Step 10 AA – Taking Personal Inventory And Continued Self-Reflection

“Continued to take personal inventory and
when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.”

After reading the step above, you might already suspect that step ten builds upon step nine. During this particular step, you will continue evaluating yourself and make changes if you need to. Of course, with this, it is not only a good idea to keep track of your character flaws, but also the successes you have. So, how do you complete step ten?

This post is part of a 15 part look into the 12 Step Program and how it can be used to help in alcohol addiction and recovery. The full 15 part book can be downloaded for free by Clicking Here

What Is Step 10?

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, this step is all about taking personal inventory. It is about learning how to spot harmful behaviours and eliminating them before they pull you back into addiction. 

How Do I Do Step 10?

When it comes to step ten, it is all about regular self-evaluation. If you make self-evaluation a habit, then it is more likely that you will recognise unhelpful and damaging behaviours. It also enables you to remain more stable emotionally, subsequently reducing the emotional triggers that could lead back to addition.

Obviously, self-evaluation is something that should be done over the course of time, even if you have moved onto the other steps. In the beginning, you may want to go a little more in-depth, just to get used to self-evaluation and how you can implement it in everyday life. As you go along, self-evaluation will become easier and you will find it a lot faster to spot problems that lead to emotional disturbance or additional triggers.

What Are the Common Pitfalls and How Do I Avoid Them?

Since you will evaluate your own character a lot during step ten, it is not uncommon to encounter some pitfalls that could derail your progress. Here are the most common pitfalls to watch out for as well as some tips on how to avoid them.

Take time to make decisions: Making rash and quick decisions might be something you have always done and could have been a contributor to addiction behaviour. During step ten, it is important to get this specific trait under control. 

When you notice you are making quick decisions or acting impulsively, it is vital to take a step back, take a breath, and consider your decision more carefully. Please note that you will have to do this a number of times before it becomes ingrained in your psyche. 

Be honest: When you encounter another negative trait within yourself, it is extremely easy to sweep it under the carpet for another time. However, doing so could cause this new negative trait to manifest and this could eventually become a trigger. Therefore, it is important to stay honest with yourself throughout self-evaluation. 

As a part of being honest with yourself, it is also important to know when you are wrong. Defensiveness is one of the key characteristics from your old addictive behaviour and must be avoided. So, remain open to criticism and be honest with yourself if you are wrong in a certain situation. Of course, this does not mean that you have to take abuse from others, it means you should be open to listen to constructive criticism and the feelings of others.

Forgive: Unfortunately, we have no control over what others do. So, it is possible that somebody has wronged you during your recovery. Within this framework, it is important to forgive. Holding onto anger and resentment can be another trigger for addiction, so you do not want to keep a hold of unhelpful emotions like that.

Do not expect to be perfect: Throughout the twelve steps, you will have heard that there is no such thing as perfection. For example, it is possible that you find yourself slipping up and becoming defensive again when someone is trying to talk you about something. When this happens, be honest with yourself and accept that your journey will not go absolutely perfect. The real progress is recognising the behaviour, accepting it, and then making the change. 

Making mistakes during your journey also provides some benefit, because it enables you to identify your personal pitfalls a lot easier. If your journey were perfect, there would not be any way to determine what your pitfalls are and what cause your addiction in the first place. So, in a way, perfection does not benefit your journey at all. 

Do not constantly apologise: For many AA members, it is not uncommon to get stuck on the “apologise” step. While it is necessary to apologise for having wronged others in a previous step, there is no point in keeping on apologising for the same thing. By doing so, you remain stuck in the past and cannot move on. 

Since you will look at some of the behaviours that are not beneficial for you, it is easy to think back about the past and feel guilt towards others. However, if you apologised for your behaviour already and made amends with the person during a previous step, there is no need to continue apologising.

How Will I Know When I Am Ready to Move Onto Step 11?

Step ten is very much a technique you will incorporate in your life. Like the previous steps, this is something you will carry with you in your sober life since this will prevent you from falling back into harmful behaviours and subsequently addiction. 

During step ten, you adopt new helpful habits to catch harmful behaviour before it takes over your life and leads back to addiction. If you believe that you have been honest with yourself and your character flaws, then you can move onto the next step. Of course, you continue to implement this step in your life, so moving on from step ten does not mean you drop what you learned.

Do not be afraid to spend a bit more time on step ten if you have to. Like all other steps in the program, everyone works through each step in their own time. Some need more time, while others need less. So, before you move on, make sure you have completed this step honestly.