“Continued To Take Personal Inventory, And When We Were Wrong Promptly Admitted It.”
This is a very important step, as are all the 12 steps. However this step can make all the difference in your recovery. Unfortunately this step is usually brushed by and highly ignored. This step is a key in real recovery. Up to this point we have changed and grown a great deal. However unlike some, as people with an addictive personality, we do not have the luxury or really the ability to think our selves into better behaviour, we need to take the reverse approach. We need to act differently, and as we continue to act differently our feeling and thinking change. This explains why your sponsor, recovery coach and/or counsellor will give you certain ways to act and things to do, that at the time may to seem to have nothing to do with your recovery.
The difference between a person in recovery and a person who is abstinent, is the behaviour and thinking. Now as you have progressed through the previous nine steps, as said earlier, your behaviour and thinking has changed a great deal. However you have been acting, believing and thinking in a certain manner, which has fed your addiction/alcoholism for years. Most of this has been ingrained in you, it cannot be expected to reverse itself in a few short months. These ways of acting, beliefs and thinking is just in the background, at this point. It will take years to completely iradicate these aspects. They are just below the surface awaiting the difficult times, those are the beliefs, actions and thinking were relapse begins. Step 10 is our defense against these relapse traps, they are also the tools of growth in a real recovery. By nightly reviewing our behaviors and thinking we see were we are going off the path, they keep us on the path of recovery and safe from relapse. We get to see through a regular review of actions and thinking, where amends are needed and correction required.
How It Works
This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.
-A.A. Big Book p.84
More about Step 10 in the Big Book
The emphasis on inventory is heavy only because a great many of us have never really acquired the habit of accurate self-appraisal. Once this healthy practice has been groomed, it will be so interesting and profitable that the time it takes won't be missed. For these minutes and sometimes hours spent in self-examination are bound to make all the other hours of our day better and happier. And at length our inventories become a regular part of everyday living, rather than unusual or set apart.
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 89-90
The Tenth Step can be a pressure relief valve. We work this step while the day's ups and downs are still fresh in our minds. We list what we have done and try not to rationalize our actions. This may be done in writing at the end of the day. The first thing we do is stop! Then we take the time to allow ourselves the privilege of thinking. We examine our actions, our reactions, and our motives. We often find that we've been "doing" better than we've been "feeling". This allows us to find out where we have gone wrong and admit fault before things get any worse. We need to avoid rationalizing. We promptly admit our faults, not explain them.
We work this step continuously. This is a prevention, and the more we do it, the less we will need the corrective part of this step. This is really a great tool. It gives us a way of avoiding grief before we bring it on ourselves. We monitor our feelings, our emotions, our fantasies, and our actions. By constantly looking at these things we may be able to avoid repeating the actions that make us feel bad.
- Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, Chapter 4/Step 10
Steps 10, 11, and 12 are sometimes called the maintenance steps. They repeat many of the points outlined in previous steps, but they emphasize the value of continuing to "work the steps" on a day-to-day basis.
Step 10 encourages the taking of a personal inventory, which, for recovering persons, should be a daily process...
Our daily inventory certainly needs to assess the status of our relationship with God. Are we still yielding our will to Him? Bill Wilson emphasized how crucial this evaluation is, especially for addictive personalities, which tend to be willful. Our need to surrender ourselves to God on a daily basis will go on throughout our lives, and we shall explore the means of that continuing spiritual surrender in Step 11.
- Serenity, A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery, p. 67, 69
Step Ten is a spiritual pocket computer to help us keep tabs on our behavior today and a cleanser to help keep our spiritual lenses clean. In this method of keeping an inventory every day, we ask ourselves questions like, Which of my character defects popped up as uninvited guests today? Am I using the tools of the program? Am I praying? Am I thanking God for all the good things he has done for me this day, and for any positive things he's freed me to do? ...
The reason this is so important is that the Sin-disease, which its denial and delusion, is always hovering "just a decision away" to throw us back into fear and confusion. Its tactics are to convince us in various ways, "You're 'well' now and don't need a stupid program to lead a normal life. You can and should operate on your own as a mature adult." The disease's "strategy" often works like this: When we begin to feel a little secure and happy and our relationships are more comfortable, many of us "forget" to have our quiet time. We forget to go to meetings and don't call our sponsor. We're busy again, because the pain that drove us into the program has been alleviated. This is a dangerous place to be, because it is one of the major delusions of the spiritual life that we can "do it oursleves" without daily contact with God and a daily look at the reality of what is going on in our own lives.
- A Hunger for Healing, by Keith Miller, p. 164
Remember God does not create garbage

Real 12 Step Recovery
Real 12 Step Recovery, Getting and Staying Clean and Sober
WELCOME Hi There, this blog will be about what I believe to be REAL RECOVERY not band aids or feel good BS These are the hard cold true facts that I have learned and been taught by OLD TIMERS and People WHO HAVE REMAINED CLEAN and SOBER and "GOT A LIFE".There will be no original thoughts here, Because in essence there are no original thoughts only perhaps originals and/or different ways to present or illustrate old Ideas.Now that this is understood lets get to the heart of the matter. Recovery is not about coddling or enabling. IT IS LIFE CHANGING. PERIOD WELCOME to the hardest thing that you will do in YOUR LIFE. Make no mistake, Real recovery is not EASY, it is simple, very simple, Yet you will make it hard, as all before you have. Also let's get this STRAIGHT right off the top. REAL RECOVERY has nothing to do about ALCOHOL and/or Drugs. IT IS about the way you react to life, your perceptions, and YOUR actions. Alcohol and/or Drugs are just a symptom of YOUR disease. Take notice of the word DISEASE - Which in our case translates to ILL AT EASE or simply not at ease, which is the basic nature of our problem and answer to our solution.Back to why I state that this is the hardest thing you will do. I state this because Real Recovery Will challenge everything you know/believe or really what you think you know, Because you really don't know SHIT or you wouldn't need recovery. It will make you face the truth about your biggest problem YOU and YOUR THINKING. You will face the real you not the one we would like to see with all the justifications and rationalizations just the TRUE YOU.REMEMBER GOD DOES NOT CREATE GARBAGE >>>>>>>> If you have a request or enquiry Please Email me at wiledchild@live.ca I'd like to add one other thing here for all those who read this Blog. It's something that was taught to me That was invaluable to my recovery My Spiritual Advisor Taught me this. Don't believe a word I say , do not take what I say as the truth just because I say it or anybody else, for that matter. Check it out for yourself. Try it on for size. Investigate , find out for YOURSELF only use what you have read or heard as a reference point. Find the truth out for yourself . This way it is your TRUTH not someone else's. You will also not be believing a lie or untruth if you always check things for yourself . Do not believe everything you are told or read without checking it out.
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