OK, so step four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, and on page 64 it says through our decision in step three, through our decision and step three, to turn our world and life over to the higher power was a vital and a crucial step. It could have little permanent effect unless that once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom, so we had to get down to causes and conditions.

These causes and conditions are the causes and conditions for our selfish and self centeredness and they're going to be listed in our moral inventory. Now the I'm not going to go through the Big book page by page here. Instead, I'm going to talk about this form that you're getting around here, which is kind of the summary of what the Big Book said about the 4th step there. And there are four places there. Well, there are four paper lists that you've got there. There's 4 pages. Three of those are listed very explicitly in the Big Book. On page 64 it says resentments is the number one defender. It destroys more Alcoholics than

else. In dealing with resentments. We set them on paper. So that's the that's the instruction for the first one. On page 68 it says we reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them. Then on page 68 and 69, interestingly, that that's about sex. Now about sex, we reviewed our sex conduct over the years. We got this all down on paper and looked at it. So there's three times where it says explicitly you're going to put it down on paper. The 4th list is not explicitly stated in the big book,

but the justification for it is that

it's the fourth list is the list of harms to people's institutions. And I've also included harms caused by your own eating conduct because that's the way I received the list from my OAP sponsor. The 4th list was our eating conduct and I actually made an edit here and put the word harms in there. It's not spelled out, but the on page 70, it says after at towards the end of the fourth step says we have listed the people we have who we have hurt by our conduct

and we are willing to straighten out the past if we can.

And then on page 76, when we're talking about step step eight, it says we have a list of all the persons we had harmed and to whom to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took our inventory. So the idea is if there's somebody that you harmed, but it wasn't because of resentment or a fear or an anger, you should add that to that fourth list because you want a list of every person that you've harmed so that you can make make amends in the eighth step. So that would include, for example, people that you've stolen from, even though you didn't have any resentment or fear or anger

or whatever. If you had a harm to somebody, even if it wasn't related to resentment or anger or fear, you should put it on that fourth list of harms. And also if you harm somebody with your eating conduct, like I harmed my wife and my family with my eating conduct. So they got put on that fourth list for for the harms that I did with my eating conduct.

OK, so now all four forms, they have the same format of the four columns that is described in the big book. And the column one, the title is I'm resentful at. And the instruction for that comes from page 64. It says in dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principals with whom we are angry. So those are the three classes of things that go there, individual people, institutions or principals or or group. It could be groups of people too.

Then column two is the cause. On page 64, we asked ourselves why we were angry.

And The thing is there, you don't make a long story there. This, this, this inventory is, should be a short and sweet. It should be like it could be a phrase or could be one sentence. If you have to, to go more than one sentence, you can write in more than one sentence there. But it's not the whole story of what they did to me and what I did back to them and what they did to me again and what I did back to them again. You know, get to the meat of it. That's what that's what's necessary here is not the whole long story Now column three. It's the, it's the self and affects my, which part of myself is affected there.

The, the OA PPP pupil that made this list had to combine two different places. There's one page, one place on page 64 where it says self esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships, including sex. And another place where it said self esteem, our security, our ambitions or, or personal or sex relations. And if you look at it, they, they kind of made-up these three columns that are the four columns that are social instincts, security instincts, sex instinct and ambitions.

And all the things that are in all those columns. There are not listed in the list that I gave you there from page 64, but I think this is a reasonable interpretation of page 64's list. If you put them into things by social, social instinct, they're both self esteem and personal relationships. Security instinct is either material or emotional

sex instinct and they the acceptable sex relations and hidden sex relations I think are more important for the sex list because the hidden sex relations could be the affairs that you've had and the harms that you did in a consensual sex with me or you know, one.

Your regular sex would be the acceptable sex relations. And then you can have ambitions either for security, sexual or social. So the OAPP people included things that aren't explicitly in the big book, but I think it makes sense here. And then the instruction there on is from page 65 on our grudge list was set opposite each name are injuries. Was it our self esteem, our security or ambitions or personal or sex relations which have been interfered with?

Now the instructions in all these cases here, I didn't tell tell you that at the beginning, but the instructions are to do all of your column one. Just go down and list all the people

and call him one of your resentments before you go on to column two. Then go on to column two and put the cause in there and get all the causes down and then go to column three and and put those down in order going across

there for those for those those columns in column three. So all you got to do is put a check mark. You don't have to write anything there, just a check mark if that covers that.

