A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

By Norman Underwood, Recovered Alcoholic

Bankruptcy is the brink of death for a business, a squeezing point where the reality of imminent demise necessitates outside protection and support to prevent terminal failure. Every measurable dimension of my life in 2023 indicated that Norman Enterprises, LLC was broke and broken: the bank account, the 401K, the job prospects, and persons still trusting me had all zeroed out. Liver enzymes and empty bottles were the only things I had in surplus. I wasn’t physically dead yet, but the ultimate creditor was about to shutter my doors forever. My corpselike reflection was a sufficient indicator that someone else should be managing my life. So, in July 2023, I arrived at a Big-Book-based treatment center, like The Magdalen House, and met my current sponsor.

He illustrated for me with a few Big Book passages and a visual diagram of a little stickman how the disease of alcoholism operated in my life like a consistent cycle of boom and bust. Whether developments in my life were big or small, bad or good, I managed soon enough to spin them into a drinking spree with little or no thought. Inevitable restlessness and resentment, followed by drinking, was my standard operating procedure. The negative consequences of my drinking, I finally realized, did not stem from my circumstances, but from my volatile and malfunctioning personality—a personality that seemed incapable of handling either the calm or turbulent rhythms of life without a drink. I was Stickman, and Stickman, with all his failed ideas for managing his affairs, was CEO of my life. I was ready for Step Four.

So my sponsor showed me, with the Book, how to conduct for myself,  a “personal inventory” of myself so I could identify what wasn’t working in myself. Of course, I scoffed a bit at the simplicity of the inventories. How could three simple inventories of my resentments, my fears, and my past sexual conduct capture the true complexity of Norman? He assured me that they were sufficient enough launching points to tell “my whole story” later in my Fifth Step. He was also clear that the simplicity of the inventory as outlined in the Big Book was easy to memorize and repeat since “a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke.” I was going to take stock of my life again and again. More importantly, I would eventually need to teach the inventory process to other alcoholics to stay sober. “Nothing,” he emphasized, “counted but thoroughness and honesty.” Not spelling, the fuzziness of my memory, or how much I enjoyed writing it down mattered. I just had to be thorough and honest. There was no grade coming; the information was for me. The process was straightforward and took a few hours a week.

I began with a “grudge list” of the usual suspects: my parents, family, exes, former bosses, etc. If I had ever felt harmed or slighted by someone, they made the list. My sponsor especially wanted me to include the persons and institutions that I was embarrassed about resenting. There were some family members, friends, and classes of people that I just didn’t want to admit I didn’t like. Each name on my “grudge list” received a whole notebook page with the reasons why I had resented them in a second column. Easy enough. Then I added a third column listing how those resentments affected me in the specific categories my sponsor gave me. A week later, I added a column of “my mistakes” to each resentment—namely, where I had been selfish (harmful), dishonest, and fearful towards the other persons, regardless of any justification I felt. He had me recite “the sick man’s prayer” before I began each fourth column. I thought this was stupid, but I didn’t want to lie to my sponsor if he asked me about it. 

After a review of my resentment inventory and some more instructions, my sponsor had me list the most common fears that pervaded the pages of my growing notebook. I added a few more fears that had plagued me from childhood. Then I answered a few questions from the Book about why I had those fears and what I thought my Higher Power would have me do in the face of those fears. 

After a week, I received some simple instructions on how to list all the persons in my life with whom I had had sexual or romantic relationships. I listed where I had harmed these individuals, where I had aroused bitterness, jealousy, and suspicion. Some relationships spanned decades, some were one-night stands. Many had a physical component; others did not. For some, I could recall their birthdays and grandmother’s name; others I placed into the nameless category of “Grindr guys.” The relationships’ duration, intensity, or relevance to my past social life didn’t matter. The inventory was mine, how I behaved in romantic and sexual affairs, how I had selfishly placed my desires over the needs, wants, or well-being of others. We then shaped together “a Sane and Sound Sex Ideal” of how I thought God would have me approach sex and relationships in light of my past shady behavior.  

I wrote my Fourth Step, mostly at odd hours of the morning. My notebook had coffee and yogurt stains, and the intensity of my writing left pencil engravings on the breakfast table. In hindsight, I can say with honesty that my nutrient-deprived brain was too fried for anything more than the simple, repetitive inventory format. Even that process I resisted at times as either too burdensome for my simple “drinking problem” or wholly inadequate for my deep-seated issues. The work, however, was both bite-sized and a mouthful. After I got the format down, I could capture years of resentment and hidden guilt onto a single sheet of paper in a matter of minutes. Moreover, the simple format prevented me from wandering too far into the grandiose, self-involved delusions that separated me from reality and from my fellow man. The format works because the real pains, real problems, and the real self-imposed crises of my life were run-of-the-mill for alcoholics. I wasn’t special, nor were the types of resentments I had, the feelings they aroused, the forms of retaliation and dishonesty I launched in response, or the self-centered fears driving them all. 

The three inventories cataloged in clear English the maladjusted parts of my personality, and they provided the basis for my life’s new standard operating procedures, grounded in more effective, more spiritual principles. By the end of the process, I had a list of harms to set right, a list of defects to turn over to God, a list of crippling fears to match with newfound faith, and new guidelines for a healthy love life. The key to salvaging the moribund business of my life lay in the information that I had simply refused to look at.