Harold L Steps4-5 Saratoga Springfest 2026Harold L Steps4-5 Saratoga Springfest 2026
Mad Dog Recovery AA Speakers
AA speaker Harold Long talks through Steps Four and Five at Saratoga Springfest 2026, sharing stories about resentment, fear, victim thinking and secrets. He describes how thorough inventory and honest confession helped transform his own sobriety and warns what can happen when these steps are avoided.
1:04:20•26 May 2026
Harold Long Brings Steps Four and Five to Life at Saratoga Springfest
Episode Overview
- Step Four is about thorough and honest written inventory, especially around conflict, resentment, fear and relationships, to expose twisted perceptions and patterns.
- Resentments act like barriers that block the “sunlight of the spirit,” making spiritual sickness the real problem rather than alcohol itself.
- Fear and the need for approval can quietly drive a person’s whole life, even when they claim to be afraid of nothing.
- Victim thinking and holding back parts of the truth (the “80–20” approach) keep people stuck and can lead back to drink or worse.
- Step Five – sharing the exact nature of wrongs with another human being – breaks the power of secrets and starts real freedom in recovery.
“"The very things I plan on taking to the grave with me are the very things that will put me there."”
Curious about how others work through the mess in their heads and hearts in sobriety? This talk from Saratoga Springfest 2026 finds long‑time AA member Harold Long breaking down Steps Four and Five with a mix of humour, hard truth, and plenty of real-life stories. Harold has been sober since 1987, yet he’s honest about how long he resisted doing the actual step work.
He jokes that at first he was “on step none,” busy with meetings, dances and a sober band, but spiritually stuck. Things started to shift when his sponsor Roy told him, “Everything you have in your life… you’ve attracted to you by the person that you’ve become,” and warned that unless he owned that, he’d either drink again or follow his father, who died by suicide.
From there, Harold explains how a written inventory exposed resentments, fear and victim thinking he didn’t even know he had. He shares the “cookies” story to show how easily perception gets twisted, and uses a simple image – resentments as sheets of plywood “blocking the sunlight of the spirit” – to explain spiritual sickness. He also tells a stark story of a man who died of acute alcohol poisoning, linking it directly to unchecked resentment and compromise.
Step Five comes to life as Harold talks about sitting down with Roy and sharing “the exact nature of our wrongs,” including the secrets he thought he’d take to the grave. He admits that alcoholics are “masterful fabricators” and warns about the danger of only sharing “80%” of the truth. This talk speaks to anyone in recovery who’s scared of inventory, sceptical about spiritual solutions, or tired of being driven by fear and resentment.
You’ll hear practical stories, plenty of laughter, and a clear message: if you’re willing to “take actions you don’t believe in,” your life might change in ways you can’t yet imagine. Are you ready to pick up the pen and get honest?
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