to God.  While each of these is critical in our recovery, they do not really require any work on our part.  That is going to change now.  Your recovery will require you to take action if you are going to continue, and that is the title of today’s lesson.

I find myself to be slow to commit to things many times, and I certainly started my recovery journey this way.  When I first started coming to meetings I thought to myself, “I’ll start off slowly and then when I finally feel the urge to I’ll jump into this thing.”  I have heard getting into recovery is a lot like getting into a row boat.  When you are getting in a small boat you don’t take baby steps and work your way in from the edge, you have to jump right into the middle with both feet.  I tried starting my recovery by taking baby steps from the edge to disastrous results because I was not willing to take action.  By deciding to wait to do any of the work, I was really deciding “no,” and I paid consequences for that decision.

Our acrostic for tonight is ACTION:

A – Accept

C – Commit

T – Turn it Over

I – It’s Only the Beginning

O – One Day at a Time

N – New Life

Let’s look at each one in more detail:

Accept

If you have not accepted Jesus as your personal savior now is the time to focus on that, all of the rest of our work in the steps will be based on that life-changing decision.  Likewise, if you are not sure of where you stand in your salvation work with your sponsor, other people in your Celebrate Recovery group, or a spiritual leader in the church.  If you are like me, perhaps you were saved at an early age.  I have found that accepting Jesus as my personal savior has taken on a much greater meaning in recovery.

I was initially saved when I was 7 years old.  Back then Jesus being my savior just meant that when I died I was going to go to heaven.  I didn’t see my relationship with God as being much more than an insurance policy for the afterlife.  Fast forward almost thirty years later when I started recovery and I began to see things very differently.  Jesus wasn’t just going to be there for me when I died, He was here for me now to help me through my alcoholism.  Recovery made me realize that accepting Jesus as my savior meant that I needed to rely on Him daily for His strength.

Commit

When it came to committing my life and my will over to God I had quite a bit of work to do.  For me this was one of the most profound changes in thinking I experienced in early sobriety.  When I began to really consider my life and my relationship with God, I realized that I had never been willing to commit my life over to God.  In fact, I had spent almost all of my prayer time trying to get God to commit to helping me achieve my own selfish goals!  I never prayed to God and asked Him to reveal what His plan for me was, for Him to give me acceptance of His plan for me, or for Him to give me the strength I would need to see His plan through.  Rather I would pray and ask Him to help me get into this college, or help me get this job I wanted, or resolve this problem or that problem exactly how I wanted it resolved.  I realized I was never willing to commit my life to God because I was too scared God’s plan for me was different from my own.  Working Step 3 helped me reshape that thinking, a process I continue to grow with.

Turn it Over

In our last lesson, we talked about becoming willing to turn things over to God, now we actually have to take action and do it.  For me this is where “the rubber meets the road” in Step 3.  I know in my own life there are times when I know what the right thing to do is, sometimes I’m even willing to do the right thing, but that doesn’t mean I actually do it.  This is especially true when it comes to turning things over to God.  It’s not enough to know I need to and be willing to do it, I actually have to take action and turn these items over to God.  I have to pray for His will to be done, I have to focus on accepting the outcome rather than trying to manipulate things, and I have to stop worrying about whether the outcome will be what I want and trust in His plan for me.

It’s Only the Beginning

One of the things that has made recovery different for me than other things in my life is that this is a journey rather than a destination.  All my life it has always been about the destination: your worked in school to get your diploma, take a course and get your certification, work on this project until it is completed and then move on to the next.  Recovery is not like that, we won’t be handing out any diplomas when we finish with Step 12 later this year.  Your sponsor is not going to declare you cured when you finish working the steps with them.  This path we are on is a spiritual path that allows for a lifetime of growth.

One Day at a Time

One of the things I have learned to try to do in recovery is to stay in the present.  I find it easy to get bogged down with things that happened in my past and to become fearful of what may happen in the future.  Early in recovery especially, I found myself trapped in my past.  I was so full of shame and regret over the things I had done, over what I had put my family through, that I found it almost impossible to live that down.  I couldn’t look my family in the eyes and I didn’t feel like an equal party in my own marriage.  It took a while but I realized that there was absolutely nothing I could do that would change the past.  Moreover, living in this remorse was an opening the enemy could exploit to sabotage my recovery.  I realized that the greatest thing I could do was to work the best recovery program I could and keep trying to do the next right thing for the sake of my family.

Even more than living in the past, I find myself susceptible now to worrying about the future.  I will find myself worrying about what kind of choices my daughters will make when they get older or how I’m going to stay sober when I retire and I have so much spare time on my hands.  If I allow them to, these thoughts will start to bounce around in my head until I truly become afraid of the future, and then I will start trying all kinds of ways to control everyone and everything around me.  One of the things I’ve been told in recovery is that fear and faith can’t occupy the same space, and when I start getting scared about the future I have to remind myself of this.  After all, what can I really do about events five days, five months or twenty-five years from now at this very moment?  If I am allowing myself to become afraid am I really trusting that everything is going to turn out the way God wants it to, or am I focused on things not turning out the way I want them to?  When I start to put my trust back into God and His plan I find my fear quickly dissolves away.

New Life

There is a new life that exists out there for us, and it starts with accepting Jesus as our personal savior.  If you have not done this (or if you need to re-commit yourself to God), ask yourself these questions:
Do you:

Believe Jesus Christ died on the cross and showed He was God by coming back to life (1 Corinthians 15:2-4)

Accept God’s free forgiveness of your sins (Romans 3:22)

Switch to God’s plan for your life (Mark 1:16-18, Romans 12:2)

Express your desire for Christ to be the director of your life (Romans 10:9)

If you answer yes to these questions you are ready to accept God into your life and to begin taking action and truly working Step 3.

Other Thoughts

When I began working a step study program early in sobriety I remember the leader of the program telling us that this was a “spiritual program of action.”  I remember when he said this it stood out to me.  I have been involved in spiritual programs since birth.  I went to church most of my life, I was in Sunday School through high school, and I was involved in Vacation Bible School in my early years.  However, I had never been told point blank that these were programs of action.  I thought it was okay if I sat in my pew and listened intently and occasionally was inspired by what I had heard.  The 12 Steps aren’t like that.  Just like watching a workout video isn’t going to get you in shape, listening to instructions on how to do the steps isn’t going to get you any benefits.  You can listen to someone describe a wonderful meal they’ve had, but that isn’t going to get rid of the rumble in your stomach.  In the same way, listening to somebody’s testimony isn’t going to get rid of the resentments, guilt, denial and pain in your own life.  This is a spiritual program of action, action that starts with this lesson in turning things over to God and will continue on through the remainder of the steps.  As I was told many times in early recovery, if I wanted what other people had I needed to do what they did – and that meant taking action!