By Beth Livingston
Most recovery programs require the addicted person to take a moral inventory of their self. This detailed list of our right and wrong conduct becomes a healthy starting point for real change. It's not a flippant list that can be completed in five minutes, just like there's no physical inventory that can be accomplished in a short time. We've lived many years and need to take time alone with God and ask Him to help us do a complete accounting.
If you are doing inventory for a retail business, you do a thorough item by item count of what you have in stock. When taking a moral inventory of ourselves, we identify the rights and wrongs in our lives. For example, if I’m spending a good portion of my income on my addiction and failing to pay bills, repay loans, and not buying enough healthy food for myself and my family, I’ve identified several moral shortcomings. This inventory would include selfishness, irresponsible behavior, deception, misplaced priorities, and negligence.
As we make a list, we are taking a step away from our addiction or destructive behavior and a step closer to looking at the real problem – US! We need to come face-to-face with our character defects, our emotional makeup, and identify our flawed thinking. Starting with our current lifestyle, what are we doing that is morally upstanding? What are we doing that is clearly immoral? What behaviors or patterns of thinking are hurtful to us or others? What is helpful? These are questions that help the process get underway.
This is not the time that we start pointing the finger at our parents, our spouses, our circumstances. That would be an inventory of our excuses and justifications for our addiction. This is entirely different. It takes work!
Conducting this inventory becomes the cornerstone and foundation for rebuilding our lives. We see what’s right and what's not right. We do the best we can to isolate our behavior without blaming others and holding onto resentment or the victim mentality. Once we have our first inventory list, we have a starting point for change. We want to hold on to the good and let go of the bad.
Pride can often be a huge obstacle for some people in defining their moral issues because at this point in recovery it is common for us to say that the alcohol, the crack, the internet porn, or whatever our addiction causes the moral defect and believe that once we abstain from our addiction, there will no longer be a problem. NOT TRUE! There are issues in our lives that led to our dependence on a substance or behavior. Those are the roots that need to be exposed in this detailed list. Maybe it's unforgiveness, bitterness, or a feeling of worthlessness that began and fed your addiction. Those would need to be listed on your inventory. They decay the soul.
Are you ready and willing to search your actions and life choices and work on your moral inventory? What has God shown you that you need to admit is a moral problem in your life? This is a safe place to share and begin your inventory. He wants to replace these dark places with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (See Galatians 5:22)
If recovery ended with the inventory and there were no further steps, we’d be awfully depressed. However, just like the retail store, items that don’t sell well are identified and eventually phased out to make room on the shelves for items that do sell well. It is in this phase that we figure out what we do or believe that doesn’t serve us well and needs to phase out of our lives. Through faith and adopting new moral codes, we can begin to see small victories that set us on the path to freedom.
Just as companies conduct annual inventories, we should do annual moral inventories. If we keep a journal, over time we will be able to look back at the wonderful changes God helped us make in our journey to freedom.