Little by little, those small hurts, half-truths, and “justified” grudges turn into deep disappointments, serious self-deceptions, and full-blown resentments. We can't allow these threats to compromise our recovery. We have to deal with situations such as these as soon as they arise. 

Recovery in NA (narcotics anonymous) is about learning how to live. Incorporating the spiritual principles we learned in the first nine steps into our lives has made it possible to live in harmony with ourselves and others. Self examination, confronting what we find in ourselves, and owning up to our wrongs are critical elements of conduction our lives on a spiritual basis. By working the Tenth Step, we become more aware of our emotions, our mental state, and our spiritual condition. As we do, we find ourselves constantly rewarded with fresh insight.
  
The importance of keeping in touch with our thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and behavior cannot be overemphasized. Every day, life presents us with new challenges. Our recovery depends on our willingness to meet those challenges.

Our experience tells us that some members relapse, even after long periods of clean time, because they have become complacent in recovery, allowing their resentments to build and refusing to acknowledge their wrongs. Little by little, those small hurts, half-truths, and “justified” grudges turn into deep disappointments, serious self-deceptions, and full-blown resentments. We can't allow these threats to compromise our recovery. We have to deal with situations such as these as soon as they arise.

In the Tenth Step, we use all the principles and actions we learned in the previous steps, applying them to our lives on a consistent basis. Beginning our days by reaffirming our decision to live life according to our Higher Power's will has helped many of us keep spiritual ideals foremost in our minds throughout the day. Even so, we are bound to make mistakes that are very familiar to us. We can attribute virtually every wrongdoing to a character defect we identified in the Sixth Step. Humbly asking the God of our understanding to remove our shortcomings is just as necessary now as it was in the Seventh Step.

Although forming a habit of working this step may be difficult at first, we must persist. We can set aside some time during the day for focused self-appraisal while gradually moving toward a goal of being able to look at ourselves throughout the day. We keep going forward, striving each moment to become ever more aware of ourselves. We need to develop self-discipline; the more effort we put into doing so, the more we'll find that working the Tenth Step will become as natural as breathing.

There may be other times in our lives when we find ourselves in a situation that seems to require a compromise of our personal beliefs and values. For instance, if we had gained employment at a company only to discover that our employer expected us to indulge in questionable business practices, we could reasonably expect to feel confused about the choices available to us.

Deciding what to do about such a difficult dilemma would be a tough decision for any one of us. We may be tempted to make a snap judgment or expect our sponsor to provide an easy answer; however, we have found that no one can solve such a dilemma for us. While our sponsor will provide us with guidance, we must apply the principles of the program for ourselves and arrive at our own decision. In the end, we are the ones who must live with our conscience. In order to do so comfortably, we must decide what is, and what is not, morally acceptable in our lives.

NA - It Works. How and Why