The Fourth Step
Part 1 - Updated

“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

My name is Dave, and I am a grateful member of Overeaters Anonymous. This months Step has a reputation for being a monster. Something that is so difficult and painful that many people put it off or stretch out the process for months and months. I believe that reputation is undeserved. I hope to offer a perspective of Step Four this month that will dispel the myths and fears you may have about this Step. I believe that:

* This Step should be done immediately after Step Three.
* This Step is a loving thing for you to do for you.
* This Step is entirely necessary.

It is my hope to give you information and put out some thought provoking questions that will help you work your own Fourth Step, in private. We will talk about The Fourth Step but not do an actual Fourth Step here online.

Why is it necessary

The First Step taught us that we could not control our compulsive relationship to food by ourselves. The Second Step convinced us that help was available and gave us hope. In the Third Step we decided to ask for that help. Step Four guides us to make a written list of personal strengths and weaknesses. The strengths becoming the foundation we build upon and the weaknesses the targets for personal growth and change.

Step Four encourages us to explore our lives in an honest and thorough way. It is an opportunity to study one’s life and see it from a new point of view. It is a time to identify our assets and liabilities for recovery. We look at ourselves and see precisely what we are working with. We look fearlessly—not in self-hate or self-castigation but with honesty and an attitude of self-care and love. The Big Book of A.A. refers to Step Four as a “personal housecleaning.” What do we do when we clean house? We organize things—put them in their proper places—and discard the trash. Step Four is a step toward freedom—freedom from the shame, guilt, secrets, and pain that has resulted from our compulsive abuse of ourselves with food. Our inventory will expose the unresolved pain and conflicts in our past so that we are no longer at their mercy. It is not always a painless process but in the larger view it IS the easier softer way. The OA 12 and 12 says, “Writing our step-four inventory enables us to begin cleaning up the messes of the past so we could start life over, afresh.” It goes on to say, “The self-analysis we do in step four is essential to our recovery from compulsive overeating.” This Step is “essential to our recovery.” In Step Three we decided to quit running our lives on self-will. Step Four helps us identify self-will in all of its manifestations.

When to do this Step

With Step Four, the Big Book says, “we launched out on a course of vigorous action…” The Big Book is very clear about when we start on our Fourth Step. It says on page 64, right after talking about our Step Three decision, “Though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.” It tells us specifically, to do it “at once” following Step Three. The OA 12 and 12 tells us on page 31 that, “In fact, we’ve learned that delaying the fourth step until we feel we can do it ‘perfectly’ only delays our recovery.”

What this Step is

This Step is a process that helps us identify our mistaken beliefs, automatic irrational thoughts, uncomfortable and painful feelings, and self-defeating behaviors. The Big Book calls these things “character defects” while a psychologist might refer to them as personality problems or inappropriate coping mechanisms. We overcame much of the denial about our eating in the first Steps. Here we are looking more at the things about ourselves that set us up to use food compulsively and the things that we carry over into our recovery that may set us up for a relapse to old eating behaviors. These “character defects” are often buried under layers of unconscious denial. Through the Fourth Step we peel that denial away much like the layers of an onion till we reach the core which represents the pure and healthy spirit that lies at the center of each one of us. Step Four is where we start the process of healing and dealing with the things that may block us from long-term success in the program. We do this Step to help free ourselves from the past and achieve the highest level of responsibility and accountability for our own recovery as possible. In a more religious sense, it could be said that the Fourth Step is a technique in which we identify the parts of our character that block us off from God. By identifying these blocks and dealing with them as we go through the Steps, we come in closer contact to our higher power and begin to accomplish things that we had been previously unable to accomplish by ourselves.

What this Step is not

This Step is not a tool to use to beat yourself up with or further wound yourself. It is not a litany of every mistake and indiscretion we’ve ever committed in our lives. It is not a replacement for needed therapy or professional counseling and support. In fact, if you have an ongoing psychiatric illness or are a survivor of traumatic abuse please consider seeking professional help and guidance with the elements of this Step that may have to do with those issues. The Fourth Step is probably not an appropriate tool to use to deal with those issues, particularly in early recovery. However, setting those issues aside for now, we can use this Step immediately with other areas of our lives. The Fourth Step needn’t trigger a flare-up of psychiatric symptoms or be a roadblock to recovery from our eating disorders. But be aware, as long as we keep the pain from our abuse issues wrapped up inside of us, that pain may be contributing to a negative self-image or other destructive beliefs that might be an aggravating or even a causative factor in our eating disorder. In any case, we are not to blame for the abuse that we went through but we can choose to begin the process of healing those painful wounds.

How to start a Fourth Step

I recommend you read Chapter Five, entitled “How It Works” from “Alcoholics Anonymous” often referred to as “The Big Book.” They recommend starting off by dealing with your resentments.

The Big Book says resentments are the number one thing that will destroy us. From resentment stem all forms of spiritual disease. On page 66 it says, “It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.”

Reprinted from Alcoholics Anonymous, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc

They suggest making four columns on a page. In the first column you write the names of people and institutions you are angry with. In the second you briefly describe the cause. In the third you figure out what areas of your life and self it affects—for instance, was your self-esteem threatened, your security in some way, did it hurt or threaten our personal or sexual relationships. Keep in mind this is your inventory, not the inventory of the persons named on the list. We are looking for our parts in the situation only. Nor are we seeking justification for our resentments. We are looking for ways to be free of them and to learn better ways to handle such situations in the future. It says to put out of our minds the wrong others have done and resolutely look for our own mistakes. Had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, or frightened? It seems that many of these issues boil down to fear. The fourth column and most important is for us to identify the related "defect of character"—the area that we need to work on in our recovery. When we have a list to work from we can begin to see patterns. We look to see if we tend to be harsh, unforgiving, self-righteous, are we obsessed with money, do we tend to lash out or misdirect our anger at the closest person to us.

The book called “The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous” has an excellent listing of questions that we can ask ourselves to help dice out the underlying areas of our selves, our thoughts, coping mechanisms and automatic responses that we can use to work on as we rebuild our lives in a healthy and constructive way. In fact it is for all practical purposes the same set of questions that is in “The Fourth-Step Inventory Guide” that OA publishes and sells as a 4th Step workbook, except in the 12 and 12 they don’t have lines for you to write your answers in the book.

There are no perfectly done Fourth Steps.

There are many ways to do a Fourth Step. There are many suggested formats, workbooks, and forms available. They are all probably fine tools. I really have no recommendations to make except that you start. Just do it. All it really takes is a pencil and paper. The hardest part is starting. Once you start, it will begin to unfold—each word leading to the next. But it does have to be written down. You can’t do this in your head. If you don’t write it down you haven’t really done a Fourth Step. This will be your first tangible evidence of a complete willingness to move forward and will be necessary to have in hand to use in working the next several Steps.

Questions for journaling and contemplation.