AA Step 4: Make a Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

Addiction recovery support groups can provide numerous benefits to people in recovery, including camaraderie and fellowship, that extend the effects of formal treatment.¹ The 12 Steps outlined by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) can be a helpful method for attaining and maintaining sobriety for those struggling with alcohol misuse or addiction. Working through Step 4 of AA is an important component of this process.²

What Is Step 4 of AA?

In AA’s 12 Steps and 12 Traditions booklet, AA Step 4 is described as a step that involves making “a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”² It can be one of the more difficult steps to complete, as it asks people to closely examine the ways that their alcohol use and associated self-destructive behaviors may have contributed to their own and others’ unhappiness.²

What Is the Purpose of Step 4 of AA?

The purpose of Step 4 of AA is to encourage people to reflect on the feelings, actions, and behaviors that may have contributed to or been a result of their addiction and the effects that these may have had on their lives and overall well-being.²

Without an awareness of the underlying feelings that drive a person’s desire to drink, they can continue to perpetuate harm to themselves and others and end up fueling the cycle of alcohol misuse.² Ultimately, Step 4 can help people see the need to change themselves instead of blaming others and external events for their alcohol use and associated actions and behaviors.²

How to Complete Step 4 of AA

People might wonder how to complete Step 4 of AA, and many AA chapters offer worksheets to guide this process.³ Although it’s generally advised to work through Step 4 with a sponsor’s support and guidance, a summary of how someone might complete this important step follows.² You should write down your reflections and give yourself adequate time and space for contemplation.

• List your resentments, their causes, the ways they impact your life, and what role you may have played.² Think about whether you think your resentments are justified and whether you might tend to blame others, instead of yourself, for your feelings of resentment.²
• List your fears, their potential causes, and the ways they affect your life.^{2, 3} Include fears about people, places, things, institutions, ideas, or principles, and the ways these fears make you feel and how they might contribute to your actions and unhealthy behaviors.³
• List the ways your sexual conduct may have harmed yourself or someone else and the potential causes of these behaviors.^{2, 3} Think about the ways your sexual conduct may have been selfish, neglectful of others, or dishonest, and consider ways you might have acted instead.³
• List all of the people you have harmed.³ Write about what happened, why it happened, and the ways you have been at fault, as well as how you feel you should have acted instead.

How Step 4 of AA Fits Into Your Recovery Journey

The 12 Steps were designed to be completed sequentially and are intended to be guides, not rigid statutes, that accompany a person’s recovery process.⁴ Each Step doesn’t have to be completed perfectly, and you may move through certain steps, or revisit them, at certain times in your recovery.

Step 4 follows Step 3 of AA, which states that we “made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him,” and precedes Step 5 of AA, which states that we “admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”⁵ The Big Book indicates that Step 3 can have little permanent effect unless a person can face things that block them (as occurs during Step 4), and similarly, it’s important to understand your wrongdoings before you can admit them to yourself, God, or another person (as takes place in Step 5).⁴

How to Find a 12-Step AA Program

People can find an online or in-person 12-Step AA meeting in various ways, such as by using the search tool on AA.org. People may also start the AA process in rehab as a part of group therapy or group meetings; many rehabs incorporate 12-Step facilitation therapy into their treatment programming, which is designed to familiarize a person with 12-Step groups and increase the likelihood of their participation.¹ People often continue attending these meetings as a part of their aftercare plan, and research shows they can be useful for helping people maintain sobriety.⁶

Start Your Recovery

If you or a loved one are interested in a 12-Step program, or if you’re already involved in one, you may benefit from attending rehab. Rehab can help people safely stop drinking alcohol, assist with the detoxification process, and provide people with the tools that are necessary to maintain sobriety, so it can be useful both before starting AA as well as for building on the skills you may have already learned in AA.¹

Depending on your unique needs and where you are in the recovery process, you might enter different rehab levels of care.¹ Rehab can include:⁷

• Medical detox, helps people safely and comfortably undergo withdrawal in a medically supervised environment.
• Residential addiction treatment, where people live and sleep onsite at rehab and can fully focus on their recovery.
• Outpatient drug and alcohol rehab programs, which provide flexible treatment schedules and allow people to live at home while attending treatment.
• Intensive outpatient addiction treatment programs, which are more supportive outpatient programs that involve 9-20 hours of treatment per week.
• Partial hospitalization rehab programs, also known as high-intensity outpatient programs, which involve treatment most days of the week for 4-8 hours per day.
• Sober living, which provides a supportive, substance-free living environment to help people transition back to their daily lives after treatment.
• Rehab aftercare, which involves various supports, including AA, to help people maintain sobriety.

Learn More About AA

• Step 1
• Step 2
• Step 3
• Step 5
• Step 6
• Step 7
• Step 8
• Step 9
• Step 10
• Step 11
• Step 12
• AA Big Book
• AA Promises