Saturday, December 6th

I had defined myself by my addiction. Taking inventory made me realize I am so much more than that.

Step Four suggests that we make “a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” The moral inventory referred to in Step Four is about facing the truth — helping to clean out the cycle of shame that fuels our obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior.

Experience has shown that the spiritual principle of “cleaning house” gives us room to change our lives. The term “rigorous honesty” can sound punitive, but practicing honesty sheds light on the resentments, fears, and harms most of us have hidden.

Every day we delay working on Step Four is another day of living with our hidden baggage. So, we take the plunge.

We review the resentments, fears, and harms involving all aspects of our lives. As we proceed, we discover patterns that give us clues about our character defects and assets. The more we look at them, the more we find they have distorted our thinking and feelings.

Our character assets and defects become clearer. We find that we are not as hopelessly flawed as we had once believed. We can gratefully use this understanding as we continue our journey.

We can turn our misgivings and fears into FEAR: Face Everything And Recover. 

Friday, December 5th

I can accept a power greater than myself, but how does that acceptance lead to a spiritual change?

Before recovery, some of us worried that our sexual compulsion was taking us further away from any spiritual connection. Our repetitive acting-out behaviors only seemed to deepen a feeling of emptiness — a growing void within us.

Step Three suggests that we turn our will and our lives over to the care of the God of our understanding. Accepting a Higher Power is one thing, but turning over our will means letting go of our need to control — an action we would never have considered while in our compulsive state.

We “let go” by trusting that our Higher Power can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We may more easily develop this faith if we admit that our previous attempts to control our lives generally failed. By establishing this trust, we let our Higher Power guide our actions.

Through our work and with the support of our fellow members, we may experience a change in our behaviors, attitude, and outlook. This spiritual transformation can enable us to live in the present, right-size our fears and resentments, and show compassion to ourselves and others.

We become more present in our lives and connected to the wisdom within us.