Step 4 - Made A Moral Inventory

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast on addiction with Dr. Chip Dodd and Phil Herndon. This is a new weekly podcast recorded at the Center for Professional Excellence. Hey, everybody. Welcome back in. Sage Hill podcast. This is Phil Herndon along with Chip Dodd. Hello, Chip. Hey, Phil. We're, back here in our officelast studio. We left off last time with, kind of talking about the buffer territory between the third step and the fourth step. Third step, turning life over to to God and, how scary, what kind of a thrill ride that is. And then we talked to some kind of some, information between those two steps that kinda lead us into what the four steps really about. It talks about, doing a fearless moral inventory. It's what, you know, kind of the bulk of that step says. So you and I have talked a lot about that, as you might imagine, through the years, and, real easy to, get some things confused in that step. So, those of you who have done the step familiar with, you know, the the famous four step grid. You know, harm's done by me, to me, sexual inventory. But so, I think really the best way to go about talking through a four step for for our purposes is, like, what what for? What is what is the purpose of the thing? We go from this heady, kind of heart filled spiritual experience of turning my care, the care of my entire life over to God. And now I kind of transition and now all of a sudden I'm filling out this grid about resentment and harms and all that kind of stuff. So why the change? What's going on with the third to four step

turn? Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it? It's almost like we could call it you almost describe it like a mountaintop experience. Now that we've been to the mountain, let's get off the mountain and go to the valley. Right. Go to the valley. Right. Go to the valley. And like we talked about last time, it's like that mountain remembering, is our strength to step into go into a territory that we've run from much of our lives. Mhmm. So we're talking about security. And, the beauty of I don't you know, the the frankly, put Bill Wilson, Bob Smith, the big book, twelve and twelve, and then, you know, Bill Wilson's writing in terms of the about the heart. I mean, he he he talks about how ultimately ultimately ultimately that alcoholism is a symptom, ultimately. And this is where the fourth step takes us into facing our failure in, running into the symptom to avoid our problem. He says, ultimately, our problem is, an inability to live in true partnership with another human being. Yeah. In other words, we don't know how to live with people. We just know how to take advantage of people. We don't know how to live with people. We just see people as the enemy. You know? We we we look at management of people instead of the mystery of living in life on life's terms. And so in so many ways, we talked about last week that the third step is the security that allows us to do the brave step into becoming fully human again, available to be in a partnership or relationship with ourselves, others, and God. And Bill Wilson mentions, how we're created for relationship with ourselves, others, and God in some of his other writing. And so that is not a fearless moral judgment, a fearless moral condemnation, a fearless fearless moral, let me measure in terms of my right and my wrong, in terms of see what where I am, in terms of grading myself. Mhmm. It's a fearless moral inventory of how I missed being fully human living in relationship with myself, others, and God because it's a step about looking at the depth of my desire for life and how far away or far from living desire purely has gone. So it's it's actually a step about returning to craving Uh-huh. Versus, letting craving become lust. Yeah. The power, control, sex, all those kinds of things. And all the grief that goes with that. Yeah. Yeah. To That's a that's a sadness step. Yes. To to sadness step, and it's facing the depth of neediness step. But it's like like, so often the first three steps are turned into I can't, He can, I think I'll let Him? It's real real shorthand for preparation. Now that I think I'll let Him, I'm going to step into me being human and God being God, me having the humility to face that as a human being, I'm returning to healthy shame. Healthy shame means I make mistakes and so do you. I have needs, so do you. I need you, you need me. I'm not God, you aren't either. I have answers, some answers, but I don't have them all, so I need yours too. It's it's the moving back into the community of fellow humans, the fellowship of being able to live in relationship with myself as a human being, with others, here human, doing the same healthy shame experience, and the God who oversees and is highly involved into the affairs of humankind. So I have to face my capacity to make mistakes, the willingness to admit them, and the capacity to, be forgiven for them. Also, the ability to, to seek that with the fellowship of others who will point towards my failures and my, affirm my skills and and and and goodnesses. Mhmm. But it's about becoming ready to change, to have my ego peeled away so my true self can live humbly and walk upon the earth, like seek, seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God from Micah six eight. Mhmm. The fourth step is preparing me to become fully human. And in in becoming fully human, what we're facing is that we were born, birthed, created as creatures of desire, that we were born in life to crave fulfillment, To we we were born pining for our hearts were set on fulfillment, being connected, but also, yearning, longing, pining for, desiring. And craving, is a sets us up to for a very vulnerable experience. And craving for the life we're made to have, we're presenting ourselves openly as open books to reach for the life we're made to have, or we're made to be connected with other people as Wilson Bill Wilson writes about in terms of true partnership. May to be connected to God so we can live fully because it's in our full presence that we fully experience the present or the gift of life. Right? Mhmm. But we also get wounded. We get heartache and heartbreak. And if there's no one around teaching us about heartache and heartbreak and how to find, acceptance in our grief and still the capacity to hope again, live again, strive again, we become defended, and we become, we seek invulnerability. We seek power. And so when craving, which is a a hunger for life to be filled correctly, Once we've been wounded enough, we say maybe there's a better way than having to be human with humans and trusting God, so I'll take it on myself. So lust is an attempt to have the things we're made to have as humans without having to pay the price of being vulnerable. So, we go after it, seeking the same things that we're made to have except under our power in our management, and that's where sex goes awry, money goes awry, power appropriate sense of empowerment goes awry. That's where our demand for control goes awry, and we become people who harm people in the name of just doing what we're made to do, crave life. Mhmm. But now it's become unethical, dishonest, often abusive, and we see life as, you know, you need to get yours, I'm gonna get mine, becomes business, management, achievement instead of, community, cooperation, and caring. So, anyway, the fourth step is about bringing us back to the courage of craving without doing harm, a fearless moral inventory of what we've done to try to control a life we can't control, bringing things back to our territory and facing what we've done, facing what we were running from and facing who got harmed in the process, facing our need for change. And basically, because we're securing God and begun to be beginning to be secure in others, we can ask God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, change me, God. Mhmm. And it's amazing how it involves admitting to a fellow human being the exact nature of where we've been and what we've done. So we we look into the eyes of a of of a fellow creature who will have mercy for us, still be just with us, who is also walking humbly with their God. Yeah. This step. Yeah. Amazing. So so it's like coming back to life as a human being instead of coming to life as some god or coming to life and facing a piece of crap. Yeah. So it it's it is about moving into genuine equality that that we are kind of, like, all in need, going back to those four points I talk about all the time. The best we're ever gonna get is clumsy, human. We have to live life on life's terms, human. The best we're ever gonna do from that context is we're practicing. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. And from that humble position, we can actually enter the the human race, which is a fellowship on a quest towards a place rather than, a a race to see who's gonna be the victor by overcoming, other fellow humans, by conquering them and harming them and using them and manipulating them. So it's a very courageous step, therefore fearless, and it is a very profound step in terms of returning us to the spiritual life lived daily, moral, and it's facing ourselves in the mirror to take an accurate inventory. Show me where I'm blind. Let me reveal my secrets, and set me free to live in the mystery of of where God lives, which is us showing up in daily life and letting him have control. So That searching part,

