Step 4 Questions: Working Through Your Inventory

These Step 4 questions keep your inventory honest and moving. The inventory itself is written in columns: who or what, the cause, what it affected, and your part. The four questions here are the ones Jimmy and Sarah use in the app to help you through the hard spots and get you to the finish.

First, the inventory itself

If you haven’t started, here’s the shape. You’ll make four lists, in this order: resentments, fears, sex conduct, and other harms. For each entry, fill in four columns:

1. Who or what? A person, an institution, a principle, or for fears, the fear itself.
2. What happened, or why do you have the fear?
3. What did it threaten in you? Your self-esteem, your security, your relationships, your sex life, your ambitions.
4. Your part. Put the other person’s part aside. Where were you selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened, or inconsiderate?

Go down the page one column at a time. All the names first, then all the causes. Read pp. 64–71 in your own copy of the Big Book (4th edition) before you begin.

The four questions

1. Which entry are you most tempted to leave off? Put it on the list first.

Everyone has one. It’s usually the most embarrassing, or the one where you feel most in the right. Write it at the top of the page before you write anything else. That way it can’t quietly fall off the end.

2. Looking at your “my part” column, what keeps showing up?

Once you have a dozen entries with column four filled in, read down that column only. Do you see the same words again and again? Selfishness about money? Dishonesty to keep the peace? Fear of being left? These patterns become your list for Step 6.

3. Can you ask God to help you see the people you resent as sick, the way the book suggests on p. 67? Who will you start with tonight?

Pick one name. Pray for that person tonight, and every night for two weeks. You don’t have to feel warmly toward them. You only have to pray. If you’d like words, the Step 4 prayer page has a prayer for exactly this.

4. Who will hear your Fifth Step, and when?

Name a person and a date. A sponsor, a pastor, a priest or someone with solid recovery who can keep a confidence. Putting the date on the calendar now keeps the inventory from dragging on forever.

The three checks for done

The app asks three questions before Step 4 is marked complete:

• Are all four inventories written: resentments, fears, sex conduct and other harms?
• Did you fill in “my part” for every resentment?
• Have you set a date to share it with a person?

When it gets heavy

Some entries will bring up real pain. If what comes up is abuse or trauma, your part is not what was done to you. Write the resentment, then stop and talk to a pastor or counselor. If you feel unsafe, use the crisis page.

Aim for a few entries a day and a finish date three to four weeks from now. For the full method, go to the Step 4 page. Then the Step 5 questions help you prepare to share it.

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.

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

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).

Already have the app? Open it here