Welcome to Decoding the Big Book, a special limited series of the Sober Friends podcast.

Researched and sourced from writing the big book by William Sheaberg, the purpose of each episode is to provide context and history for each chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, followed by a reading

of the chapter from the fourth edition. Each section is marked by chapters, so feel free to skip

ahead to what you're interested in and leave the rest.

Howard Works outlines the 12 steps and walks through how to work the steps one through four.

Into action delves into steps five through 11.

Bill opens the chapter with a discussion of step five. He notes that the contents of the searching and

fearless moral inventory taken in step four are already known to God and to the person who wrote

the inventory. However, just admitting these things to yourself is not sufficient and in the group's

experience, dangerous. Bill is overt. If you skip this vital step,

you may not overcome your drinking.

Bill cautions that newcomers who avoid

this humbling experience almost always get drunk again.

Bill leaves the reader without any wiggle room,

saying you must be entirely honest with somebody

if you expect to live long and happily in this world.

Finding a trustworthy person could be challenging, but Bill is confident the reader didn't

find a minister, a priest, a doctor, psychologist, or a closed-mouth friend with whom they can share

their inventory. Today's member of AA uses their sponsor as the person they share their fifth step with,

but back when Bill wrote the book, the concept had not yet been created. Thus, there is no discussion

of sponsorship in the big book. Once the person is selected, Bill has concrete and concise directions

for completing the fifth step. With a written inventory in hand,

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