Continued to Take Personal Inventory and When We Were Wrong, Promptly Admitted It
By now, we have certainly made a fair bit of progress upon our spiritual path. Although we may be blind to it, others are not. Perhaps we have heard remarks about our change of countenance. Our family members are slowly returning to our lives from their exile with a renewed sense of hope. Holiday occasions have become happy occasions as opposed to a physical and emotional plundering of those around us. These laudable milestones have not come easy and neither does further progress. We are all destined to slide back into anger, frustration, and resentment; we could not be classified as human otherwise.
All of us, at one time or another, have returned not to the pints of John Barleycorn—but to the draughts of our fermented instincts. We have become drunk on our indignation. After sleeping it off, like an alcoholic hangover the pain sets in. But this is different. We feel sickness in our
souls. This pain is more than a superficial, bodily ache; it reaches down into our deepest being and festers like an infected splinter. If it is not immediately removed it will become septic. Step Ten is the surgical tool used to excise such debris from our souls.
It is imperative to recall two things:
- We are new to this kind of self-reflection life
and “We shall look for progress, not perfection” (12×12; p.91; 1981). - This procedure must be performed at once.
Some of us stick on semantics here, picking out the “when we were wrong” phrasing of the step. Notice it states in clear terms when we were wrong, not if we were wrong. There is no out for us, no excuse that the other person started it or was at fault. Whenever we feel anger and then act
upon it we are in the wrong. Our program of recovery is not a criterion for assigning blame. It is a design for a life of self-reflection and love of our fellow creatures. They get all of the benefit of the doubt while we get none of it. We look for our part in the equation and turn a blind eye to theirs. We then humbly ask for their forgiveness, hoping they understand our twisted nature and our sincere desire to straighten out. If they do not, we pray fervently for them always wishing their good. Very often they will come around. Sometime it may take a little while. In either case, it was our action or reaction that caused the schism and we are responsible for its prompt repair.