And then column four, what is the exact nature of our wrongs, faults, mistakes, defects or shortcomings? And the the list there comes from two different places in the big book. On page 67 it says were we selfish, dishonest, self seeking or and frightened. And then on page 69 it says selfish, dishonest or inconsiderate. And now that's talking about sex. So it's combining both the sex and the resentment inventory

where sex had the word inconsiderate that the resentments didn't have. So that's why there are those four columns there.

I always thought it was kind of weird that self seeking and frightened or in the same column here. If I were going to rewrite it, I would probably put selfishness and self seeking because those are more related and then frightened would be separate. But this is what I was given, so I'm giving it to you.

And the instruction is again referring to our list, putting out of our minds the wrongs other had done. We resolute, resolutely look for our own mistakes. Where have we been? Selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened or and inconsiderate. And then finally, instruction 5 is that if you read from left to right, you now see the resentment from column one, the cause in column two, the part of the self that had been affected in column three

of the defect within us, which allowed the resentment to service and block us off from God's will. And that's the thing they keep emphasizing the problem with all these resentments and fears and sex conducts and all that is that it's blocking us off from God's will. So that's, that's why, that's why we need to recognize that that column four, the exact nature, the exact nature of my wrongs, my faults, my mistakes, my defects and shortcomings that are blocking me off from God's will. So this is where you can get down to the causes and conditions of what's blocking me off from God's will and, and, and

eliminate them in your 8th and 9th step.

And then the finally, there's the resentment prayer on page 66 and 767. This was our course. We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick, though they did not like, though we did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed us. They, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show that, show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.

When a person offended us, we said to ourselves, this is a sick man, how can I be helpful to him?

God save me from being angry. I will be done now. You don't tell the man you're sick. You don't say that to the man. You say this to yourself, this is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry and, and, and thy will be done. You know, it's all about being helpful to him. Being helpful to the guy that we think harmed us is the way to get rid of that resentment that we have towards him if we can be helpful to him.

So, so that's the that's the first sheet on resentments. And then on the review of fears, the column one is I'm fearful of and that comes from the instruction is in dealing with fears, we put them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principals with whom we are fearful. And column two is why do I have this fear? We ask ourselves, why do I have the fear? Column three and column four are the same as in in the resentment column,

and then when you're done you can read from left to right. This is instruction 5.

We now see the fear in column one. Why do I have the fear in column two? The part of self that has caused the fear. So all fears are related to self in some way or another. If you're afraid something's going to happen to you, that's column three. And the exact nature of the defect within us that allowed the fear to surface and block us off from God's will.

And then the fear prayer is on page 68. We asked him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. Now, the review of sex conduct and the review of our harms are the same, the same instructions exactly. So I'm going to cover both, both of the Form 3 and Form 4 and they both, they both start in fact, with the same column. Who did I harm? So who did I harm my by my sex conduct? Or who did I harm by whatever other means I used to harm them?

And we listed all the people we had harmed. What did I do? We asked ourselves what we did, what we did in our sex conduct, or how did we harm the other person? Did we steal from them?

Did we get the job that they wanted? Whatever, whatever we did? And then column three and column four are the same

and again, you can now read from left to right and you can see the part of self that caused the harm, the exact nature of the defect, and the within us that allowed us to allow the harm to surface and the block us off from God's will. Column four

now the description of sex industry starts with a paragraph on page 68 goes to page 70. If you read that section and substitute the word food for sex. This I, I learned in my OPP meeting. I don't know if it's in the OPP step study, but if you read those sections from page 63 to 70 in the big book and every time they have the word sex there, if you replace it with food, it it you really can identify. And that's because you know, you can have you can have successful sex relations with people and you can have successful food that you eat that's within your abstinent field food plan. And then you can have

relations that are harmful to you or to other people. You can have foods that are harmful to you or to other people. So it's more sex is more parallel to food than alcohol is because alcohol is 0 or 100%, you know, you're either sober or you're not. Whereas with food, you have acceptable foods and you have unacceptable foods and you have acceptable sex and unacceptable sex. So I'm going to illustrate that by reading the three. There are three-step prayers on I'm sorry, there are three sex prayers on page 6969 and page 70. And I'm going to

safe the food or sex and as appropriate here. So I think you'll see how they they fit together. We subjected each relation or food to this test. Was it selfish or not? We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. So this is kind of going along with asking God to help choose my foods for me instead of me choosing my foods. And just as we're trying to choose each relation, was it selfish or not?

And on page 69 in meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter or food. You know, is there something we need to do about that? The right answer will come if we want it. Now, sometimes we don't want it, but if if we want it, the right answer will come to us. Then on page 70 says to sum up about food or sex. We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation or food,

for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing.

