Step Four
As we name our attitudes and write about our patterns, both helpful and unhelpful, we begin to understand ourselves better.
The questions in the Workaholics Anonymous Book of Recovery gave me a great starting point for the fact-finding and fact-facing process of Step Four. My sponsor provided a sounding board and reality check. What discoveries - and none of them to be feared!
The writing and naming process distilled and clarified the confusion of my workaholic story. Like a face emerging from a block of wood under the carver’s chisel, a three-dimensional image of myself emerged, not the chaotic cartoon character I had taken myself to be. This person had some real assets and some real liabilities.
For the first time I could see the physical and psychological forces that had acted on me in the flow of life. I saw where I swam against the tide and where I went with the flow. I saw how I influenced that stream and my fellow swimmers for good and ill.
I have the courage to look at the habits of mind that have driven my actions.
