This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives
Step Four: Fear Inventory
“Perhaps there is a better way—we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.”
-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 68 (Step Four)
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous work for anyone who wants to stay sober and have a life of purpose and truth. Welcome to Ask Anonymous to anyone who is newly sober or anyone who continues to crave recovery and growth in sobriety—this stack is for you.
I am having a current experience in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. That means that I have been going through the Steps once again with my sponsor. I alone made the decision to do this as I sensed my life was getting a little off track. My emotions once again started dominating my thoughts and I just didn’t feel very good. It has been a powerful experience and very humbling.
I am not surprised just how long my list of fears was on my most recent inventory, completed in late November. Now that I have been sober awhile, there is so much to lose. As my ego rebuilt itself, I began to believe that I was solely responsible for everything in my life—everything that went right and wrong. And this formula of ego plus an over sense of responsibility has always brought disaster. I had once again left God completely out of the equation. If God was everything or he was nothing, as I remembered from Step Two, then my thoughts and actions proved that God was nothing. Self-reliance was where I was once again living.
You see, this is the realization that I had to make by taking a hard look at my list of fears. The self-reliance meant that I was having to do everything on my own, and it just wasn’t working out as I planned. And then the crash and burn into depression. Even worse, my fears became a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I feared came to fruition as I just couldn’t keep all of the plates spinning in the air. One by one they began crashing and breaking on the hard, cold, merciless concrete ground.
Yet there is hope. The God I met in Step Two is still here for me in Step Four. In fact, the beauty of the Steps is their most perfect order. I now have a God who will help me see just where my fears have taken me. My Higher Power stands gently beside me as I witness the destruction that has occurred due to my self-reliance.
There is also the beauty of Bill’s writing in the Big Book at the end of the Step Four Fear Inventory. It is all about God. These are some of the most famous passages in the Book, and they occur not in “We Agnostics” but right here at the end of the Fear Inventory:
“We never apologize to anyone for depending on our Creator.”
“The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage.”
“All men of faith have courage. They trust their God.”
And finally, at the very end of the reading on the Fear Inventory, Bill gives us a simple prayer:
“We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear.”
That is quite a promise. Once I ask for God to remove my fear and put my attention on something else, God will immediately answer by allowing me to set my fear aside. It will no longer consume me with its demanding fire.
And God does not want me to do anything. He just wants me to be. I always think of Psalm 37:7: Be still and know that I am God. God wants me to sit in the assurance that he is handling all of my fears—if I just put my self-reliance aside and instead rely on God. And it works every time.