Step Four Inventory

The Fourth Step

The fourth of the Twelve Steps is a moral inventory: an honest look at yourself, in writing. Bill Wilson wrote the Steps in 1938 for the book Alcoholics Anonymous, which members call the Big Book. It was published in 1939. He and his wife Lois later lived at Stepping Stones, the house above, from 1941 until his death in 1971.

In its chapter "How It Works," the Big Book begins the inventory with resentments and sets them out in columns: the person, institution or principle you resent; the cause; and what it affects in you, such as your self-esteem, your security or your relationships.

Your own part

Then it asks you to set the other person's wrongs aside and look for your own: where you were selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or frightened. Many people write this as a fourth column, and this module has one.

It is the hardest column, and the one the inventory is for. Most people take the finished list to their sponsor at the Fifth Step.

Your part is never the harm someone else did to you. Where someone abused you, or hurt you as a child, many sponsors say the only part to write is the resentment you still carry, and some people work through those harms with a counselor as well.

How the module works

A table with four columns, Person, Cause, Affects my and My part, and a row for each resentment. It goes once, at the front of the book, and runs fourteen columns wide so each entry has room.

A note

Memari is not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous or any twelve-step fellowship. This module is a page to write on, laid out around the step, not a program. The Big Book is the place to read the step itself, and your sponsor and your group are the people to work it with.