That works for me Phil I am doing alot of work in the last couple of years around roles and scripts and belief systems that are no longer wanted, needed or helpful to adult life as God has it. Two Greek words for life are zoe and bios. Bios is here is who I am and this is what I do. Zoe deals more with "life as God has it." This is the authenticity I am attempting to reach in step 4.

Humility

Humility is perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble.

--anonymous

charitas,

mm

Thanks Phil for the questions for the fourth step. This week has been different for me. Instead of intellectually believing God is in my life I actually felt it become a reality. Instead of trying to medicate my negative or desires away I have been able to accept them and surrender. I think that I am finally getting the 3rd step the key is acceptance and walking into God's grace.

RESEARCH:
leaving a wonderful home in the mountains.
my young, only son slowly sickening and dying over thirteen years.
ministering the gospel in jails and church many times every week.
life.

FINDINGS/GOALS:
i'm not the main thing happening :-)

Release

Dream: we- drops in God's ocean

Silence: be-ing in THE SPIRIT

Hi everyone

The last couple of weeks I have actively started again on my 3rd and Fourth steps. I have also discovered personal acceptance again and have worked on some boundaries. One of them has been no internet at work, another no debit visa, and being accountable for my spending habits. I have found this has led to some tremendous grace and freedom and help in my choices when I am tempted with things or acting out. I am writing a short paper on my relationship with God currently and then will begin writing the list of all people I have wronged or have wronged me. I am also looking at all the distractions in my life that keep me from working the steps. The biggest is all the projects I use to keep from doing my recovery work or work in general.

Hi Everyone

Today I took 3 steps back and met God as my sponsor would say. I rode the edge but did not fall and made the phone calls that I needed too. I think it was the holidays and my need to work the steps and not fall for the destructive games I play with myself.

I have officially finished step 3. It was suggested by my sponsor to write this step out describing my current relationship with God. It started with all the addictions I am unwilling to give up. Personally I know that I am unable too. As the short paper progressed the tone began to Change as my walk with has recently changed. Instead of an attitude of a selfish child I have been praying God give me the courage to let it go. He has. He has not taken away the desire or selfishness but given me the courage to depend on him to get through the storms of my own selfishness for that I am greatful.

Congratulations! I find that this Step needs to be constantly reaffirmed, and I suppose the 11th Step is doing that, in a way. If you look at the language of 3 and 11, you'll see the similarities.

Way to keep moving forward, Br. Jaan!

Thanks Phil I have not been here in a couple of days but I had a reaffirmation of the first three steps in my life and I also realize for me to move ahead into the fourth step I have to forgive my father for much of the religious abuse I received and rejection. Pray for me.

I restarted reading Phil's book Becoming a New Person Twelve Steps to Christian Growth and have been looking at the Questions at the end of Step one and am reminded of the things that paralyze my journey forward into the 12 steps procrastination, Lust, and anger. The questions are great and made me think about character defects as they are called in 12 step circles.

I'm glad to hear that book is helping, Br. Jaan. I thing you're right about those character defects being the ground out of which addictive impulses arise, and even deeper yet are those unconscious emotional wounds of shame, resentment and fear, usually related to family of origin issues. It takes awhile to move through all of that, but every little step forward is progress.

Last couple of days have been a challenge to remain surrendered Step 3 while keeping Step 2 in front of me. Living in Honesty has been a challenge I am a chronic liar and procrastinator with big ideas that is disconnected from what is real. Actually I tend to avoid reality. My sobriety demands I live in reality. Anyway I guess the steps are not one time events but happen everyday in our lives.

This week I have been floating in and out of acceptance of who I am an addict. This of course is the first step on the road to recovery. By nature I become comfortable fall on my face and then start over. I guess I am fighting against complacency which leads to procrastination in my life. After this sets in my works suffers depression continues and then I find myself buried in the mire of my addiction.

I had a wonderful weekend at a retreat that stirred alot of feelings. In the process though I again was reminded how insidious my addiction is. I did not lose my sobriety but my thinking for a while this morning was off until I was able to talk with my wife and pray morning prayer. I guess in a sense third step work is never done it will be a constant surrendering, letting go, and acceptance of who I am.

I am beginning step 4 which is making the fearless inventory of myself. I have the helps that Phil put in his posting now I need to do it. I find myself sliding into an avoidance mode or back into my addiction. I guess that is the same thing. In many ways step 1 and 4 or similar only step 4 is more intense. I have to examine not only my addiction but my character flaws. In another one of my character flaws came out being always right and argumentative. Pray for me as I begin a journey into myself something that I have avoided all of my life.

It takes a lot of courage to do a searching and fearless moral inventory, so don't forget to see the good, too. I think placing this Step after #3 was a stroke of genius, as you can rely on God to hold you together as you examine your life. Prayers indeed.

More and more I am seeing how the program in only as good as the foundation and grounding in the first 4 steps. Denial is not just the river in Egypt
and I'm well on my way to crossing over in step 4.

I might need some help, as a blind man would in identifying dirty areas in the house to be cleaned.

