Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sponsor:
So dear one, how are your amends going?
Newbie:
Oh! it has been wonderful!! Scary yes, but it is so freeing to be able to get rid of that baggage of the past!!!
Sponsor:
Yes, that has been my experience too. Now, if you are anything like me, it will take a while to complete all the amends on our list - indeed I still have one that I have been unable to make! But that doesn't mean we stop - we still have 3 more steps!!
Newbie:
OK I’m game - what next?
Sponsor:
Well Step 10 is interesting - this is what it says in the Big Book page 84:
Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.
Newbie:
Hmmm - sounds a lot like a combined step 4 - inventory, step 5 - sharing with another, step 7 - asking HP to remover my difficulties, and step 9 - making amends
Sponsor
Yes I believe that is true, we work steps 4 to 9 daily - and I find that sometimes I need to do a full step 4 inventory, to really work something out. On other occasions, it is sufficient to see a recurring defect, admit it to my Sponsor and make amends in short time.
Newbie:
I’m not sure I understand how to do that
Sponsor
Well, what helped me was to do a list each night - I look at my day and say - have I been Selfish? Dishonest? Do I have a new resentment? Have I acted (or not acted) out of fear? I write this out and share it with Sponsor, and we decide if I need to make any amends. And if so, I get on and do so as soon as possible. Then there is the prayer it tells me on page 85:
Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly.
Newbie:
This sound like a lot of work, but I love the promises that it give me on that page too...
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
Sponsor:
Yes my friend - when we maintain a fit spiritual condition, we are able to maintain our abstinence - and it is not like another diet where the food is the central issue - when we are living in step 10, that is our focus - the food can then take its proper place
Newbie:
You mean I need never have a food craving again?
Sponsor:
Well, speaking for myself, I am not perfect, and often when something comes up my first thought is to turn to the food. But the miracle of the programme to me, is that I don’t have to act on it anymore - one day at a time!
Newbie:
Yes thank you Sponsor, I will add these things to my daily writing.