Step 4 was not an easy one for me. After a lifetime of burying feelings, it was hard for me to recognize when I was feeling resentful and afraid. But I did my best knowing that it doesn’t need to be perfect and that I will have my whole life to go back and rework the Steps as I continue to grow. 

After my first round of the Steps I started doing service and took on a sponsee; I also tried my best to practice the Steps in my everyday life, always knowing that at some point I would formally go through them again.

As I grew, it became easier for me to recognize a feeling and I began to notice just how much fear played a part in my life, sometimes regarding big things and sometimes small things.

It was a Thursday morning when a fellow member announced on our chat that he was celebrating two years of sobriety and would be having a little party that afternoon. There would be food, some basketball and hanging out in the pool. Even though I lived an hour away I felt that this opportunity for fellowship was something I needed and that I should celebrate with my friend.

It came time for swimming and as I put my foot in the water I jerked it back. The water was freezing! There was no way I was gonna go in there.  It would take me 20 minutes of pure torture just to walk slowly in. I decided the best thing to do would be to jump in and get it over with quickly. But as I stood on the diving board, I began to get “cold feet” (pun intended). 

But I realized that I could do a quick fear inventory right there, and then jump on in. I broke down the fear, realizing that the only thing behind it was a fear of being uncomfortable for a few seconds. Surely, I thought, I’ve put myself in uncomfortable positions in the past, so why hesitate here? That was all I needed and I jumped right in. Yep, it was cold but after a few seconds I adjusted and was enjoying myself.

As guys started jumping in, we began using the diving board, doing dives, cannonballs and just goofing around, having fun. That’s when it hit me. I have always dreamed of being able to do a flip off a diving board and I decided I was gonna do it that day. I got on the diving board and realized I was much more scared of this than just entering the pool like earlier. I decided to do a deeper fear inventory. 

The things that came up were fears that I would hurt myself, but that was just a small one. There came something deeper. Could I tap into what it was? On the spot I did a 60-second meditation while standing on the diving board. I asked my Higher Power to guide me, to show me what the real fear was. And then it hit me. I had always had low self-confidence, and being an overweight kid throughout my life made it worse. I had always been too afraid to do a flip because I believed that I would fail and everyone would laugh at me.  

I had no reason to be afraid of doing the flip. I was surrounded by my brothers in recovery, friends like myself on a spiritual journey; friends that I’ve shared my most vulnerable moments with. Did I actually think they would make fun of me? The answer was no. I’d been vulnerable with them before and I could do it again right there on the diving board. That was all I needed.

And so it was, on that day, an overweight, 40-year-old man did a flip off a diving board. And then I did it seven more times. They weren’t perfect by any means but they weren’t all complete failures.

The only way I can describe how I felt was that I had found the “high” I was always searching for in my acting-out and it wasn’t about the flip itself. It was the act of being vulnerable, of speaking to my Higher Power, and working the Steps and seeing them work in real time. This was a high from a spiritual experience!

I was so overcome with feelings of gratitude and positivity that the first thing I did after that flip was run to my phone and texted my wife “You are the most amazing wife in the entire world.  And my life means nothing without you!!!” I didn’t even tell her what happened until later that day.

But that was the truth. I love my wife and without her I would have never had the courage or desire to work on myself. I would’ve just continued searching for that high in the wrong places. And unlike the high from acting out which barely lasts a few seconds, it took days for this high to go away. When I reminisce about my acting-out, all I can feel is the colorless rush of chasing the high, but even now 3 weeks later I can still feel the spiritual high from that dive.

This has had a profound effect on me. Whereas in my childhood I internalized negative experiences which, in turn, shaped my actions and attitudes, now I have experiences that are truly positive and which reprogram the way I think about things.

For me, this is what “practicing these principles in all our affairs” means. The Steps aren’t there to keep me sober; the Steps are there to teach me how to live life comfortably so I won’t need to act out.