Then there is the Shadow, which Christians so often are encouraged to deny, repress and push away. Hug your demons or they will bite you in the butt Denial is a survival skill which I no longer require. Only RIGOROUS honesty can keep me
out of the Shadow. (By the way, Out of the Shadows
by Patrick Carnes is a valuable book I read a couple of years ago)

Here are some useful tips on 4th step obstacles from The Twelve Steps, a Spiritual Journey by Freinds in Recovery, a Christian 12 step publisher. http://www.info@rpipublishing.com

Simple Denial: To pretend that something does not exist when it really does (e.g., discounting physical symptoms that may suggest the presence of problems).

Minimizing: To acknowledge a problem, but refuse to see it's severity (e.g., admitting to overusage of prescription drugs when in fact there is overt addiction).

Blaming: To recognise the problem, then blame someone else for it's cause ( e. g., blaming others for your tendency to isolate).

Excusing: To offer excuses, alibies justifications, and other explanations for our own or another's behavior (e.g., calling in sick for a partner when the actual cause of the absence is drunkenness).

Generalizing: To deal with a problem on a general level which typically avoids personal and emotional awareness of the situation or conditions
(e.g., sympathizing with a freind's unemployment when you know the underlying cause is irresponsibility).

Dodging: To change the subject to avoid threatening topics (e.g., talking about the weather when your spouse is discussing the overdrawn checkbook).

Attacking: To become angry and irritable when reference is made to the existing condition, thus avoiding the issue (e.g., arguing about work conditions when the boss addresses tardiness).

-------------------------------------------------

Anyway, you get the general idea. The false self is slippery and readily adapts itself to the idea that "we're in a spiritual program now and everything is ok."

caritas,


michael


<*))))><

I guess this is human nature but I had some near slips recently mostly dealing with spending money or anger but it causes me to avoid doing my step work altogether.The more I am in the program the more I realize I have an obssession issue that engulfs all my life and is not confined to my addiction and keeps me from being an effective person and working the steps.

brjaan:

Could it be you are being obsessive about being obsessive? And although it is none of my business, I'm curious about how anger, unless it was violent, would imply failure in recovery, or sanctity for that matter. I'm only surmising from your post, but having routine emotional upsets cause you to sabotage your 12 step program sounds like a lot of shame about ordinary human emotion. Along with shame is often a need to be perfect to retain control over emotions that aren't always neat and predictable. Anger without extreme shame often does a lot less harm than the complicated state you seem to be describing. There can also be a lot of pride if we expect ourselves not to become emotional at times.

I'll quote the Big Book;

Resentment is the "number one" offender.It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.
In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principals with whom we were angry. We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our self esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships, (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were "burned up."

On our grudge list we set opposite each name our injuries. Was it our self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal, or sex relations, which had been interfered with?

We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished
we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent was that this world and it's people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and we were sore at ourselves. But the more we faught and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only SEEMED to win. Our moments of triumph were short lived.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while.
But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.

We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and it's people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had the power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol.

This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help show them the same tolerance, pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick freind. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.

caritas,

mm <*))))><

There is a big difference between anger and resentment. Obviously you must know this Michael. But folks who react to anger like it is a sin, or a pathological bear trap, are setting themselves up for intolerance of emotion in general. There is no protection from these vulnerabilities, only opportunities to relate with emotions consciously and with compassion. But setting up an ideal that requires such careful behavior is itself a pathology; it is likely a transfer of the addiction to an obsessive need to control those painful memories that come into awareness when vulnerability/intimacy is experienced. Treating emotions like alcohol is a perilous step, as they are part of the human psyche and connect us with our hearts.

Oh, you are so wise, master Po

I like to observe my anger and alot of other goofy thoughts as they rise and pass through me.
The purpose of the inventory, my first sponsor said,
was to learn how to take an inventory. It is the beginning (for those who have never done it), of a lifelong process.
Buddhist teachers agree and teach that it is important to watch the anger and deal with it before it GROWS and becomes resentment.

grasshopper.com

<*))))><

Yes it is true I am highly obsessive and have a huge issue with anxiety which sometimes keeps me from doing my work and functioning. I masked it with my addiction, obsessive plan making, goofiness, or being a hypochrondiach I probably killed the spelling of this. My doctor suggested Zoloft. I have always been ressistent to medication because of what I saw what the meds did to my wife (she is Bipolar) before they balanced them. My sponsor is against the idea of medication but we'll see.
The difference between Anger and resentment is still a blur for me. I know them intellectually but cannot tell when my emotions are running. A lot of it is tied into shame something I give up on a daily basis. Thanks for all of your comments.

Buddhist teachers agree and teach that it is important to watch the anger and deal with it before it GROWS and becomes resentment.

The difference between Anger and resentment is still a blur for me.

Isn�t anger when someone steps on your toe and you momentarily and proportionately get angry at the careless walker? Isn�t resentment when you go ballistic (or silently seethe far out of proportion to the offense) when someone steps on your toe because you�re mad at all the other toe-steppers who have ever crossed your path before?

There are a lot of reasons why we don�t express that anger at the appropriate time and in the appropriate amount, and I think you all know those reasons. I have much trouble with this myself. I will usually just clam up and silently seethe for a good long time. I become very uncommunicative. It�s not easy, especially when we come to a point where we realize how harmful things like rage are. The last thing we want, if we�re really trying to get out from under unconscious behavior, is to beat people over the head with our anger. I think most of us know this and thus our reaction to perceived offenses is tempered not only by our difficulty at expressing anger appropriately, but by the knowledge that understanding and compassion is another way (probably the best way) of getting around anger without avoiding it or bottling it up.