Yet more AA Folklore:

"In the fourth step, we are supposed to write down our assets as well as our liabilities - it's not just all of the bad stuff. It's the good stuff, too."

Gotta love this one. It sounds good, and it even fits the definition of "inventory" that one will find in any dictionary.

And I would absolutely have to go along with it, were it not for those pesky first 164 pages; they keep telling me that they are going to provide "clear cut directions" for how I am supposed to work these Steps.

I remember trying to do this, BTW - listing assets as well as liabilities. I think I even did so - but in order to do so, I had to add stuff to the inventory process that wasn't outlined in the Book. See, there's no column for "assets"; and there's no instruction for writing them down. In fact, it's a very definite omission.

I love the way that this part of the Book is written; Bill does some stuff with words that is almost misleading. Here's on example:

"Taking commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret."

...Bill says "One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods..." - if you are like me, and you read that passage, then you're going to expect him to come along soon and say "Another object is to find the valuable goods..", but he never comes around and says "Another object..." - he never closes that loop.

Later on on that page, he says

"First, we searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure. "

Again, if you're like me, you're going to expect him to come along after saying "First,.." and say "Secondly..." - but he doesn't do that. He never says "Secondly, we searched out the assets in our character".

It ain't there. You'd think that it ought to be there, you might even expect it to be there - it does look like he set it up to be there - but it ain't there.

If you can find the part in the Big Book where it says that we're supposed to list our assets, please share it with the rest of us. I tried listing my "assets" but they mostly turned out to be lies - in a few cases, character attributes which were looking good at the time, but later on turned out to be things that were, indeed, causing me troubles.

SETTING UP A STRAW MAN: In the 12 & 12, it does say that, if a member is of a depressive nature, that his sponsor might point out some assets in his character. I'm still waiting for my sponsor to do so :)