Two of the Twelve Steps, and a remarkable system for self-assessment
Today I want to talk about the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Full disclosure - I am a drug addict and an alcoholic. On December 10th I celebrated 9 years sober (and by celebrated, I mean did nothing). And Jesus Christ, what a journey it has been. The only thing harder than being sober today was being sober yesterday.
One of the foundational principles of my life since I got sober is to constantly monitor my own mind and my own behavior - both for my own wrongs and for places where I feel wronged by others. This is a functional cornerstone of sober living.
Let me mention this, before I get going: I think the 12 Steps are an exceptionally useful framework for life. They’re not just a recipe for sobriety - they’re a recipe for healthy and balanced living. Whether you struggle with substance abuse or not. For anyone, of any background, under just about any circumstances. For the sake of your curiosity, here’s a link to the 12 Steps on the AA website: https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-steps
Now some people (including me 9 years ago) get turned off or even repulsed by the mention of God in these steps. When I first faced that concept as a fresh-off-the-street heroin addict, you can imagine the distaste I had for anything allegedly divine. I felt the world was out to get me, and God seemed like nothing but a cruel joke at that point. So, for the people who would question his place in these steps… trust me, I get it.
But the program has a more general aim: to guide you to find purpose in something greater than yourself. That can be any God you want it to be - a Group Of Drunks, or Good Orderly Direction, or your family, or some other thing that gives you purpose and fulfillment in life. Anything to which you can genuinely be accountable and faithful.
Now, the 12 steps won’t solve the riddle of life for you. But they will, upon carefully being followed, lead you to stop living in resentment and fear and anger. They will give you a fantastic starting point for rebuilding your destroyed life; or, for our purposes here, for just making systematic and sustainable changes to an already decent life.
What I want to focus on right now is steps 4 and 5. I will list those here so they’re at the forefront of our minds:
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
This is key.
To be honest, this is where 90% of the work is done.
Getting sober is the easy part. Cleaning yourself all the way up is the hard part. Finishing the job is the hard part. Taking someone who is an unlovable, disgruntled, self-loathing mess and turning him into someone who can live properly - that’s the hard part. Replacing horrible systems (or no systems at all) with good, orderly systems - that is where the meat of the program lies. And it’s also where most people fail. They don’t finish the job. They don’t finish cleaning themselves up.
I cannot tell you - not even with my best guess - how many people I have seen slip up, or fall off, or die because they never finished cleaning themselves up. They had that one resentment they hung unto. Or that one bit of self-loathing they weren’t ready to contend with. Or that one secret they weren’t willing to admit to somebody. Anytime someone discusses the Fourth and Fifth Steps with me, I tell them: you do not get to hang onto anything. Nothing. If you try to hide something from the world, or you keep trying to hide from yourself, your demons are going to catch up with you. Turn over every rock, admit every fault, confront every dirty emotion.
This, in my experience, is the foundational system of human living. Being able to take the information that comes into your life and turn it into something that’s actually good for you. Or, at the very least, something that doesn’t poison you. You have to be able to distill your own emotions, other people’s actions, and the vicissitudes of life, into a meaningful elixir that doesn’t poison your mind, body, and spirit.
So let me put these steps another way, in clearer words.
We took inventory of everything inside us that we could find - absolutely everything - that was making us chronically unhappy, fearful, angry or hateful. We also took inventory of all of the unforgiven wrongs we have done to others.
Step Four is where you wrestle control of your life away from your ego, your fears, your hatreds, and the ghosts of your past that keep heckling you for all the horrible things you’ve done. If I could boil the 12 Steps down to one sentence, it would be: stop letting your ego control your life, and instead let a sense of purpose control your life.
What we’re looking for here is the places where ego, self-pity, anger, depression, and anxiety control us. The places where resentment, hatred, fear, insecurity, and delusion have us trapped. The places where our own actions have been unfair and harmful to others. And the places where our personalities and our desires are excessive.
This inventory includes both our feelings and actions, and the feelings and actions of others. Everything needs to be accounted for. Everything inside us that conquers our attention when we don’t want it to, everything that tugs at our negative emotions, everything that distracts us from living a good life. Everything that keeps that dark cloud over our heads. All of it.
But J.R., does this include, like… the worst of the worst? My darkest secrets? The things that I swore once upon a time to take to my grave?
Yes. Not only yes, but especially those. Those are the ones that ruin lives. Those are the ones that keep an alcoholic drinking. There’s an old saying for newcomers in AA: “Make a list of all the things you’re unwilling to do. And then do those things first.”
And it’s true. I had to admit my worst secrets, and so does anyone who undertakes this process. The ones that make me feel disgusting, and unlovable, and like a pitiful excuse for a human being. Trust me, I have heard the worst of them. And there’s no judgment. People do horrible things to each other. Hurt people hurt people. And the only good option we have is to clean ourselves up, ask for forgiveness, and move forward.
