Here we admit that we are powerless over our addiction and that our lives have become unmanageable. 

The point that you're feeling unhappy or dissatisfied is not something that you need to suppress, ignore, or get over. It's the beginning of letting go. It's the beginning of changing something.

This is your honest entry point into the 12-step program.

Here we admit that we are powerless over our addiction and that our lives have become unmanageable. 

The point that you're feeling unhappy or dissatisfied is not something that you need to suppress, ignore, or get over. It's the beginning of letting go. It's the beginning of changing something.

This is your honest entry point into the 12-step program.

If the answer to your problems was in your head, you would have found it by now.

The focus of today's video lecture is this: We decided to turn our lives and our will over to the care of a higher power. It's an acknowledgment that our plan is not working. What we've been doing up until now is no longer a successful method for dealing with the problem. It's a willingness to let go of your plan.

The fourth step is an opportunity to thoroughly stock-take your previous behavior and beliefs using a rigorous, five-column process. This fearless moral inventory allows you to observe your unaddressed fears and beliefs — the silent phantoms forming who you are.

The program that runs your life can now be exposed and examined. It's one of the key moments where unconscious behavior and patterns transition to conscious behavior and patterns.

Today, you're admitting to yourself, to another human being, and your higher power, the exact nature of your wrongs. You're saying, "This is who I am." 

When we confide in another person, we come to realize that this disease that we have is based on our perception. Sharing with another person helps highlight that difference. Your Step 5 partner becomes a mirror, a lens through which you see yourself with new clarity.

The sixth step is about the part of change we can control — willingness and readiness. 

Now you have a clear, conscious appraisal of your problematic patterns. Now you see how these negative behaviors are no longer serving you. 

You prepare to let them go. You recognize that only when you are willing to let go of your defects of character will you be able to find connection, approval, and validation.

Humility is an awareness of one's relative insignificance — not that we are worthless or without value.

In this step, we humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. It's an invitation to interface with a completely different perspective. If Step 6 is about becoming ready and standing on the precipice of a new life, Step 7 is about jumping.

Forgiveness is empowering because it allows you to arrive at a point where your biography is no longer built on condemnatory judgments of others. 

You acknowledge how your behavior and actions have affected other people. You are willing to make amends, but you don't forgive just yet. Step 8 is about self-reflection, which allows you to see what you need to change in your relationships moving forward.

In Step 9, you move closer to liberation by owning what you have done wrong. You clear away the wreckage of your past and commit to live in a different way. 

When you're able to say, "I'm sorry, I did this when I should have done that," you are beginning to give birth to a new version of yourself. You're learning to inhabit it.

Step 10 is about remaining present. We know our old perspective will drift back. We recognize, “Oh look, these negative influences, these previous patterns are lit up again. How do I transcend them? How do I get beyond this matrix?”

You transcend these thoughts by remaining aware and practicing the principles you have already learned—humility, surrender, acceptance, gratitude, and willingness to change. This is a functional step.

Meditation and prayer offer revelation through stillness. You access planes of consciousness that are ever-present, but inaccessible to the material, mechanical, rational mind that pursues external purpose. 

Instead of seeking answers and validation from other people, you turn inward. You cultivate consistent peace of mind by developing a relationship with a higher power.

Our pain, misery, and discontent led us to begin the 12-step process. In the end, what we discover is that we are here to be of service, that there is no “I.” We can be free, but freedom, in the end, is the freedom to serve and love one another. 

Step 4 Examples

As Russell says, the first three steps theoretically can be done by nodding your head “yes” three times.

There are no shortcuts for Step 4. It is the deceptively pragmatic, administratively thorough, notorious five-column inventory process. Its function is to expose and address the fears and resentments that silently guide our lives and fuel our addictions.

So, to help you with this important step, we filmed two 35-minute videos where Russell helps students fill out the Step 4 worksheet.