In this episode, M talks about the dreaded "moral inventory" that many addicts choose to undertake.
In this episode, M talks about the dreaded "moral inventory" that many addicts choose to undertake.
Hello there everybody. This is M again, and we are back with another episode of. Thoughts of an addict. One of the start today's episode by telling a cute little anecdote about the podcast. I I'm on a plane. A few days ago, and I get a text from my mom saying, Hey, baby, it's love your podcast, but Jesus Christ, this last episode, what the hell happened? You sound like chipmunks on here. It sounds like you're talking way too fast. So. Of course, I start freaking I don't like that. Jesus. Did I do something wrong on this episode and take a look at the podcast? I listened to it and it sounds right on my end. Getting ready to just take the whole thing down. And I asked my mom, I said, mom, send me a screenshot of what you're looking at. And she sends it over and she was a. She was listening to my podcast at two X speed. So Freeney my listeners out there. Please, please make sure that you are a. Not just trying to skip through the podcast. Like, like my mom was, I love you, mom. Thank you for listening.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-2:All right. So diving into the meat and potatoes. Of today's pod. We are going to be talking about the fourth step of any 12 step program, which might be. The most infamous one next to making a men's, which is. Creating a moral inventory, a fearless moral inventory, as they say in the literature. And this step is the one that. People avoid like the fucking black plague. People get through the first three steps, they admit that they're fucked up. They say, okay, there's something outside of me that. Can help me. And then the third step is I'm willing to try whatever that is. And then they get to the fourth step, which effectively says make a list of every fucked up thing you've ever done. And they say, all right, I'm, uh, going to take my sweet, old time on this one. And somewhat ironically, that's what happened here. I think I did my last episode about any step work, the third step. But it was like two months ago and I'm like, fuck, I don't want to talk about this one since. This one's a real bear, but here we are. And we're going to dive a little bit into writing a fearless moral inventory.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-3:So first I want to talk about. Y. Are we doing this moral inventory? And first I'll tell you why we're not doing it. We're not doing it to beat ourselves up. This isn't some Catholicism, original sin, fucking you're a terrible person. No. Okay. You're an addict. You already fucking hate yourself. Probably. You don't need to beat yourself up anymore than you've done for the last X number of years of your life that you have been using. Guilt shame. That's not the idea here. The main reason we're doing this. Is so we. Do not live in denial. Of the things that we've done and our beliefs. So I think. That living in the present. Is one of the best things. Probably the best thing that a person can do. And that's a whole nother topic and podcast episode, but the reason I bring that up. Is because someone might say, well, just forget about the past. Just live right now and everything that's happened has happened. And there's some truth to that. It'd be great to say, fuck it, starting today. I'm going to forget every shitty thing that I've ever done. But this is irresponsible. I think for an addict on two different levels. The first one is more of a basic human one, which is. We ought to make amends. And we're not going to make a men's if we don't. Honestly think about all of the people that we've harmed. And the second reason is, and this is, I think the most important reason is. When we take a deep holistic look. At all the shitty things that we've done. And everything that's hurt us and everything that we've heard. I think that we are going to start to identify some patterns. And when we start to identify patterns, We are going to be able to create watchdogs. In our mind, am I not? I mean, we're going to be able to identify. Wow. I was really, really shitty to that person because they did this thing to me. Wow. I really shouldn't have said that to this person. And I got that way because I was performing this action. And as we. List out the things that we have done in the past, we're going to be able to start recognizing, okay. I need to avoid these situations or okay. When this happens, I really, really need to take a step back and think about what my next action is. Gotta be. And another key reason that we need to take this moral inventory is we're going to take a stock in all of our beliefs.