Meditations on "Inventory"

Those who make steady progress in recovery and find one day becoming one month, one year, and then one decade, are those who remain focused and give careful attention each day to what works.

Step 10 of the 12-Step program encourages us to stay on track in our recovery with the following words: “We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

As our time increases in recovery one of the enemies we need to be aware of and guard against is becoming complacent.

We are not very far into our recovery program when we come face to face with Step Four which asks us to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

As we prepare to do the steps in a recovery program, who among us enjoys doing a Step Four inventory or writing out the last 90 days of our addiction?

A character defect that most of us have is self-centeredness.

Our old ways of thinking and behaving are being transformed as we journey with God in our new life in recovery.

When many of us waken up from the haze of our addiction and reflect on the harm we have caused in our relationships, or when we begin to make an inventory of our character defects, a well of deep sorrow may overwhelm us.

There are many items we can think about when we are compiling a daily inventory of how we are doing in life and recovery.

An important character strength to develop is tolerance – being patient, understanding, and accepting of something different.

Many of us lost our true identity because we grew up in dysfunctional families and were forced to assume survival roles.

Too often dealing with denial is incorrectly focused on the circumstances surrounding the use of our substance of choice or other destructive habits for which we are now seeking treatment and God’s help to overcome.