Completing Steps 4 and 5

Now for those of you not familiar with the 12 step program, step four is to make a searching and fearless, moral inventory of ourself. While step five is admitting to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. Now I did begin discussing the format in previous episodes like resentments fears and sex inventory what it was like preparing for my fourth step with the help of my sponsors.

Then over the course of two hours a week for a couple of weeks, my sponsor and I reviewed everything I wrote down across the different areas. And I figured I would share some of these quote unquote, highlights with you to help further conquer them. Now, writing down my resentments was more difficult than sharing them with my sponsor was mostly because my biggest surprises in them. Identifying to myself, what I was holding on to and what I was resenting.

I feel like part of the benefit of having a sponsor being, you know, a non-biased entity, but also separate from the rest of my life is that it's one thing talking about a friend or a family member and what I resent them for, to someone who doesn't know them than it would be to talk to someone about them, you know, that knows them. It would just feel. More wrong, at least for me.

So it was very easy having me to be talking about all these people in my life, down here in Florida, up to my sponsor up in New York. But you know, also a lot of them were just easy ones. I mean, by the time that I got around to going over them with my sponsor some of them were coworkers that I no longer was working with.

As well as friends that I had had like a spatter two with that I had since made up with or like go And then, I mean, some extended family members who I've been acutely aware of my issues with them for quite some time. And I've just had to acknowledge that they're unavoidable parts of life. Meanwhile, while I was aware, I'd have some family resentments. I was surprised at how deep some of them went.

Obviously I resented my cousin for molesting me growing up, but I didn't realize how much I resented my parents for not being able to notice or discover the a B. I also know that I resented my brother for him.

My parents favored him growing up, but I didn't realize how much I resented the fact that as adults he's kept his kinds of arm length for me, preventing us from getting any closer and writing them out was difficult, but it was cathartic enough that by the time I shared them with my sponsor, they had lost some of their power over me. Meanwhile, on the flip side, writing out everything, I was afraid of took some time. But it was relatively easy.

I would say it was saying them out loud to another person that left my voice breaking in my hands, trembling that first time I've said them out loud to anyone. I mean, some were easier than others. And I've even talked with some people before about my fears, you know, in my life you know, talking about my fear of taller people is something that comes up whenever and he was taller than me. And they want to hear a funny story. You know, but also other issues like confrontation.

Being alone, fear of financial insecurity of being abandoned. You know, all these fears that I have are pretty common and I feel easy to trace back to things that might happen to children of abuse or neglect as they were. And others I can imagine are quite common with alcoholics and users. Like my fear of perfection, of being alone, of what others think of me and of being a burden to others. I hear them talked about in the rooms all the time. So I know I'm not unique for those fears.

What I was more surprised was to identify and share some of the deeper fears about like myself and who I am. You know, the things outside of me that I'm afraid. I feel like I can oftentimes explain a way or find causality, but. I'm really afraid of my ability to lie and manipulate others. It terrifies me how, even though I don't do it regularly, when I do, I can do it quite well.

You know, I could, was able to successfully Gaslight my husband into thinking my drinking was a problem when it very clearly was for a long period of time. And I, I, you know, it didn't trouble me at the time. You know, now I've had to come to terms with it and I'm making amends by acting better and being better. However, you know, the fact that I can be so manipulative that I can lie through my teeth without blinking, you know, it's, it's scary.

And in a similar vein, it's also just how selfish and self centered I can be, how I will do whatever it takes to protect myself, even if it involves throwing others under the bus or doing things that I normally wouldn't see myself. What also scared me was identifying how afraid I am to claim both my sexual preferences and gender identity in the rooms.

I've seen so many examples of how gender is a spectrum, and I've discovered in myself that I identify as he, they but I'm still learning what that means to me and what I'll do with that identification. I also have come to terms with their fact that there are certain things I want out of my sex life. That I won't go into details with here just to save some of you from blushing.

But they are things that I can't imagine talking with my very traditional husband about and then need to figure out what to do with these desires and wants in the longterm and voicing both of these fears to my sponsor was the first time I really share them out loud and it was quite scary. And. Yeah, I would say the overall like voicing all those things out between fears about myself and fears about my sexuality and gender identity were definitely some of the scarier ones.

