How does the Big Book say to do Step 4?
In short:
- Step 4 is "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." (p. 59) The Big Book explains how on pages 63 to 71, in Chapter 5.
- It's written down. The book looks at resentments first, then fears, then sex conduct, and in each it turns from what others did to where we were at fault.
- The book's sample resentment list has three columns (p. 65). The fourth part, looking for our own mistakes, is described in the text that follows (p. 67), not drawn as a column.
- It's meant to be done promptly, right after the Third Step decision, and the list of people harmed that it produces becomes the Step Eight list (p. 76).
Why an inventory
The book compares it to a business stocktaking: a fact-finding and fact-facing process to find "damaged or unsalable goods" and get rid of them "promptly and without regret" (p. 64). The point is to find the causes behind the drinking: "Our liquor was but a symptom" (p. 64). Being convinced that self was what had defeated them, they looked at its common forms (p. 64).
1. Resentments
"Resentment is the 'number one' offender" (p. 64). The method, in the book's order: - Put it on paper. List the people, institutions or principles you're angry with (p. 64). - Ask why. Usually it was found that self-esteem, pocketbook, ambitions or personal relationships, including sex, were "hurt or threatened" (pp. 64–65). - Set the injury opposite each name. The book's example (p. 65) has three columns: "I'm resentful at," "The Cause," and "Affects my." The word "fear" is written in beside several of the entries. - Go back through your whole life. "Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty" (p. 65). - Then look at it differently. The book says concluding that others were wrong was as far as most people got, and it kept them sore (p. 66). Resentment, for the alcoholic, is fatal: it shuts us off "from the sunlight of the Spirit" (p. 66). So they came to see the people who wronged them as perhaps spiritually sick, and asked God to help them show those people the patience they'd give a sick friend (pp. 66–67). - Find your own part. Putting aside the other person's wrongs, they looked for their own mistakes: "Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened?" (p. 67) Even where it wasn't entirely their fault, they tried to disregard the other person. "The inventory was ours, not the other man's" (p. 67). They listed their faults in black and white (p. 67).
2. Fears
They noticed the word "fear" beside so many entries (p. 67), and so "We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper" (p. 68), even where no resentment went with them. They asked why they had each one, and found that self-reliance had failed them (p. 68). They asked God to remove the fear and turn their attention to what He would have them be (p. 68).
3. Sex conduct
The book says it wants to stay out of the controversy over sex and won't be "the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct" (p. 69). The inventory here is about one's own behaviour: Where had we been selfish, dishonest or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? What should we have done instead? (p. 69) "We got this all down on paper and looked at it" (p. 69). From it they shaped an ideal for the future, tested each relationship by whether it was selfish, and were willing to make amends where they'd done harm, provided they didn't cause more harm doing it (p. 69).
What you end up with
The book's summary on page 70: if you've been thorough, you've written a lot. You've listed and analysed your resentments, begun to learn tolerance even toward enemies, and "listed the people we have hurt by our conduct" (p. 70). That list of people harmed is the one Step Eight uses: "We made it when we took inventory" (p. 76). The book doesn't describe a separate "harms inventory" with its own format.
When to do it
Right away. The decision in Step Three "could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by" a strenuous effort to face what's been blocking us (p. 64). The next chapter then moves straight to Step Five (p. 72). The book says nothing about taking months over the inventory; it doesn't give a time either, beyond "at once."
Read it yourself
- Chapter 5, "How It Works" (pp. 58–71), with the inventory on pages 63–71, free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- Chapter 6, "Into Action" (pp. 72–88), for what comes next: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt6.pdf
- The full book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org.
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 5, "How It Works" (Step Four) | 59, 63–71 | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Chapter 6, "Into Action" | 72, 76 | 1939 |
Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). The Preface says the program chapters have been "left largely untouched" since 1939 (p. xi), but our sources have no first edition to compare page numbers against.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.