Now, what might a Fourth Step inventory look like?
Glad you asked.
This is the best part. It’s ridiculously simple. Buy a fresh notebook. Then, on the first page, draw lines creating five columns. A good place to start is with resentments. Here is an example of what your notebook might look like:
A good next step is the Sex Inventory. Or, more generally, the “what have I done to others to harm them” inventory. Both the specifics and the general question matter. Example:
And finally, the Fear Inventory. I mean, come on, be honest - you’re afraid of a lot of things. We all are. There’s no such thing as a fearless man - only a man who behaves boldly anyway. Example:
Now. This is a lot to take in. But let me re-simplify. The goal is to pick apart what’s inside us that makes us less than we should be, and get rid of it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you wanted, you could even use a three-column approach with less detail. “Who do I resent, why, and why is it my own fault.” Something like that. Or you could write long-form about your internal struggles or your resentments. All that matters is that you set it up in a way that A. Makes sense to you, and B. Allows you to cleanse yourself of the grip these things have on you. Which brings us to Step Five.
We sat down with a human being who was genuinely interested in helping us. And we went through our journal, discussing each point in the journal until we felt its burden being lifted away from us.
Now this is the part where you have to find somebody you trust. Somebody who will not judge you; hopefully somebody who has been through a rough life of his or her own; and somebody who will keep your confessions to him- or herself. It’s not as hard as it sounds - people like this are everywhere. You just have to be bold enough to ask someone to be your witness. Your sponsor, eh.
I had the good fortune of having an AA sponsor who had a great sense of humor and a track record fit for the electric chair. He did not judge me one time. Not for one second. I unloaded my entire inventory onto him, and he listened patiently and related with little experiences of his own. Which of course made me feel understood, which is a good thing for someone who is vulnerable.
When I told him my worst secrets, he laughed. And then he leaned back and said “is that it? Dude, I’ve done way worse shit than that.” And then proceeded to tell me stories that would make a pastor’s skin crawl. Which was interesting, because some of the stuff I had done was pretty terrible.
But he made me feel, in that moment, like I was lovable again. He gave me precisely what the AA founders intended, in their infinite wisdom: a loving hand on my back and encouragement to move forward. To clean up and move forward. That’s all I needed. That’s exactly what I needed. That’s the only thing that could have saved me from what was going on inside me. A loving voice to tell me “it’s okay, man… you can move on now.”
I also discussed these things with my counselor. Which is an important asset to utilize if you feel the need to deeply and thoroughly talk through something. Not just for drug addicts and drinkers, but for anyone. Most of the learning I do about myself comes from either writing or talking with someone I trust. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter who it is.
And what comes next, then, is obvious: you keep taking inventory of yourself like this as a routine mental process. Every day. “Where am I bothered and why?” “Why am I so angry today?” “Why did I do that to my brother? He really didn’t deserve that.”
And when we’re wrong, we promptly admit it. And seek forgiveness - not just for our own sake, but because it allows the other person to move on too. Making amends (Steps 8 and 9) is a two-way street: it’s about loving ourselves and about loving others. Not one at the expense of the other.
My life changed when I finished Step 5. When I finished baring myself to the universe. All my weaknesses, all my ego problems, all my anger issues and deep-seated resentments, all the ghosts of my past from which I was running. When I finally felt like I could be a worthwhile person again. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.
This framework is a mental routine that I can go through in seconds now. And I do. Every single day. I ask myself questions about why I am being the way I am being, and I can usually come up with a pretty quick answer. Is it my ego? (Fun fact: the problem is almost always my ego.) My desire for control? My fear of losing something or of not getting something I think I deserve? And then I can ask a better question: how do I stop doing that? How do I get back to being a loving and helpful guy?
Finding someone to discuss your problems with isn’t just reserved for teenage girls. Every man and woman needs to have someone they can discuss these things with. To unload them onto - so someone can share your burden, but equally importantly, so that someone can see the real you. And yes, let me repeat that I think men should too. Maybe even especially men. Because we men are often taught that vulnerability and insecurities are invalid. ... What, so vulnerability is invalid but growing into a bitter, resentful old fuck is valid? I’m gonna go ahead and disagree with that.
Taking inventory of oneself as an ongoing daily routine is a really powerful thing. This framework can help anyone. Absolutely anyone. Once you figure out your own weaknesses, you’re able to easily identify where they affect you and how. And you can immediately realign yourself back into your better mode of being. Into the version of yourself that you actually want to be.
Life is a difficult thing to manage. The only thing we can do to manage it better is to have better systems.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Socrates