Meanwhile, the thing I feared the most going into step four and step five was the sex inventory. I was like, oh no, this is going to be the absolute worst. Figuring it require a long list of every person I've ever slept with. And my memory is not great to begin with. But especially when you add in, you know, names, people, places that I've been with through my life, many times casual. You know, I was like, how am I going to possibly do this?

But as I was going over with my sponsor and working through the worksheets that I had for it, I realized that, you know, I w most of the time it was so transactional that they weren't. At all the people that I was having sex with, the person I was hurting through those actions was myself, you know, putting my health and safety at risk. You know, not knowing if they had an STI or, you know, HIV or aids or anything like that.

And just, you know, in general, I hurt myself more than others in my sex inventory. The only other people I really hurt besides myself were my exes. You know, I, it was very rare. There was only one person in mind, a guy from college where after like a messy breakup, he and I both just. Really hated ourselves in that time and we're taking it out on each other sexually.

But other than that, I mean the only people that I really harmed or hurt and during in my sexual inventory of where my exes ends up, that when you hurt me, I want to hurt you back. And I don't handle breakups well, and. Even in like, cause I've identified like four or five, like quote unquote real relationships in my adult life, you know, I was a serial monogamous for the longest time.

So there were periods of boyfriends of three months, four months, five months, but they were more, I guess the kids nowadays would call situation ships more than relationships, but out of the real relationships, about half of them have ended in some form of physical violence during the breakup, always with alcohol involved, but still something that I'm not very proud.

Other than wise, it was a matter of being manipulating and lying to them and being paranoid, being drunk, being sloppy, being messy. But yeah, it wasn't great. And I also hurt my husband with my actions, especially when the alcohol or drugs were involved. And I had that dramatic personality shift sharing all of them out loud though, was pretty easy. And I feel like a big part of that was the fact that.

As you know, a gay man having sex with men and having a sponsor who also identifies as a gay man having, who has sex with men you know, it took that, that level away from things where. Most of the things that I said, like, I've done that, or I've done this. He's like, I've been there. I've done that too.

And so, you know, I can't imagine having gone through step five with anyone, but my sponsor and there's nobody in my quote, unquote, real life that I could trust with sharing this and having to be a fellow alcoholic, led them to understand a lot of what I've gone through. And over the course of the first three steps in preparation of the fourth, I've gotten to know him so well and feel very comfortable with.

So with all of that being said, my advice for anyone getting ready to start their fourth step and going into their fifth step is to take it slow and make it as thorough as possible. I started this process, I believe in like December and we probably just finished it up at the very end of February.

So, you know, it took almost two full months but it was better to go deep to be thorough with it than to risk having to go back again to it later, or being unable to continue on with the steps, having not completed them thoroughly or even worse, risking holding onto them and eventually drinking. You're using again. And meanwhile, my advice for step five is to trust in your sponsor.

I was so terrified that something I would say would scare him away or cause them to think differently of me, but in trusting them and being honest with them, it was easy to have that conversation.

Even the things that were hard to voice out loud, it wasn't ever a matter of me being afraid of sharing it with him personally, it was just a matter of just saying these things out loud that oftentimes, which, you know, make me afraid, but in doing so, I was able to conquer that fear and give power over my resentments fears and sex inventory in a way I've never felt. I definitely feel lighter today than I did before this process. And it certainly helps eliminate a lot of the craving to drink.

I see also a change in my personality where I am. Trying to live a better, more honest life. Now that I've realized the harms that I can cause not only to myself, but to others. And they, you know, those resentments don't hold that same kind of power over me. Even writing them out, you know, now I identify resentments as they come up in my day to day life. And even sometimes I've learned that in identifying them and thinking it through or talking with her with my sponsor or fellow kind of help.

Alleviate those resentments as well. And so it's less that I'm holding onto. And with that, that was what my experience with going through step four and step five was like, I would love to hear what your experiences were like or what you think of the share. It is a little more honest and vulnerable than a lot of my other ones. So I would really appreciate any feedback you might have. Either by Instagram, you can get in touch with me at gay a podcast, or you can email [email protected].

Be sure to follow us wherever you're listening so you can get new episodes when they come out every Monday and Thursday. And until next time stay sober friends.