Step 4 resentments examples as found in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and some more examples of practical real-life examples. If you are finding challenges with the fourth step of your 12-step program and seeking concrete “step 4 resentment examples,” this article offers useful instances to assist in accurately recording your resentments. These examples will help facilitate understanding, enabling you to progress on the path of recovery.
Key Takeaways
- What A Resentment From The 4th Step Actually Is
- How To Conduct A 4th Step Inventory For Resentments During Recovery
- Practical Examples Of Step 4 Resentments
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Understanding: What Is a 4th Step Resentment?
Resentment, originating from the French word “ressentir” (to feel intensely), is synonymous with anger, spite, and holding a grudge. In the context of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), resentment refers to a recurring feeling of hurt or anger towards someone or something that has wronged us. This persistent emotional state is one we re-experience repeatedly, often leading to a cycle of negativity and bitterness.
Alcoholics Anonymous and 4th Step Resentments
In AA and other 12 step programs, resentment is considered the number one offender for addicts and alcoholics. It is a powerful emotion that can drive us to seek relief through alcohol or drugs if we are not continuously working our program on a spiritual basis; daily.
The 4th step of AA, which involves making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, is crucial in addressing these resentments. By identifying and acknowledging our grudges, we can begin to understand their impact on our lives and take steps to overcome them.
Personal Experience with Resentments In Addiction Recovery
To illustrate, consider a situation where someone in your life consistently shows up late. This repeated behavior might make you feel disrespected and undervalued. Over time, this resentment can fester, leading you to re-feel the hurt every time you think about it. Through the 4th step process, you can confront this resentment, understand its roots, and work towards letting it go, ultimately aiding in your recovery.
The 10th step of AA and other fellowships is, “We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.” When we have gone through the work and done our whole 4th step inventory, 5th stepped with a sponsor or closed mouth friend, done our amends and have resentments show up, even though we are doing these 4th step resentments the same as before, it is technically a 10th step.
4th Step Resentment Inventory Examples of The Work
The 4th step resentments inventory process plays an essential role in confronting and acknowledging the realities of our life events and actions. When dealing with recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, resentment is understood as a mental state that perpetually revives past episodes coupled with present-tense feelings. These past episodes could be from two decades ago or two minutes ago, but continue to play out in our heads nonetheless.
In order to carry out a constructive examination of our resentments, it involves making a resentments list of people, institutions or principles in which we are angry or resentful. Such practice within the inventory process is pivotal for people aiming to uncover the fundamental reasons behind their adverse emotions and initiate steps towards recuperation and recovery.
First Column: Who or What You Resent
Begin your inventory of resentments by noting down, in the first column, any people, institutions (like a church or government) or principle (like Christianity or feminism) that stir up feelings of resentment within you. Identify those which readily surface in your consciousness with relative ease and use your emotional response as a measure for who makes it on this list.
The point of this resentments list is not to bring up as much anger and bad feelings from your past as you can possibly remember, but it is rather a way of journaling out your resentments that are affecting you currently, no matter how near or far from the present time they are.
It’s important to acknowledge all sources of negative sentiment—be they people or institutions—as comprehensively detailing them here sets the stage for more introspection and understanding of character defects and the things about yourself not working for you in recovery in the following sections of the inventory.
Second Column: The Cause of Resentment
In this part of your resentment inventory, you should detail the precise incidents or behaviors that ignited feelings of resentment within you. This second column is meant to encapsulate all the specific triggers and underlying reasons for each instance where resentments have been borne.
For myself, and for my sponsees, when dealing with these step 4 resentments, examples of how we do the work are always going to be in 19 words or less like they do in the Big Book. The reason for this is to not draw out the process of healing to writing out pages of things someone did to you, but make it “usually as definite as this example:” “his attention to my wife. Told my wife of my mistress. Brown may get my job at the office.”
The step 4 resentments examples in the Big Book should always be the outline of how we do the work going forward, but I will give some more examples to make it even simpler.
To illustrate, if family-related resentments exist, they may arise from instances such as feeling neglected, contentious exchanges, or damaging actions endured in one’s youth. The act of recording these particular catalysts is crucial in recognizing and grappling with your emotional responses.
