Alcohol, Addictions & Recovery

Hi all,

Sorry I've been away. You may remember that I finally gave into going to AA. I started the program on Sept 8. I've been dry since, which is good. I'm working the 90 in 90 plan. I'm new to the city and still don't know a lot of people. I have a sponsor, who is nice, but I want to get your input on how to work step 4. Do I make a list? How did you guys work through each step and how did you know that you were ready to move to the next step.

Thanks!

Caroline

Hi Brenda,

Thanks for the input. I think that I will definately use this board for assistance. I am in a pretty small town and my sponsor attends most of the meetings that I do. As I said, she's nice, but I don't feel like she's really helping me all that much through the process. I appreciate your, or anyones guidance as I don't feel like I could "fire" my sponsor and get another one. There aren't many women in the group and no one goes as consistently as my sponsor. At any rate, thanks for the guidance. I appreciate it.

Caroline

Hi there,

Nice to see you again and congrats on your sobriety!

I had the same questions about the steps when I started. Now that I'm 9 months in I've found that racing through steps (which is exactly what I wanted to do to prove my AA superiority) wasn't in my best interest. I figured steps 1 - 3 were no-brainers. Okay, let go and let God. Got it! But my sponsor suggested that I hang out in Step 3 a while longer before progressing. Much to my chagrin, that turned out to be the best recommendation I could have received. It really forced me to embrace the first 3 steps and deepened my commitment to my spiritual path. Now I'm finally facing my 4th step.

There doesn't seem to be any right or wrong way to do step 4. It just seems as though rigorous honesty is the key! But I needed something so I found this worksheet online. It's been really helpful so far. Hopefully it will give you something to work with, too.