Step Four: If Four Columns, Why Not Five?

In the last week, I attended a Book study meeting which covered Chapter 5 (which contains the ending of the second step, as well as the third and fourth steps) and, later in the week, a Step Study meeting which went through Step 4. What stood out for me first off was how different the AA Big Book outlines the 4th step in chart-like format compared to the 12x12, which feels more like long questionaire or survey.

More importantly, when I read the AA Big Book's treatment of the 4th step, I was finally able to see both the infamous "fourth column" that I've heard people talk about and, even more important, I also discovered a fifth column that I now see positioned between the third and the fourth columns (maybe I'll refer to this as Column 3.5?) Let me explain before and of you go off screaming and pulling your hair out.

When I first got sober, when I heard others talk about the fourth step as it's outlined in the Big Book (Chapter 5), many people referred to what to me was a mysterious "fourth column" where the person working the step was supposed to go beyond the 3 columns outlined in the book (I'm resentful at; The Cause; Affects my... ) and add a fourth column to write down "Our Part" in whatever the happened to bring about a particular resentment. I considered this a mysterious fourth column, because they only had three columns in my book and I didn't see a specific reference to any such fourth column in the book.

I'd heard somewhere that they most important part of the Big Books was the "black part." The part that was actually written "in" the lines and not in between them. So, under that theory, where was this fourth column? Did the printing press in 1939 not have the capability to have four columns or did this fourth column just get incorporated into the AA program after the fact, just like other things including "sponsors," which are not specifically mentioned in the first 164 pages of the Big Book. I've long suspected this to be true...

Anyway, last week, when we were reading Chapter 5 I noticed that it does actually reference a need to look at one's own part in whatever past event but it's in the context of talking about our need to forgive, not only others, but ourselves. I missed that when I went through this process before: I was seeing the fourth column to be where I saw the error of my own ways, not just the person against whom I held a resentment.

Looking at it again now though, I missed the critical importance of forgiveness in this step. Forgiving both those who've harmed us in the past and ourselves. The book specifically recommends that we try to see these people are sick people, just like us and that we need to try and forgive them. For some reason, that really jumped out at me this time. I'm amazed at my ignorance sometimes!

All that said, forgiving others has been a huge part of my recovery process despite my poor reading skills when it comes to the Big Book. I'm resolving now to make a point of adding this extra column for any of my sponsee's to consider adding to their fourth step: all they need to do is make a narrow column (#3.5) for a check mark to be placed when they've begun or completed the process of forgiving those who harmed them in the past and then in their fourth column, make note of their own role in what happened and an acknowledgment that they've taken a look at that role with compassion and understanding....and forgiveness. We are, after all, sick people...and we wouldn't treat sick people any less kindly.

One technique that helped me in the forgiveness process was a Buddhist practice called the Lovingkindness Meditation. While there are many forms of this meditation, the one I've used frequently is as follows:

• May I be filled with lovingkindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.... Repeat several times until you really believe it and feel your heart soften.
• May [insert name of someone close to you and for whom you feel affection and love: I insert my wife's name, Nancy] be filled with lovingkindness. May Nancy be well. May Nancy be peaceful and at ease. May Nancy be happy. Repeat several times...
• May [now insert someone's name that may be a family member, acquaintance or someone you work with and feel "neutral" toward: I usually insert (one by one) the names of my children and their significant others] Katie and Brian be filled with lovingkindness. May Katie and Brian be well. May Katie and Brian be peaceful and at ease. May Katie and Brian be happy. Repeat several times.
• May [now insert someone's name for whom you don't feel positively toward or someone with whom you're having some sort of problem or disagreement: Given the public nature of this blog, I'm just going to makeup a name, Adam.] Adam be filled with lovingkindness. May Adam be well. May Adam be peaceful and at ease. May Adam be happy. Repeat several times. The goal here is not primarily to "change" the condition of the other person, but to change the quality and state of our own heart. To make our heart softer, more loving, kind, compassionate.

The Lovingkindness Meditation is similar, I suppose to the Resentment Prayer that someone wrote about in one of the stories in the AA Big Book. But I like it better.

For me, the benefit of the Fourth Step was in the fact that it allowed me to let go of a lot of dead weight that I'd been carrying around for a long time. I don't think that dead weight is the cause of my alcoholism, but it was something that fed my dis-ease and my drinking. Letting it go, which included some difficult remembering and forgiving both myself and others, allowed me to make significant progress in my new way of living.