“So we had to get down to causes and conditions.” (Chapter 5, Big Book)
When I write the same thing on the inventory daily (e.g. fears, day after day), I am not using the inventory for its intended purpose. I am using it to give the appearance of work and change. I am peddling, but I am on a stationary bicycle. I am dealing with the symptom, not the cause. The problem is having a mindset that produces fear. The mindset needs to change. That is the subject matter of the inventory. It is no good writing that I am frightened and I ought to trust God and then writing the same thing the next day. I need to actually start trusting God. Then I am removing the problem, not the symptom.
It is like going to see a debt specialist to help me manage my finances when my problem is that I am gambling and racking up debts. I can sort out my finances for the day, alright, but I will simply rack up debts again. The problem is the gambling.
It is possible to go round and round in AA, working the programme on problems, but the problems keeping coming back, the same ones, over and over, wearing different hats. Then I drift and say, ‘I need to get back to the programme.’ Nonsense. That programme left me with recurring problems, as they were trimmed but not torn out by the roots. What I had was not a programme but a pain management system: using the programme like a drug to alleviate the pain of what I am doing to myself.
When the roots are pulled out, my programme stops being troubleshooting and starts being cultivating a relationship with God through raising consciousness and working for God practically.