Steps Four and Five

AA Thought for the Day (courtesy AA-Alive.net) May 11, 2014 Steps Four and Five If we have swept the searchlight of Step Four back and forth over our careers, and it has revealed in stark relief those experiences we'd rather not remember, . . then the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We have to talk to somebody about them. - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 55 Thought to Ponder . . . Trust God. Clean house. Help others. A Member Shares: I'm Jim, an alcoholic. My first sponsor never just referred to Step Four. It was always Steps Four and Five together. He believed that when we took our inventory in Step Four, it was very important to do Step Five and talk to another person about that inventory without delay. He used the imagery of putting all our bad stuff in a garbage can in Step Four and then emptying it in Step Five. Standing around holding a smelly garbage can was not good for our mental health, he said. He was right, I believe. I have seen many do Step Four and then no Step Five and suffer -- all too often drink because they are still carrying around all that garbage.