Third Column: How It Affects You
In the third column of your resentment inventory, you should consider how the actions of others have influenced your emotional health and interpersonal connections. Resentments can affect several aspects of life, and I use the resentments examples from the Big Book for what it affects: Pride, self-esteem, security, sex relations, personal relationships, ambitions, or our pocketbook (money).
Documenting how another person’s conduct has impacted you is a key part in this process. By doing so, you gain insight into the extensive consequences that your resentments may carry, paving the way towards recovery and personal development.
Once you have this all written down, contact your sponsor or a closed-mouth friend who you can talk about the issue with and proceed from there with correcting any wrongs you have done or immediately shifting your focus to someone you can help.
Examples of 4th Step Resentments from Life in Recovery
To effectively perform the resentment inventory, utilizing real life resentment examples can prove invaluable. These instances serve as guides for correctly completing the worksheet and grasping the nuances of the resentment inventory process. Recording events in a narrative format provides an opportunity to contemplate one’s own life occurrences and attain a deeper comprehension of emotional responses.
Incorporating scenarios and individuals that evoke feelings of upset into your moral inventory can simplify and make the overall process more helpful to your spiritual growth and progress. Examining particular samples will shed light on how this is applied practically.
Example 1: Family Members
Perceived favoritism or criticism within a family can deeply affect relationships, fostering resentments between members. Such elements are significant contributors to the growth of bitterness among relatives.
Take as an example feeling resentment towards a sibling who seemed to be the favorite. This can lead to sensations of not being good enough and being overlooked. There may also be some little quirks in family members that bring things up like when a family member may not consider you when hearing information about other family members that you should know. You may have been bullied by an older sibling that has affected your self-esteem, or been told by a parent that you shouldn’t pursue your dreams and you should get a job.
By recording these emotions, you might gain better insight into how they influence your emotional health and then you can move forward with your sponsor or closed-mouth friend to find your own flaws in makeup that can help you move forward from these resentments.
Example 2: Workplace Resentments
Resentments in the job environment can stem from expectations that are not fulfilled and feelings of being slighted. Unfair practices, insufficient acknowledgement for efforts, and ineffective communication by management often lead to such workplace resentments.
For example, if a co-worker is promoted over you when you believe it was your due, this could result in heightened stress levels and a dip in your work performance. You could cop a resentment at your boss for overlooking you, affecting your self-esteem and personal ambitions, or resent your coworker who was promoted affecting your personal relations and your pocketbook.
Keeping a record of these occurrences provides insight into how they affect your professional life, personal life both emotional and mental, and how you can work on your own character defects to better show up in the work place.
Example 3: Personal Relationships
Interpersonal connections, whether with friends or romantic partners, are essential to our emotional health. Hence, resentments within these bonds can greatly influence our own lives. Being aware of emotions within such relationships is critical for identifying any resentment that might have accumulated over time.
Take a close friend’s betrayal as a resentment example: this breach could foster deep feelings of hurt and distrust. It is crucial to consider how holding onto these resentments plays a role in both your personal emotional state and the broader context of your relationships if you aim for self-awareness and personal development.
Tools and Resources for Completing Your Resentment Inventory
The resentment inventory process for the fourth step can be enhanced by utilizing different tools and support systems. Engaging with a skilled sponsor and consulting with a primary therapist provides valuable assistance throughout this phase. Prior to starting the Fourth Step, it is advantageous to read through the Big Book and engage in dialogue with a sponsor or you can watch our 4th Step Inventory: Making It Quicker And Simpler.
When undertaking the moral inventory required in Step 4, there are several effective strategies available including referencing examples from the AA Big Book, maintaining a journal, utilizing resources like our 4th Step Sex Inventory Worksheet and our 4th Step Fear Inventory Worksheet or an Excel spreadsheet workbook designed specifically for this purpose. Listening to podcast discussions focused on Step 4 can offer insight and direction during this process.
Worksheets and Templates
Available are worksheets that follow the template provided in Alcoholics Anonymous’ Big Book for completing both a sex inventory and the fourth step inventory. These sheets offer extra space through an additional page, employing a unique technique to steer the inventory process.
