This morning I woke up with some persistent thoughts that interfered with my concentration in prayer.  As I got to the parts of my prayer where I ask for a resolute attention span, my attention wandered back to the thoughts. I stopped and took some time to examine my motives and saw that over the course of the past few days my resolve to subdue the arousal of my senses has waned.  This has progressed subtly into a more overt form of one of my character defects.
    As I examined the problem and prayed against the basic drive that was the motive for it, I considered that the feeling arises automatically and if allow it to perpetuate it becomes so powerful that it controls me.  This led me to revisit the idea of the moral inventory.  Specifically my early objection that it would not help my addiction because I couldn't see how morals were related to a problem of an overpowering internal drive to get high.  My objection better crystallized here as I realized that I thought the word "moral" implied behavioral law unrelated to the thought processes involved in addiction.
     I thought perhaps an inventory of feelings, motives, forces, or drives might be a better approach.  Perhaps this could at least make for a good way to communicate the idea to the reluctant individual.  I also thought about how the Big Book says that men and women drink because they like the affect.  Here I think is the only consideration of the sensation that alcohol produces, that it feels so good.  Perhaps this indicates that some sort of drive should be added to the inventory.  Perhaps in addition to resentment, fear, and sex, we ought to add pleasure.
"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol."
     Perhaps the reason a moral inventory is in order is because the root of our troubles is in the fact that our control limits is based on what we like.  That turning our will and life over to God is to make His truth the baseline for our behavior, thus imparting power for control of our selves.
     Tonight I got to go to a meeting.  I really needed it.  I was very uptight by the end of this day.  Going to the meeting took me out of my isolation and got me reconnected with others and God.  It got me out of self.
     Our topic was our experience with resentment and the struggle to find acceptance in our circumstances.  I thought first about the concept of locus of control; internal locus or external locus.  But I dropped that train of thought and looked at how acceptance is sometimes achievable through prayerful introspection, but sometimes it is not, even though I might know that I should find it, I just still have the feelings.  It is then that I have to dissect my resentment and find the basic drives that are awry and the desires that I am defending.  Then I can pray for it to be removed.  I have to remember that I am not just finding knowledge about myself and exerting my will but that I must also turn it over to God.  Just like in steps 6 and 7, I have a part and God has a part.
     This also led me to think about the other affect on acceptance when I treat the offender (or perceived offender) as a sick person too and forgive them just as I was forgiven.  Here also it is important for me to discern that I placed my self in a position to be hurt, not necessarily wronged, that my part is strictly in my feelings and judgement, not necessarily in the circumstances.

Thanks be to God.