you know, requires in in what we taught and lived for a long time, This idea that, anger is about having a voice about your life Yeah. A voice about life. And I've we teach our guys for a long time as we walk into a four step, that searching part, it takes a angry, quote unquote, person to be willing because that that territory is rife with the pull toward self pity and apathy and, resentment and all that, you know, which is designed to finger point those done, blaming, deflecting. And so it really takes a passionate person, a person willing to deal with a lot of pain to write that down than to go into the fifth step to the next step. For me, when I've done a bunch of four steps, that's scarier to me than actually talking about it with somebody is to see it look back at me. Mhmm. You know, all the things you've been talking about, my lust, my There's the list. My misdirected cravings, my how hard I've worked to not be connected other people. That is a it's a we use the word heady, meaning deep. It's a deeply emotional experience. And I love the

the, needing, having to do it with another person because it it it is I'm willing to do whatever it takes to find me and live again, but at the same time, in that searching, I'm going to face that, I'm a person who has done a lot of things that are really frankly put I would judge myself for Yeah. And to look into the face of another person who doesn't judge but offers me mercy, which sets me up to experience grace in terms of being cared about and, that that God sees me as having worth rather than being worthless even though I'm not worthy. Yeah. Do you agree with that? Oh, yeah. I'm worth it. He wants to do something with me and for me even though I can't earn it. So it's a step of brokenness in a lot of ways, right? Yeah, it is.