By harnessing these worksheets to structure your contemplations and insights, you’re able to conduct a comprehensive and orderly fearless moral inventory. This systematic approach aids in meticulously recording and evaluating resentments.
Books and Guides
The structured approach to conducting the Fourth Step inventory is outlined in the AA Big Book. Leveraging books and guides can significantly improve the process of carrying out your moral inventory, guaranteeing comprehensiveness. These tools assist in elucidating the procedures for pinpointing and dealing with resentments.
By delving into supplementary literature on recovery, you can gain deeper understanding and reinforcement during your path to recovery.
Support Networks Like Recovered On Purpose
It is vital to have a supportive network in place when undertaking the Fourth Step, as it can assist with any challenges encountered. While the inventory of the Fourth Step is designed for individual contemplation, one should not attempt it without support.
Engaging in an open dialogue with your sponsor plays an integral role while facing personal hurdles throughout the Fourth Step. Sharing your inventory findings with a sponsor helps ensure accountability and provides reinforcement on your path to recovery.
From 4th Step Resentments To 10th Step Action
Shifting from compiling a resentments list to implementing practical measures is vital in the recovery process. It’s important to talk about your resentment examples with a sponsor because it offers you both guidance and constructive feedback.
By fostering a sense of responsibility and transparency, the Fourth Step sets you up for success in undertaking the Fifth Step, or in the case of ongoing 10th step inventory, a 10th step call.
Sharing Your Resentment Inventory with a Sponsor
Securing a sponsor, or simply a closed-mouth friend, provides essential support and responsibility during the process of the 4th step resentments inventory. Demonstrating your commitment to sobriety is evident when you share your inventory with them.
Involvement in a supportive community like Recovered On Purpose or Alcoholics Anonymous can provide comfort and insight, helping to mitigate the difficulties encountered in the Fourth Step. Upon completing my inventory, I reached out to my sponsor to arrange a meeting.
Preparing for Sharing Your Resentments List
In the fifth step, we confront and admit the full extent of our wrongdoings to ourselves, another individual, and God. This crucial phase of the recovery process receives a blessing from God as it forces us to own up to all our actions, particularly pertaining to conduct that has our minds wrapped up in resentments, our sexual conduct from years past and most recent, and our greatest fears that are often driving our decisions.
Undertaking this transformative experience in Step Five marks an essential advancement within the framework of the Twelve Steps program. It demands profound honesty and openness, which are fostered by diligently preparing with a list of examples of resentments in our life and making a fearless moral inventory—this preparation is vital for fostering personal development and healing.
Final Thoughts About 4th Step Resentment Inventory Examples
The process of completing the fourth step in the Twelve Steps involves creating a fearless moral inventory, which is essential for self-discovery and advancing on the path to recovery. In this step, we go deeper into deep-rooted grudges than we ever have before and begin to recognize their effects on various aspects of life.
This process requires an honest self-examination, documenting grievances against people or institutions, pinpointing why these resentments exist, and discerning how they have our thoughts, emotions and overall behaviors and attitudes toward life and the people around us. Thereby offering an extensive overview of one’s internal emotional state.
By using concrete resentments examples and thorough scrutiny during this phase, we as alcoholics and addicts in recovery work towards uncovering recurring behavioral patterns while cultivating a habit of self-honesty. With aids such as resentment inventory worksheets, literature like the Big Book, and support groups like Recovered On Purpose and Alcoholics Anonymous at our disposal, this daunting task becomes more attainable and can even become an enjoyable part of recovery, knowing what awaits us on the other side.
Progression to subsequent actions includes confiding in a sponsor as preparation for undertaking the fifth step—a pivotal moment that paves the way toward substantial healing and personal development. Approach this part of your journey with honesty, willingness and openness—you’ll find it brings you steps closer not only to sobriety, but also toward serenity within yourself.
Adam Vibe Gunton is an American author, speaker and thought leader in addiction treatment and recovery. After overcoming homelessness and drug addiction, Adam found his life’s purpose in helping addicts find the same freedom he found. As Founder and Executive Director of the 501(c)3 nonprofit, Recovered On Purpose, and Managing Partner of Behavioral Health Partners, Adam has helped thousands find freedom from addiction all over the world.