If sex or food is very troublesome, we throw ourselves all the harder into helping others.

I should emphasize that. I mean, that's what this whole OA primary purpose big book study is about, is about helping others. And that's how you get the recovery in this program. So if you're getting obsessive thoughts about food, make an outreach call, call your sponsor, call your sponsee. Actually, it's better to call your sponsee. The OAPP program doesn't emphasize sponsor so much as sponsee is by helping another person, by helping them work the step, by helping them get recovery. That's where the obsessive thought can go away in the food there. So I'll reread that

if sex or food is very troublesome,

we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge or food obsession when the yield would leave would mean heartache. So again, it's it's working with us. It doesn't. And then the step ends with we hope that you that you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self will has blocked you off from him. If you have already made a decision and an inventory of your grocer handicaps

made a good beginning, that being so, you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself and then you're ready to go on to Step 5. So that's what I have for steps 2-3 and four. And now we're open for sharing on steps 2-3 and four.

Yeah, I've heard people describe themselves as grateful compulsive readers. And, and that's true. You know, if I hadn't hit this hard bottom with compulsive reading, there's no way I would get into a spiritual program and get all the benefits out of the spiritual program that I've gotten from this program. You know, I would have just bumbled along in my usual selfish and self-centered way that wasn't causing too much harm out in the world doesn't causing too me too much harm. And you know, I wouldn't have gotten into this program. So I'm I'm grateful for that.

Yeah, the reason that's that's those those columns, I don't want you to write a whole long story there is that the 1st 100 recovered Alcoholics worked the 12 steps in a very short period of time, like a couple of weeks. You know, that would be the the long end of, of working it. Typically the they found the alcoholic in the hospital ward where is recovering from delirium tremens or tremens or whatever it is there and they would get get him to at his bedside. They would work step one within, they would explain alcoholism

and you know that it's from your powerlessness over alcohol and all that. And then they would get them to work through step 2:00 and 3:00.

And they, if you ever get a chance to visit Akron, OH, I visited twice now and I love it. I can tell you more about it at lunch or whatever. But they up in Doctor Bobby house there they have the upper upstairs bedroom where Doctor Bob would take any of his new proteges that are going to work step three. And he would take him up to the bedroom and have them kneel down at the side of the bed there and say the step three prayer. And at that point they were then able to come down and be in the group with the other Alcoholics. They, they basically didn't go to a meeting until they worked steps 1-2 and three.

It worked steps 1-2 and three before they even went to the first meeting. And the meetings weren't like this back. There was just people getting together. Basically. There were Oxford group meetings that were kind of formal meetings and there would be a speaker and things like that. But that would like be like once a week. So the Alcoholics would go to a once a week Oxford group meeting and then they would just together get together and Bob's living room talking would be the, the daily meetings that they would go to. And so they would then work with the, with the protege and they talk. I'll get, I'll get more about this in step 12. But they work with the protege,

get him through the steps, taking the inventory, making the amends. And in fact, if you read the big book, if you read Doctor Bob's story, he, he got sober when he talked to Bill, but then he drank again when he went away on a convention. He came back and the way that he got sober the second time was by going around and making amends. He went around and did the steps 8:00 and 9:00 and made amends to everybody in Akron there. And as amends were really kind of funny because what he did was he told everybody that he was an alcoholic because they've been keeping that secret from everybody.

They knew he was an alcoholic. This was not news to them. You know, they knew it already before he went and told him. But by telling them, he got rid of that guilt where he was trying to keep it to himself and protect himself by not admitting that it was an alcoholic. And that was where he got the recovery by working steps 8:00 and 9:00. That's why I say, you know, work the steps whether you're abstinent or not, just work the steps, get that spiritual experience, get abstinent, and then work the steps again once you're abstinent. So whatever you do, just work the steps. That's the answer.

I'm not sure.

Well, let me just give my share what I don't know who said what the inspired me to think this. But you know, we, we don't get recovery from our sponsors. We get recovery from our sponsees. That's what that's what the OAPP program talks about. It's, it's that it's the working with others as that, as as the newcomer, the protege that in a way we in OAPP, we call them the proteges and I'll talk about that in step 12 there. But you know, those are the people that we get recovery from from helping them.

So our sponsors are useful to bounce things off of. But if you weren't really want a spiritual experience, work with newcomers.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's get get your your protege, get your newcomer through that Step 4 quickly so that they can get to the step 12, get the recovery, and then they can go back again and do it again. And they can work with others. It's working with letters. That's the bottom line.