Step Ten
As one works through the first nine Steps, they prepare themselves for an entirely new way of living. But when they reach Step Ten, they start putting AA principles into daily practice—rain or shine, good days and bad. This is where they face the real test: Can they stay sober, keep their emotional balance, and live with purpose no matter what life throws at them?
Taking an ongoing look at strengths and weaknesses, with a genuine desire to learn and grow, isn't optional for those in recovery—it's essential. Many have learned this lesson the hard way. Throughout history, wise people have practiced honest self-reflection. They've always known that you can't build a meaningful life until self-examination becomes a regular habit, until you can admit and accept what you find, and until you patiently work to fix what's broken.
When someone has a terrible hangover from drinking too much yesterday, they can't function well today. But there's another kind of hangover people experience whether they're drinking or not—the emotional hangover. This comes from yesterday's (and sometimes today's) emotional overload: anger, fear, jealousy, and similar feelings. If one wants to live peacefully today and tomorrow, they need to clear these emotional hangovers. This doesn't mean dwelling morbidly on the past. It means acknowledging and correcting mistakes now. A daily inventory helps make peace with the past. When that's done, one can truly leave it behind. When the inventory is taken carefully and peace is made with oneself, confidence is gained that tomorrow's challenges can be handled as they come.
While all inventories follow the same basic principles, timing makes them different. There's the spot-check inventory—taken anytime during the day when one finds themselves getting emotionally tangled up. There's the end-of-day review when looking back at what happened in the past hours. Here a balance sheet is created, giving credit for things done well and noting mistakes. Then there are times when sitting alone, or with a sponsor or spiritual advisor, one carefully reviews their progress since their last check-in. Many AA members do annual or twice-yearly deep cleanings. Many also value occasional retreats from the outside world where they can have a quiet day or so for self-examination and reflection.
Don't these practices kill joy and waste time? Must AA members spend most of their waking hours grimly rehashing their failures and mistakes? Hardly. The AA approach emphasizes inventory heavily only because so many people never learned the habit of honest self-assessment. Once this healthy practice becomes routine, it becomes so interesting and valuable that the time it takes won't feel wasted. These minutes—and sometimes hours—spent in self-examination make all the other hours of the day better and happier. Eventually, inventories become a natural part of daily living rather than something unusual or separate.
Before exploring what a spot-check inventory is, let's look at the kind of situations where it can help.
AA literature suggests that every time someone is upset, regardless of the cause, there's something wrong with their response. If someone hurts them and they're angry, they're also at fault. But aren't there exceptions to this rule? What about "justified" anger? If someone cheats them, don't they have the right to be mad? Can't they be properly angry with self-righteous people? For those in AA, these are dangerous exceptions. Experience in recovery has shown that justified anger should be left to those better equipped to handle it.
Few people have been more damaged by resentments than alcoholics have. It didn't matter whether their resentments were justified or not. A burst of temper could ruin a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make them completely ineffective. They were never skilled at telling justified anger from unjustified anger. From their perspective, their anger was always justified. Anger—which might be an occasional luxury for more balanced people—could keep them on an emotional binge indefinitely. These emotional "dry spells" often led straight back to drinking. Other kinds of upsets—jealousy, envy, self-pity, or wounded pride—had the same effect.
A spot-check inventory taken in the middle of such emotional storms can greatly help calm feelings. Today's quick check works best for situations that come up in each day's events. Dealing with long-standing problems should wait for times specifically set aside for that purpose when possible. The quick inventory targets daily ups and downs, especially when people or new situations throw one off balance and tempt them to make mistakes.
In all these situations, one needs self-control, honest analysis of what's happening, willingness to admit when they're wrong, and equal willingness to forgive when the fault lies elsewhere. One shouldn't get discouraged when they fall back into old patterns—these skills aren't easy. The goal is progress, not perfection.
The first goal will be developing self-control. This gets top priority. When one speaks or acts hastily or carelessly, their ability to be fair and tolerant disappears instantly. One cruel outburst or one stubborn snap judgment can destroy a relationship with another person for a whole day, or maybe a whole year. Nothing pays off like controlling words and actions. One must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven arguments. The same goes for sulking or silent contempt. These are emotional traps baited with pride and revenge. The first job is to avoid these traps. When tempted by the bait, one should train themselves to step back and think. You can't think or act wisely until self-control becomes automatic.
