Sponsor Writing Assignments

[dalin]

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I had to write a list, throughout the week, of things I DID have power over, and things I was POWERLESS over, probably to help me get the theme of what I really, truly had power over, which, I discovered, isn't a lot. Ok. I get it. I really do.

I was also supposed to write a short little paper about what it looks like when I HAVE POWER OVER something, and what it would look like if I let that power go.

Well, the theme I discovered was that I have power over my actions and choices. That's it. So, if I "let the power go", then, by an example:

I have power over what clothes I choose to wear and whether or not I shave,shower,dress well or not.
I am also responsible for the consequences for not fulfilling any of my responsibility,or choosing not to respond.

Am I making sense?

[dalin]

But as things went on,the assignments grew with my ability.

[dalin]

STEP ONE.

1. Write a gratitude list. (Everything you are grateful for.
Animal, vegetable and mineral; physical or spiritual; significant
or trivial. If there are less than 10 items, you're not really
trying. Hint: the #1 item on my list is that I am grateful to be
clean today. Without that I will have no appreciation for
anything else on the list. Hint #2: don't pad the list by
listing every friend; just list "#14: Friends; #15: Family;
etc.")

2. Write a powerlessness list. (Everything you're
powerless over. Hint: if there is anything in creation
you DO have power over, it's your own attitude. Hint #2:
If your p list is shorter than your g list, you are in
deep denial; if nothing appears on both lists, you're apt
to be seeing things too much in black and white.)

3. Write an unmanageability list.
There are two parts:
A/ Everything that makes you unmanageable;
B/ Everything that you are unable to manage.

4. Write an inventory of your using. (All the drugs,
with dates or ages. This is the war story; limit it to
chemicals.)

5. What was it like when the drugs worked?

6. What was it like when the drugs stopped working?

7. What was it like when the drugs had stopped working yet you
still continued using?

8. Write an inventory of how your life has changed as
a result of being clean.

9. Write an inventory of how your life has NOT changed
since getting clean, or list what hasn't changed.

10. Define and describe: admission, powerlessness,
addiction, unmanageability, honesty, acceptance,
surrender. AFTER writing your definitions, look them up
in the dictionary (preferred: Random House Webster's
Collegiate); write about how your definitions differed
from the dictionary's.

11. What are you willing to do for your own recovery?

12. Write a summary of how you apply, interpret and live
the First Step. (All three. Application of 1st Step to
specific problems; interpretation of the meaning of the
1st Step; description of how you integrate 1st Step into
daily life.)


STEP TWO

1. Write an inventory of your insanity. (Ways in which
you have been out of touch with reality or resisting what
you knew to be true; times you can look back on and say
you had lost your responsible judgment; circumstances
which drove you into unreasonable or self-destructive
behavior.)

2. Write a summary of the areas in your life in which
insanity particularly flourished.

3. List specific examples for each area or category in
item #2; and continue to add to this list as you continue
working on this Step.

4. Make a list of all your substitute addictions.
(E.g. collections, habits, pleasures that have become
fixes.)

5. Make a list of all your false Higher Powers. Both
former and present.)

6. Make a list of the times you got what you prayed
for and/or God saved you.

7. Describe what the God of your understanding is.

8. Make a list of the qualities you'd want your Higher
Power to have.

9. Make a list of the qualities you WOULDN'T want
your Higher Power to have.

10. Make a list of what God expects from you.

11. Make a list of what would change in your life, AND
a list of what you would have to change, if you felt you
could entirely live up to God's expectations of you and He lived
up to your expectations of Him. (Go ahead, let your imagination
run.)

12. Make a list of what is stopping you from making
these changes.

13. Write an inventory/list of your doubts and fears.

14. Write an inventory/list of your hopes and dreams.

15. Write your definition of what sanity is to you.
Compare it afterwards with a dictionary definition.

16. Write your definition of what insanity is to you.
Compare it afterwards with a dictionary definition.

17. Write a summary / dissection of the 2nd Step: "We came to
believe that a Power greater than ourselves could
restore us to sanity."


STEP THREE

1. Write an inventory of the ways God has been working
in your life or has somehow been present for you.

2. Write an inventory of the times that you felt your
faith was tried because you asked for help or a sign, and
nothing seemed to happen.

3. Write an inventory of incidents where a clear sign
WAS given, and you chose to ignore or refuse it.

4. What does it mean to make a decision?

5. Write an inventory of the times when you read or
heard spiritual truths, knew that they were true and a
solution, and knew that applying them to your life would
require a change in your behavior -- and so you ignored
them.

6. Paint a comprehensive verbal picture of what it would
be like to completely turn over your will to God.

7. What's stopping you?

8. What has stopped you in the past?

9. If you make a decision to turn it over now, How will
you do it?

10. What decisions have you made in your life that you can recall
and point to, that have changed your life?

11. Label the decisions in #10 three ways:
A/ Was God consulted in the decision?
B/ Was there a moral component in the decision?
C/ Did it work (was the decision effective)?

