Step 4 Inventory: How to Work Step 4 of the 12 Steps
The Step 4 inventory is a written, honest look at your own life: your resentments, your fears, your sexual conduct and the other harms you’ve done. It isn’t a list of everything wrong with you. It’s fact-finding, the way a shop owner counts the stock to see what’s actually on the shelves. And the column that matters most is your own part.
What Step 4 says
The fourth step, as printed in 1939:
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
“Searching” means you look properly, not just at the obvious things. “Fearless” doesn’t mean you won’t feel afraid. It means you won’t let fear decide what goes on the page.
What it means in plain words
The book compares Step 4 to a business taking inventory (p. 64, 4th edition). A business that never counts its stock goes broke. It doesn’t know what it has, what’s spoiled, or what’s taking up space. So it sits down, finds the facts, faces them, and clears out what’s no good.
Your inventory does the same thing with what’s been driving you. The book names resentment as the worst offender of all (p. 64). Fear is close behind. These are the things that make sober life feel unbearable, and an unbearable sober life is where the first drink comes from.
Step 4 is the first action step after the decision in Step 3. It’s how you start to carry that decision out.
The spiritual principle: courage
The app gives Step 4 the principle of courage. It takes courage to look at your own part when someone else clearly wronged you. It takes courage to write down a fear you’ve never said out loud. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s writing anyway.
What the Bible says about Step 4
The app’s verse for Step 4 comes from a book written in grief, after everything had fallen apart:
“Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!”
Examining yourself isn’t something the Bible treats as morbid. It treats it as the way home. And it never asks you to do it alone. David asked God to do the searching with him:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
Jesus also had something to say about where to look first:
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
That passage is the fourth column of your inventory in a picture. More passages are on the Step 4 Bible verses page.
How to work Step 4
1. Read pp. 64–71 in your own copy before you start. That’s the section of How It Works that explains the inventory: resentments (pp. 64–67), fears (pp. 67–68) and sex conduct (pp. 68–70). If you have Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, read pp. 42–54 in your own copy too.
2. Start with resentments, and work in columns. The app’s inventory builder lays it out the way many Big Book study groups do, in four columns:
- Who or what you resent: a person, an institution or a principle.
- The cause: what happened.
- What it affects in you: your self-esteem, your relationships, your security (material or emotional), your sex life, or your ambitions.
- Your own part: set the other person’s wrongs aside and look for where you were selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened, or inconsiderate (p. 67).
Fill it one column at a time, down the page. Write every name first. Then go back and write every cause. Then column three, then column four. Going row by row tends to bog people down.
3. Pray for the people you resent. The book suggests asking God to help you see the person who hurt you as someone spiritually sick, and to show them the patience you’d show a sick friend (p. 67). Many people find that praying for one person every day for a couple of weeks loosens a grudge nothing else could touch.
4. Then fears, sex conduct and other harms. List your fears and ask why you have each one. Many trace back to relying only on yourself. For sex conduct, ask where you were selfish, dishonest or inconsiderate, whom you hurt, and what you should have done instead. Then list any other harms not already covered.
5. Keep moving. A few entries a day. Set a finish date three to four weeks out. A finished honest inventory is worth far more than a perfect one that never gets done.
6. Set your Step 5 date. Before you finish, choose the person who will hear it and put a date on the calendar. The Step 4 questions include this.
What “done” looks like
All four inventories are written: resentments, fears, sex conduct and other harms. Every resentment has “my part” filled in. And you’ve set a date to share it with a person in Step 5.
Talk it through with Jimmy or Sarah — first month free
Jimmy and Sarah are AI sponsors who know the Twelve Steps and the Bible. They'll listen, walk the steps with you, and keep pointing you to real people: a meeting, a sponsor, a church.
Free to download · first month free, no card · adults 18+
After the first month, talking with Jimmy or Sarah needs Plus ($9.99/month or $59.99/year).
Common traps
Perfectionism. Some people rewrite the first page for months. The book is clear that nobody is a saint. Finish it, then move on.
Only writing what others did. Columns one through three are about them. Column four is about you, and it’s where the freedom is. Come back to p. 67 every time you get stuck.
Drowning in shame. The inventory isn’t a trial. Lamentations 3:40 sits in a chapter that also says God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23). Look at your assets too. Many people find it helps to note what they did right.
Trauma and abuse. If someone hurt you, that isn’t your part. Write the resentment honestly and leave the blame where it belongs. If old wounds come up hard, talk to a pastor or a licensed counselor alongside the step. If you’re in danger or thinking of harming yourself, go to our crisis page now.
A short prayer for Step 4
Lord, look through my life with me. Show me what I’ve kept on the shelves too long. Give me courage to write it down and grace to look at my own part without hating myself. Where I’m holding a grudge, help me see that person the way you do. Amen.
For more prayers to use while you write, see the Step 4 prayer page.
How Jimmy and Sarah help with Step 4
Steps 4, 5, 8 and 9 are the steps you finish with a human sponsor, and the app says so plainly. What Jimmy and Sarah can do is sit at your elbow while you write. The app’s inventory builder uses the four columns above for resentments, fears, sex conduct and other harms, and your AI sponsor can help you think through one entry at a time, always nudging you back to your own part. When you’re done, the inventory can be exported to bring to the person who hears your Step 5. Your inventory is never shared with accountability partners.
Common questions
How long should a Step 4 inventory take?
Weeks, not months. Many sponsors suggest a few entries a day and a finish date three to four weeks out. It needs to be honest and complete, not perfect.
What are the columns in a Step 4 inventory?
For resentments: who or what you resent, the cause, what it affected in you (self-esteem, security, relationships, ambitions), and your own part. Fears, sex conduct and other harms follow a similar pattern.
Do I have to include things that were done to me?
Your part is never what someone else did to you. If abuse or trauma comes up, write the resentment, leave the blame where it belongs, and talk to a pastor or counselor alongside the step.
Can I do Step 4 with the app instead of a sponsor?
The app helps you write it, column by column. But Step 4 leads straight into Step 5, which you share with a human being, so line up a sponsor, pastor or trusted person in recovery while you write.
Talk it through with Jimmy or Sarah — first month free
Jimmy and Sarah are AI sponsors who know the Twelve Steps and the Bible. They'll listen, walk the steps with you, and keep pointing you to real people: a meeting, a sponsor, a church.
Free to download · first month free, no card · adults 18+
After the first month, talking with Jimmy or Sarah needs Plus ($9.99/month or $59.99/year).
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