Fearless Moral Inventory

Step Four of Alcoholics Anonymous

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory our ourselves.

I chuckle to myself this evening as I look at what I’ve just written, a little sardonic humor in view of the past couple of weeks.  You know there is a reason that a lot of people get through steps 1, 2 & 3 and never manage to get through step 4.  It is a terrifying step and while I wish I could say I’m fearless–I am anything but that. 

My thoughts are very muddled the past couple of weeks.  I have been in the midst of a move out of the halfway house and into a sober house.  I’ve just gotten a ‘live-in’ job at a home for mentally retarded men (but I will still retain my position with All God’s Children MCC).  I just bought a gorgeous little ‘86 Canary-yellow Honda CRX.  These are all really cool things and there is no doubt in my mind that the promises are coming true right before my eyes. 

But when I dream at night my mind goes to very dark places–places it seems I have never been but that I know very well.  I am tackling a lot right now, I tell myself.  I’ve begun to do EMDR with my therapist (which I described in my last post).  And I am in the midst of taking not only a searching inventory of myself but a fearless one.  How much honesty and reality of one’s own past mistakes and sufferings can one man take? 

I raised this question to my Higher Power tonight and she answered, “As many as you can take–nothing more.”  Still as I pause briefly on the keyboard and let out an audible sigh I can’t help but feel a little depleted tonight–a little lonely–a bit melancholy, but not morose.  I’m having more of a dark chocolate evening than a milk chocolate night.  If I were singing to you tonight, it would be more of a Pinot Noir ballad than a Chardonnay Beep-bop.  But no one is singing here and no one is eating chocolate–I’m just sipping coffee and punching plastic.

Every Wednesday evening for a total of seven weeks (2 of which I have already completed) I am in a Fourth Step seminar, instructed by a couple of veterans of AA.  I wanted to leave you with the transcript of an audio reading they play at the beginning of each session.  It really embodies the emotions, the fears, the realities of taking stock of oneself, which involves taking off your…

Masks

–Author Unknown. 

Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask.  I wear a thousand masks-
   masks that I’m afraid to take off
     and none of them are me.   

Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me
          but don’t be fooled,
   for God’s sake, don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure–
That all is sunny and unruffled with me–
   within as well as without,
    that confidence is my name
     and coolness my game,
    that the water’s calm
   and I’m in command,
  and that I need no one.
But don’t believe me.  Please! 

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
   But I hide this.
    I don’t want anybody to know it.
     I panic at the thought of my weaknesses
      and fear exposing them.
That’s why I frantically create my masks
          to hide behind.  
They’re nonchalant, sophisticated facades
          to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
   my only salvation,
       and I know it.

That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,
   and if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself
   from my own self-built prison walls.

I dislike hiding, honestly.
I dislike the superficial game I’m playing,
   the superficial phony game.
I’d really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
   of what I can’t assure myself,
     that I’m really worth something.

But I don’t tell you this.
   I don’t dare.
      I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh
   and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing,
        that I’m just no good
             and you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without,
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks . . .

The glittering but empty parade of masks,
   and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that’s nothing
   and nothing of what’s everything,
                 of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
   do not be fooled by what I’m saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear
   what I’m not saying.
Hear what I’d like to say
   but what I can not say.

It will not be easy for you,
   long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.
The nearer you approach me
   the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
   You wonder who I am?
    You shouldn’t
     for I am everyman
     and everywoman
      who wears a mask.
 

Don’t be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.