Last month, I wrote about how Twelve Step Recovery programs can provide a steady focus on living each day in progression toward recovery. I observed: every Step builds upon the previous one, with an eye to the upcoming new Step. Then too, I wrote how each Step involves questions to be grasped, grappled with, [and] mulled over.
As with the April Post, I have included several questions to be pondered while one particularly works on certain Steps. This month, we will take a look at the Inventory types of Steps within the Twelve Steps Recovery Program; and following last month's format, I have more of those questions!
Step 4
[We] Made a searching and fearless moral and financial inventory of ourselves.
Why is it important to my recovery process to include a "moral" inventory?
How do the "moral" and "financial" aspects of my life overlap?
Write two columns on a piece of paper - one headed "Moral" and the other headed "Financial"; and see how many entries dovetail into each other.
What might you hesitate (fear) to include under both columns?
Be sure to include BOTH your plusses and your negatives ... in other words, your assets (remember your MORAL ASSETS too!) and your limitations/challenges.
When finished with your inventories, reflect on the saying: The truth will set you free. Will you be ready to share these truths, expressed in your columns, with another person as you work on the next Step (Step 5: We admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs)?
Step 10
[We] Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Continuing inventories can be done informally on a constant level as well as worked through on a more formal, periodic basis. How might a person consistently keep vigilant - throughout each day - of one's moral and financial self ?
Perhaps, the financial tracking may be easier than the moral-lookout. Keeping watch over one's actions, thoughts, and words could be a beneficial recovery-task at bedtime. What brief questions would you ask yourself each night with regard to this Step?
Would it be helpful to ask the following questions daily: What hurt might I have brought to persons today? Why might I have done this? How can this affect my recovery process?
Doing a more formal moral and financial inventory can be done periodically - perhaps monthly or quarterly. Given my work schedule and other obligations, how can this type of activity be done most beneficially to my working the Steps. Is there a place or time that I am better able to reflect and study the work I am doing on my Recovery Step Program?
As I wrote in April ... Take one question at a time; focus deliberately; search and find ...
RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE and WORTH THE WORK!!
For more information on problem gambling and recovery issues, go to http://www.grmumc.org/
Rev. Janet Jacobs
Director, Gambling Recovery Ministries
