Step #4 – My Life … In Black & White (Part 1 )

Steps to the Spirit

The fourth step is the beginning of the action steps. Let me just mention a quick overview of the sections of the steps. I don’t remember reading anywhere what the first three steps are generally called. I have decided to call them the Grace steps because I believe that it is through God’s grace that leads us to them and helps us through them.

The fourth through the ninth steps are generally considered to be the “action” steps. I/we use them to identify, explain, ask forgiveness for, and try to make great things in our past. We refer to these things as shortcomings and character defects and they could range from thinking ill of a person, all the way to murder. Even when I became absolutely serious about this program, I was still unable to discover all of these character defects within me. Many of them are still within what I call, my dungeon. Every once in a while I find or discover another to work on and try to eliminate.

The next three steps, steps 10, 11, and 12, are considered the “maintenance” steps. It is by utilizing these three steps that we are able to keep a check on ourselves, stay in contact with God, and try to help others as a result of what we have learned about ourselves.

By the time I became deadly serious about this 12 step program, I had written many fort steps. I know now that I wrote them because I knew someone else was going to read them and I wanted to look good. Even if I put things in the fourth step that would be generally considered to be “bad”, I still try to make myself look good in the way I portrayed them. Of course, when I became serious about the steps and more, if you will, honest, I looked at the whole thing differently.

In this episode I will try to explain how I approached the fourth step before I realized its importance.