Hi everyone. Peter here, alcoholic.

I completed my Fourth Step toward the end of my first year sober. I typed a 20-page single-spaced manuscript, using the advice in the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve. Perfectionistic? Yes. Painfully so. Overly self-critical? Well, let's just say that I wrote it 17 years ago, and going through my files recently I came across it ... it was tough to read. Tough but good. Because I realize how misplaced all that perfectionism and self-criticism was. And that realization of 17 years ago has grown. My sponsor listened to me as I read the whole 20 pages. When I got to the end, he said, "Well it sounds like you are an ordinary human being. Welcome to the human race!" Boy did I need to hear that. The Fifth Step talks about admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. As I look back on that day 17 years ago when I read my Fourth Step to my sponsor, I would have to say that of those three beings -- me, my sponsor, and God -- the one who was the least present during that reading was me. Nose in the manuscript .. trying to get it all right, all down on paper. It was okay to have done it like that. But in retrospect I'd suggest the "searching and fearless" aspect is the key, not the method, not the detail level, not anything intellectual or mental, but really just the emotional stuff. Anyway, I'll close by saying it is more important to just do this Step, than to get too concerned about doing it "right." What I mean is that we come into this Step with all our flaws and defects, and it is more important to open the door to self-examination than to get too hung up on methods. Methods are important. But if we are thinking too much about the methods it could be because we are using them as an obstacle to moving forward with the process.