| Recovering Couples Anonymous | |
| Official World Service Organization Website |
Step Ten is about continuing to take inventory of our relationship. We believed that one part of this is what we call the "daily" or "weekly" inven-tory. The purpose of the daily or weekly inventory is to reverse the process of blaming behaviors that so often haunted many of us. It is also to teach each other what we really liked and what we really appreciate in each other. The hope is to find that this new behavior becomes so familiar and automatic that we can do it without needing to write everything down.
Each partner takes a sheet of paper and divides it in half. On one side of the paper each partner makse a list of those things he/she has done or said that day or week which has harmed the relationship. On the other side of the paper each partner makes a list of those things our partner has done that was helpful to the relationship. These lists are then shared with each other. This step supports our spiritual growth. How have I harmed the relationship? How has my partner helped the relationship?
Daily practice of Step Ten maintains our honesty and humility and allows us to continue growing. When we think we are home free and comfortable, we may no longer see a need to attend meetings. We begin to find excuses (i.e., we are too tired, it's too far to drive, it's raining out, etc.). If we choose this path, we will eventually realize our relationship is in jeopardy. We may become irritable, short-tempered, negative thinking and relapse to old patterns of behavior (i.e., avoidance, working, spending, isolation, busyness, control, manipulation, withholding feelings, difficulty with intimacy).
Remember that nothing stays the same in our lives or coupleships. We are either growing one step at a time or regressing backward toward old behavior.
The program suggests three types of ongoing inventories:
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (Used with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)