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-4:I should note here. This isn't the time to lie. Okay. If you've been an addict. You've been lying a lot. You hadn't blind, probably your whole fucking life. And this is. A golden opportunity. To just be honest as hell. The most honest that you've ever been in your life. Because the only people that are going to see it are you. And maybe your sponsor should probably show it to your sponsor, but we'll get to that in a later step. But now is a very safe space. To be completely honest with yourself. So when I say list out all of your beliefs. Don't list out the beliefs that you think you ought to have. Don't list out the 10 commandments. Don't talk about the golden rule. List out the beliefs that you have had. Such as I'm going to do whatever I can to get drugs. I'm willing to fuck over anyone in my way. To get what I want. I'm the only person in this universe that matters. These kinds of six self-centered thoughts that just fucking paying you to write out. You need to get them out on the paper, you know why? Because there's a chance. That they're operating on you subconsciously. And if swings are operating on you subconsciously, you're never going to be able to change them. So by writing out our beliefs, we can recognize, huh? Wow. This is really shitty. This is something that I'd like to change.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-5:It's only by being. Totally fucking honest. Got it. Hurts. But it's, I wouldn't say it's important. I think it's critical. I think it's life or death. To be honest during this moral inventory. Because if we can honestly identify our patterns, Then we are going to be able to cultivate a lives for a life for ourselves in which. We are going to be able to avoid a lot of these previous situations that would have. Continually fucked us.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-9:And maybe even more importantly from our patterns. We are going to be able to recognize something. We call character defects. We are going to be able to point exactly to wow. My character is deeply fucked up and flawed in this way. Maybe from this, you begin to recognize. Damn. Um, pretty dishonest or. Damn fuck. I'm pretty mean. And. It's important to remember friends that everybody's imperfect. Everybody has things. That they ought to work on. But for the addict. We need it is critical. Uh, work on these defects of character for it is these defects of character. That likely led us to our addiction and certainly kept us interactive using.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-5:And secondly, if we're totally honest with our beliefs, Well guess what? We can actually change them. All right. So what the fuck does it actually mean? To write this moral inventory. And in short. There's a lot of different guidelines that you can use. Really? This is going to be a form of journaling for yourself. And. Go to our best friend. The Google's. And just ask it, I need a moral inventory for step four. And if you're not act, maybe look up narcotics anonymous. If you're an alcoholic, look up for AA. If you don't fucking believe in 12 steps, just say. I want to journal about the bad things that I've done in my past, and I'm sure something will come up for you.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-6:And I like to break. My personal moral inventory down into a few different, let's say subsections. I like talking about all my resentments. So my resentments are. All of the shitty experiences that I've had in the past. That I blame on somebody else. So maybe my resentment. Could talk about I talked a lot about my Catholic upbringing. I was like, wow. All this God stuff that, that probably EFT me up a little bit. Frankly, I don't think there's any problem with religion, but for me, the way that it was instilled in me, it probably wasn't good. A lot of different other things that people talk about are resentment toward people. I know a lot of people talk about, oh, well, my dad really fucked me up when I was younger. And I'm not saying that for me, but, and. That's really, really fucking hard for people to move past. So people hold onto these grudges and this mental strife. And really it's just hurting themselves. One of my favorite quotes of all time is that holding a grudge? Is like drinking a poison. And waiting for the other person to die. Think about that one for a second. Holding a grudge Is really only hurting yourself while the reason that we Do it as we think it's having some kind of effect on other people it's not Just killing ourselves We're feeling that poison for no reason
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-10:This second section is probably the hardest one. It's the one on relationships. Familial friend sexual partnerships. The relationship with your religious leader, with your teacher, with everybody. The section so hard because. Addicts are just these cold shells of individuals. Often addicts are deeply empathetic. And it can be really, really challenging to recognize the harm that we've done. In people's lives, even people that we've cared about, but it is absolutely critical. That we list out the relationships that we've had. And our part in. Probably by this point in time, fucking ruining them.