We together, you individually, I individually, have told a lot of guys through a lot of years that you and your addiction are not the same thing. Yeah. We have an addiction, but we're not the addiction. Yes. And the fourth step is that first, for me at least, has been that first movement into, okay, the things on this inventory help me clearly see how true that is. I know I did it. I'm in my own body. What I've done to cause harm to other people, harms that have been done to me have been done to me. I've done to other people, but I not but, but and I did those things in the throes of a real life thing called addiction. Mhmm. So it's really one of my first formal ways of seeing how true it is that I and my addiction aren't the same, though I know my addiction is in me, and the harm I've done, I have done to other people. It's very it's very personal. And at the same time, it helps me to see and experience that that truth that, you know what, I and and that thing are not the same. Mhmm. I've done a lot of things in the throes of this thing. That caused a lot of harm. And, you know, you've talked about before,

you know, the your understanding of but for the grace of God go I. Uh-huh. Could will you share a little bit about that? Because that fourth step, really sets us up for that humble walk, you know? Yeah. But for the grace of God go I, that we almost stop taking inventory of other people Yeah. And start kinda, like, staying focused on our own actions. Do you agree? Oh, yeah. That you know, my fourth step is my side of the street as they say in the program, you know, and it's really hard to do a good fourth step, a a truly searching and fearless inventory without me recognizing, man, I've been walking down the middle of the street, taking a much harder look at their side than mine. Mhmm. And this puts me in the category of my side of the street, even in the way I handled harms done to me. That whole territory of, you know, I've heard for years one of the first things said to me actually, you know, years ago, 1985, was, hey. You take your own inventory. You know, you take theirs. You take you take I was taking other people's inventories, finger pointing, deflecting, whatever. Stories. For sure. Yeah. But that that's And those stories so often end up being more about my insecurities. Yeah. The stories I make up about others end up you know, whenever there's one finger pointed out, there's three coming back. Right. You know? So that that step really does help, help bring me almost, like, from the from the the lecture to the lab. Not that the first three steps are just lecture, but I've been doing a lot of work in those first three steps on me and me and me and God. And this fourth step is my foray into me and others. Yes. Man, here here I am in the whole big world. Mhmm. It's my first real step. And in terms of newly recovering guys or people out there are doing their fiftieth fourth step, as many of those as I have done formally and informally, every time I do this exercise of a four step, I'm reminded again of the ship of fellows and how scary it is to have a true partnership with another human being and what I can be drawn into, the lust world of doing whatever I have to do to not be

so living in such a scary place as being attached to other people. It's a reminder over and over. And so the the fourth step and fifth step really do widen the lens of our lives is this is definitely about recovery from Mhmm. But that fourth step prepares us to have recovery Yeah. Of the lives we're made to have. And this is like, opening the lens of living, now that I'm no longer stuck in addiction. It's the how do I walk among us? Mhmm. How do I live among us? And it's really, to me, it's a step of of freedom, that actually preps us for the experience of living in, the struggle of being forgiven and also desiring and and wakes us up to desire to be a good person. It's like, god, peel away the things that keep me from being who you created me to be. Mhmm. It's it's it's good. I love that you said, as we close-up, I love that you say we go from lecture to the lab. Is that how you said it? Or and, you know, a lot of people, as we know, will do the first three. And then it's almost like all but dissertation. Yeah. Apparently most people who work on their PhDs, like 88% are ABD, all but dissertation, but the dissertation is what gives you the PhD. So that fourth step really being to look into the minutiae of my life and to become human again with other humans is a big deal. And last thing, I think too that the fourth and fifth are are the doorway into really becoming somebody people can go to, hunger to connect with, wish to be with, and it's gonna be a quality of people that are looking for something, because we have something to give eventually.

So rather than being in, it's a beginning. It really is. And, you know, it's funny, you said it's really a beginning. It's amazing to me that the fifth step, starts the same way the first step does, with admission. Yeah. We admitted to God, ourselves, and others, that nature of our wrongs. Like, man, if you want to talk about this whole world of ego deflation, there it is again. Yeah. Admissions. So before the to the fifth step conversation next time. Yeah. Hey. Thanks, Phil. I'll talk to you later. Alright. Appreciate it. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time. Alright. Bye.