Working the Twelve Steps Online

I am considering trying to work the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous online. I’m going to be working them anyway, it is high time I started over again from step one and go all the way through to step twelve. The only real concern with doing this is , of course, step four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory. Usually this is thought of as a list of filthy nasty things that we don’t want anybody to ever know about us. That is a misconception of step four. Instead step four, for me at least, winds up being a list of the behaviors I engage in that get me into trouble. Further, it illustrates what motivates me to continue such behavior.

In any case this will be my fourth time to work step four and all of the juicy stuff is back in the first two times I worked it. In that sense, however, putting this fourth step online may not be helpful to any newcomer to a twelve step program. It will be far too mild of a fourth step to really be relevant to a newcomer.

I also must work closely with my sponsor not to put anything up that would cause harm to anyone else. The only place I can see that being relevant is when talking about my marriage and possibly my relationships with my parents. My wife and parents may not feel very good about having stuff like this posted online. However, I am not going to reveal names although again any determined person could find them out. The question of why anyone would bother to do so remains.