Good Characters Revived: A Moral Inventory
Good Characters Revived: A Moral Inventory
We believe that our one-time good characters will be revived the moment we quit alcohol. If we were pretty nice people all long, except for our drinking, what need is there for a moral inventory now that we’re sober? - – Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous; Step 4
You’ve stopped using the substances you were addicted to. It’s truly nothing short of a miracle.
And, most likely, your life has already started to improve - just by removing the addiction. But, more is possible, if you want it. With courage and willingness, it’s possible to both repair the damage your addiction has caused in the past and reach toward a brighter future, one no longer constrained by a compulsion to use.
If you were to decide to stop your efforts here, on this plateau of no longer using and hope for your good character to revive on its own, no one would fault you. However, if you want to continue improving (and avoid relapsing), the 12-step program recommends doing a personal inventory next. But why?
Why Is a Moral Inventory Necessary?
There are two reasons that a personal inventory is a necessary step in recovery from addiction, and both are immensely important and equally simple.
We don’t want to drink/use because of the past.
We don’t want to drink/use because of the future.
Pretty straightforward, right?
Cleaning Up the “Wreckage of the Past”
No matter what our drinking/using looked like or the circumstances of our lives, addictions cause damage. Whether it’s damage to our family, our jobs and finances, our reputation, our self-respect. Even if it was only the quiet, nearly invisible damage of abusing our bodies and souls, our actions - when controlled by addictions - have harmed our lives and our selves.
And how do most of us feel about that? Guilt. Shame. Grief. Loss. These are all common and natural emotions when we look at the wreckage of our past. And they are not happy, positive emotions.
And how have we typically coped with negative emotions?
You can probably guess the answer. (In fact, you might remember an earlier Recovery Tools article on a related topic: Guilt and Shame: Key Ingredients for Relapse)
The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous makes an ugly and terrifying prediction:
“If temperamentally we are on the depressive side, we are apt to be swamped with guilt and self-loathing. We wallow in this messy bog, often getting a misshapen and painful pleasure out of it. As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity, we may sink to such a point of despair that nothing but oblivion looks possible as a solution. Here, of course, we have lost all perspective, and therefore all genuine humility. For this is pride in reverse. This is not a moral inventory at all; it is the very process by which the depressive has so often been led to the bottle and extinction.”
If we want to avoid this bleak fate - and the uncomfortable feelings about our past - we need to be freed. Confession, atonement, amends. They are all practices that allow people to find forgiveness for their mistakes so that they can move beyond them. Taking a moral inventory begins the process that allows us to make amends for our harms.
Taking an inventory - followed by doing amends - creates space for things like healing and forgiveness. Without some way to make peace with the mistakes of the past, these events - and our negative emotions concerning them - still have power over us. Like the “monster under the bed,” things are scarier in the dark. A personal inventory, done with support from a loving, helpful friend, sponsor or therapist, shines the healing light of awareness on our history.
The Future: Relieve Us from Fear
“We thought ‘conditions’ drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn’t to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.” - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous; Step 4
The world has not changed just because we have gotten sober. The same “conditions” that drove us to drink and use in the past will most likely appear again in the future. Unless we can somehow “change ourselves to meet conditions.”
We can, in fact, do that. We start by taking a moral inventory of both our liabilities and assets. They are usually opposite sides of the same coin, equally capable of being a strength or a defect.
“Alcoholics especially should be able to see that instinct run wild in themselves is the underlying cause of their destructive drinking.” - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous; Step 4
A moral inventory allows us to identify the defects and assets of our personality, as well as the fears, resentments, selfishness and other emotions that drove us to escape with chemicals. AA considers these “liabilities” or “misdirected instincts” and offers a way for them to be removed.
How amazing is that? These terrifying, horrible, shameful things about ourselves can be removed? That’s a miracle too.
“We have drunk to drown feelings of fear, frustration, and depression. We have drunk to escape the guilt of passions, and then we have drunk again to make more passions possible.” - Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous
By taking steps beyond just abstinence - like a personal inventory - we don’t ever have to drink or use again.
Want to share your challenges or discoveries about moral inventory? Tell us in the comments!