Unpleasant or unexpected problems aren't the only ones that require self-control. One must be equally careful when they start achieving some success and material gains. No people have ever loved personal victories more than alcoholics have; they drank success like fine wine that never failed to make them feel superior. When temporary good fortune came their way, they indulged in fantasies of even greater victories over people and circumstances. Blinded by prideful self-confidence, they were likely to act like big shots. Of course, people turned away from them, either bored or hurt.
Now that many are in AA and sober, winning back the respect of friends and colleagues, they find they still need extra vigilance. As insurance against "big-shot syndrome," they can often check themselves by remembering that they're sober today only by God's grace, and any success they're having belongs more to God than to them.
Finally, many begin to see that all people, including themselves, are somewhat emotionally unstable and frequently wrong. Then they approach true tolerance and understand what real love for others actually means. It becomes increasingly clear as they move forward that it's pointless to get angry or hurt by people who, like them, are struggling with the challenges of growing up.
Such a radical change in perspective takes time—maybe a lot of time. Not many people can honestly say they love everybody. Most must admit they've loved only a few people; they've been pretty indifferent to many others as long as they didn't cause trouble; and as for the rest—well, they've really disliked or hated them. While these attitudes are common enough, those in AA find they need something much better to maintain their balance. They can't handle it if they hate deeply. The idea that one can possessively love a few people, ignore many others, and continue to fear or hate anybody has to be abandoned, even if only little by little.
One can try to stop making unreasonable demands on those they love. They can show kindness where they showed none before. With those they dislike, they can begin practicing fairness and courtesy, perhaps going out of their way to understand and help them.
Whenever one fails any of these people, they can promptly admit it—always to themselves, and to them too when the admission would be helpful. Courtesy, kindness, fairness, and love are the keys that help get along with practically anybody. When in doubt, one can always pause and say, "Not my will, but Yours, be done." And they can often ask themselves, "Am I treating others the way I'd want to be treated—today?"
When evening comes, perhaps just before sleep, many create a balance sheet for the day. This is a good time to remember that taking inventory isn't always about listing failures. It's a poor day indeed when someone hasn't done something right. In fact, waking hours are usually filled with constructive things. Good intentions, good thoughts, and good actions are there to see. Even when someone has tried hard and failed, they can count that as one of their greatest achievements. Under these conditions, the pain of failure becomes an asset. From failure, one gets the motivation needed to move forward. Someone wise once said that pain was the foundation of all spiritual progress. Those in AA can heartily agree, for they know that the pain of drinking had to come before sobriety, and emotional turmoil before peace.
As one looks at the negative side of the day's ledger, they should carefully examine their motives behind each thought or action that seems wrong. In most cases, motives won't be hard to see and understand. When someone acted from pride, anger, jealousy, anxiety, or fear, they behaved accordingly—and that was that. Here one only needs to recognize that they acted or thought badly, try to imagine how they might have done better, and resolve with God's help to carry these lessons into tomorrow, making any neglected amends, of course.
But in other cases, only careful examination will reveal what the true motives were. Sometimes the old enemy—rationalization—steps in and justifies behavior that was really wrong. The temptation here is to imagine one had good motives and reasons when they really didn't.
Someone "constructively criticized" another who needed it, when their real motive was to win a pointless argument. Or when the person wasn't present, they thought they were helping others understand them, when actually their true motive was to feel superior by putting them down. They sometimes hurt those they love because they need to "learn a lesson," when they really want to punish. They felt depressed and complained about feeling bad, when in fact they were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This strange trait of mind and emotion—this twisted desire to hide a bad motive under a good one—runs through human behavior from top to bottom. This subtle and slippery kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought.
Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of building character and living well. An honest regret for harm done, genuine gratitude for blessings received, and willingness to try for better things tomorrow—these will be the lasting assets to seek.
Having considered the day this way, not forgetting to note things done well, and having searched the heart with neither fear nor favoritism, one can truly thank God for the blessings received and sleep with a clear conscience.