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-11:Third and this one's also a fucking doozy. Is all of the ways in which we were self obsessed and self-centered. I believe that that is. The root cause. Of all of our addictions, but now is the time. To really sit down and write out how we've been. Self-centered self obsessed people. And this might sound kind of mean, but in a lot of ways, it's like we were children who never grew up. The four year old on the playground, not sharing his toys, not looking out for the other kids on the playground. I guess what a lot of addicts had that same mentality where I'm just going to take as much of the fucking pie as I can before I die in this lifetime. And that's what leads to so many of the addictive problems to the total disconnect from ourselves and humanity. So now is the time to honestly recognize those ways in which we've been self-centered. And then only pen. Can we start. Turning. Turning our wills more toward non self-centered, more selfless acts. That's going to help us connect.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-12:Next, we're going to write about all the things that we are shameful and guilty about. And the program we call these our our deep dark secrets. The things that we have never really shared with anybody else that we just hold on to maybe as an addict, maybe you do a good act. And you have fuck comes near my like, huh? Maybe I'm not a total piece of shit. Earn boom. Your mind goes to that fucking terrible thing that you did. That you've never told anyone else. It's a ball and chain and it spells the words, shame. It is not going to allow you to ever feel good about yourself. But. That was the time to be honest. Now's the time to write it all down. We need to critically examine. The things that we've done in our lives or else we're just going to constantly live in denial. So it's time for that deep dark shameful secret stage.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-13:And finally the last part that I like to do. It's right about my fears. I said earlier that self obsession is at the core. Of our addictions, but I think fear might go right up there, hand in hand. We'll sell the session. We're afraid that we're never going to amount to anything we're afraid of the people that we've become. We're afraid of the people that we haven't been able to become yet. And that's why we use. And we're afraid that we've never lived up to any expectations. Addicts are riddled with fear. That's why we use, that's a huge reason why we use so much because we don't like to experience those feelings. But when we avoid those fears, Well, they just keep compounding and compounding and compounding and getting. Deeper and deeper into the periphery of our consciousness. Making them even harder to deal with. And the harder they get to deal with the more drugs we do, vicious cycle bad. Time to list out all those fears. And see that. Okay. All of these things are. Pretty scary. But if I were clean, Maybe there are things that I can do right now or. When I'm clean, maybe I recognize that. These are just products of a very sick, fucked up mind. So now. We list our fears.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-14:And that's it. That is Z moral inventory. Much. Infinitely easier said than done. Man, it's a fucking heartbreaking experience. Writing down all of the shitty things you've ever done. All the people that you've cared about, that you've heard all the people you haven't cared about, that you've heard all the people that have hurt you. Man. It's just a mind bending experience, but. Once you're done. At least you have this. Cohesive. Narrative. Of your past. And it's cohesive. It's not bullshit. Right now, a lot of the narrative of your past. If you're an addict is probably imbued in bullshit. Because maybe you're living in denial. Maybe you're not acknowledging that you're hurting people. But once you see. All the things that you've done. You're going to be able to recognize things. You're going to be able to see the people that you might've been hurting. You're gonna be able to see how you've been hurting yourself. You're going to be able to see the ways in which your fucked up..
Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-16:Then after you go through all that pain of working on that moral inventory. Well, then you have a roadmap. My friends. Because now you see. The ways in which you've wronged. Now you can make it right. I, you know what you need to work on. It's the beginning. Of an absolutely beautiful spiritual journey. And what you recognize those flaws in that self hatred and the self obsession and the fears. And then finally, now that it's all out there, all out of that head of yours. You can actually see it for what it is and you can see. That these are all things that you can work on and that you can change. And that my friends it's the most beautiful thing in the world. To be able to change who you are. And be more available, not only to yourself. But to the people that you really love and care for, but the first step. Is that fearless, tough, gritty, dark. Probably tragic. Moral inventory. Thank you so, so much for tuning in my friends. Oh, God, this is so much fun. Doing this with the all, thank you so much for listening. Seriously brings me so much joy doing this. This is M this is thoughts of an addict. If you want to reach me, go ahead and email thoughts of an addict show@gmail.com. I love you all so much. Have a beautiful rest of your day.