10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

On page 84 of the Big Book, Step 10 begins about halfway down the page. In one paragraph, Bill W. and company explain its mechanics:

Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.

This little snippet begins with an important word: Continue. In the entirety of this paragraph, the word appears four times. It must be important:

• …Continue to take personal inventory
• …Continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along
• Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness…. It should continue for our lifetime.
• Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.

Previously, in Chapter Two, “There Is a Solution,” we learned that we are in the grip of a progressive illness. We are never cured of our addiction. Like any chronic disease, it worsens over the long haul, and it must be managed one day at a time. Our disease continues to worsen, even as we work on our recovery. That means that if we discontinue the spiritual practices the Steps recommend, we are going to revert to compulsive eating. Why? Because we’ll stop getting better, and our disease will eventually catch up to us.

To understand better, here’s an extended metaphor:

You are running in a head-to-head marathon. At the outset, your opponent bolts out to a big lead. You think about quitting the race altogether as you plod along. How will you ever catch up? It’s hopeless. But you realize that this is one of many tactics your opponent uses to psyche you out. Finally, you get a bolt of energy, and you catch up! In fact, you pass your opponent.

The other runner appears to be flagging. But you’ve studied your opponent’s clever tactics. Your rival is also known to hang back, just a few steps behind, letting you set the pace, then pouncing at the first sign of an opponent’s fatigue. So now you have to continue at your pace, lest you be passed again. You have to remember all your training and preparation every step of the way during the rest of the race.

But the further you run, the more tired you get. It seems easier to forget that the other contestant is nipping at our heels. Just as you think you’ve got it made, your foe resorts to a new tactic that you hadn’t expected. Your rival runs up beside you, but just outside of your peripheral vision. You hear their footsteps beside you, and worse, you hear whispers: “Don’t you think you deserve a little rest? You’ve run such a good race so far.” The other runner then drops back to where they were and watches for weakness in your stride. They periodically repeat the tactic, especially on really tough hills. But you know that if you just keep on like are, you’ll win out.

It is not only easier to get abstinent than to stay abstinent, it’s easier to continue living by spiritual principles than to take a break and try to resume them later. If we stop working Step 10, then we will stop growing spiritually, and our opponent runner will pass us. Worse yet, there is no guarantee that we will have the willingness to get back in the race if we stop for a breather. The resentments, fears, dishonesty, and selfishness that build up inside us when we don’t do Step 10 are like the lactic acid that builds up in a runner’s legs. If we keep running, we can get through the discomfort, but once we stop, we’ll likely cramp up or be unable to get back to the pace we’d set before.

Good news: If we keep going, keep doing Step 10, we will keep our focus clear on the race. We also discover that there are people lined up to help us alongside the race course. They shout encouragement, they provide water and even energy bars as we go. Best of all, we discover to our astonishment that two other runners have joined us. They don’t wear a number, so they just decided to run on their own. One is our running coach, and they keep stride with us and give us practical suggestions to keep us going. Better yet, a mysterious fourth runner stays right beside us, pats us on the shoulder as we’re going, tells us how well we’re doing, and provides quiet encouragement to drown out our foe. Each time we hear from that mysterious runner, we feel like a gust of wind is blowing us toward the finish line.

So all we have to do is continue. Continue, continue, and continue, until we hit the tape.