The Big Book Fear Inventory

The Big Book's fear inventory lives on pages 67 and 68, in Chapter 5, How It Works — a few short paragraphs tucked between the resentment inventory and the review of our relationships. Short, but not small. The book introduces fear with unusual force: 'It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it' (page 67). If you have ever gotten honest about what actually drove the drinking — and the lying, the hiding, the big talk — you know why the book gives fear its own review.

The Instructions, Step by Step

The directions are plainer than we expect. 'We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them' (page 68). That last clause matters. In the resentment inventory we had already noticed fear sitting underneath entry after entry. Here the book has us list the fears that stand on their own — fear of losing a job, a marriage, our health, our standing, fear of being found out, fear of ending up alone. On paper, each one, by name. Fear does its best work in the dark, and the inventory is simply the act of turning the lights on.

Then comes the question that turns a list into an inventory: 'We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us?' (page 68). We had run our lives on our own strength, our own cleverness, our own plans — and the returns kept shrinking. Self-reliance was the strategy, and fear was the receipt. The book allows that self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. When the bet is everything and the bankroll is only ourselves, fear is simply honest arithmetic.

The Remedy the Book Offers

The fear inventory doesn't end with insight; it ends with a change of ground. 'We are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God' (page 68). Instead of demanding that we be big enough for every threat, we hand the outcome to something bigger than us. The practical prayer is right there in the text: 'We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be' (page 68). Notice the direction of that prayer — not toward the thing we're afraid of losing, but toward who we might become. And the book's promise for this piece of work is immediate and modest: 'At once, we commence to outgrow fear' (page 68). Commence. It is a beginning renewed daily, not a lightning cure.

Working It Today

If you are on Step Four, take a fresh sheet and write down every fear you can name, whether or not it connects to a resentment. Beside each one, ask the book's question: why do I have it? Where did relying on myself alone actually leave me? Then use the prayer on page 68 for each fear on the list, and bring the whole sheet to your sponsor when you share your Fifth Step. Many of us date the real loosening of fear's grip to that one honest conversation. The Promises even circle back to this work later in the book: 'Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us' (page 84). The old fears may still knock. The difference is that we no longer have to answer the door alone.