Inventory

(Back to the Little Red Book . . . )

At this point it is advisable to face the fact that, notwithstanding our sincere effort to honestly inventory all of “the flaws in our makeup that caused our failure,” some will not be recorded.  Our mental and moral vision has too long been blinded by alcoholic reservation and rationalization.

(I'm not even sure I was blinded by anything half the time. I'm pretty sure I knew I wasn't behaving well but I either didn't give a shit or I decided the work that I would have had to put in to overcome the defect wasn't worth the pleasure I received when I indulged the defect. Restraint of tongue and pen or ripping some asshole a new asshole? Not a tough choice at the time. Not a tough choice today to be honest about it.)

Few of us realize that our own names head the list of those we have wronged and that by living this program we are first making amends to ourselves, to our outraged bodies, to our confused minds, and to our troubled spirits.  We make amends to ourselves, to the personalities we were before becoming alcoholic, by understanding our sickness, by illuminating our defects of character, by eliminating them from our lives, by intelligent physical care of our bodies, by restoration of our mental apparatus through sobriety, and by treatment of our spiritual illness through recourse to understand and practice of God’s Will. 

(This is an interesting topic. So much of The Program is geared to acknowledging how our poor behavior has impacted others that we can forget how badly we treated ourselves. This focus on others certainly isn't all bad - we definitely benefit when we quit worrying about ourselves and start worrying about others. It's always a good idea to consider God and our fellow man first. Still, we've wrecked ourselves pretty good. I know I feel a nice, innate sense of accomplishment when I eat well and get some exercise and sleep enough, all things I wasn't doing when I drank.)

It is not a difficult thing to list the people who suffered because we drank.  Our real problem is to arrive at a state of mind that concedes the damage we have done and embraces a sincere willingness to amend it.  We often are inclined to clutter up our list with petty wrongs long forgotten and of no great importance.  Amends of this sort would never end; they should be forgotten.

(I was definitely guilty of this somewhat self-indulgent self-flagellation. I'm a jerk but I'm not a total jerk.)