12. An inventory of cases where you have made a commitment to
turning your life and/or will over to the care of God
-- whether or not it was taken back.

13. What is the distinction between surrender and
turning one's will over to God's care?

14. Write an inventory of your grudges. (Hint: a grudge
is a resentment that you "just can't let go.")

15. Write an inventory of your sacrifices. Define
sacrifice and commitment.

16. Write an inventory of your regrets.

17. Dissect and explain: "We made a decision to turn
our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him."

18. Write an inventory of the ways in which you are
now, presently, turning your will over to God's care.

19. Write an inventory of the things you are NOT now,
presently, willing to turn over to God's care.

20. Write an inventory of your ideal woman/man.

21. To become the ideal man/woman, what would you have to
be and to do?

22. Define trust and faith.

23. List the things you already completely trust God with.

24. List the things you are not sure you completely trust God
with.

25. If you continue to act on your trust of God, where
do you see yourself a year from now?

26. Begin to keep a journal; list your feelings,
experiences, fears, hopes, desires, etc.

Supplemental for certain addicts:
27. Why do you need to conclude the divorce/bankruptcy?

28. What are you afraid will happen if you do divorce?

29. What are you afraid will happen if you don't divorce?

30. An inventory of relationships that you used as a drug.

31. Go back through list 30 and identify specific
instances where using relationships as a drug caused
genuine endangerment or harm to yourself or others.


STEP FOUR

4.1a Write an inventory of the moral decisions and commitments
you've made since you've been clean.
4.1b If part a was general, write an inventory of specific
examples of the above.

4.2 Describe your earliest memories.

4.3 Proceeding in 5-year periods of your life from
earliest memories onwards, take a historical inventory,
focusing on:
A/ Clear moral decisions.
B/ Clear moral transgressions.
C/ Clear moral victories.
D/ Moral wrongs done to you that changed the way you felt about
yourself and the world.
E/ Spiritual or religious understandings.
F/ Any objective judgments about moral and immoral
behavior that you may have gained from OUTSIDE your
personal experience.

4.4 An inventory of your cowardice.

4.5 An inventory of your courage.

4.6 A summary of your bottom.

4.7 An inventory of your sources of spiritual teaching.

4.8 An inventory of your reasonable fears.

4.9 An inventory of your unreasonable fears.

4.10 An inventory of the ways you show love to yourself.

4.11 An inventory of the ways you show hate or anger to
yourself.

4.12 An inventory of what things or characteristics about
yourself that you hate or dislike.

4.13 An inventory of past resentments that precipitated
destructive behaviors.

4.14 What did you expect from life that you didn't get?

4.15 What did you expect from life that you did get?

4.16 What didn't you expect from life that you did get?

4.17 An inventory of beliefs you have harbored that have
led to low self-esteem, unworthiness and self-punishment.

4.18 An inventory of your shame.

4.19 Go back to 4.17 and 4.18 and put an * next to any
item which you know to be objectively true.

4.20 An inventory of things you blamed yourself for that
were not your fault.

4.21 An inventory of things you didn't take responsibility for
that you were responsible for.

4.22A/ What is it like to be (your ethnic origin)?
B/ What do you think about (your ethnic origin)?
C/ What do you understand about (your background) as a
civilization and/or a religion?

4.23A/ What is it like to be an American? (or other
nationality if yours is different)
B/ What do you think about Americans?
C/ What do you understand about America as a civilization?

4.24A/ What is it like to be a man / woman? (your sex)
B/ What do you think about men / women?
C/ What do you understand about human culture?

4.25A/ What is it like to be a child of God?
B/ What do you think about children of God?
C/ What do you understand about children of God?

4.26 Assuming 4.25 to be true, what is stopping you from
expressing this realization?

4.27 What and/or who do you still hate or resent?

4.28 Who do you love?

4.29 What things have you done right in your intimate
relationships?

4.30 What things have you done wrong in your intimate
relationships?

4.31 What animals have you loved?

4.32 An inventory of the places that you loved.

4.33A/ In what ways are you still self-willed?
B/ " self-centered or selfish?

4.34A/ " driven?
B/ Why are you still driven?

4.35 An inventory of all the minorities you belong to.

4.36 An inventory of incomplete relationships.

4.37 An inventory of what disgusts you.

4.38 An inventory of the ways in which you've hurt people.

4.39 An inventory of the reasons/excuses you've used to justify
your hurting people.

4.40 An inventory of your forgiveness.

4.41 An inventory of the things you like about yourself.

4.42A/ An inventory of things you're willing to do to
recover.

4.42B/ An inventory of things you're willing to do to succeed in
life.

c. 1996, 1998 David H