We come to understand that we are good people with a bad disease. Steps 8 and 9 help us to move out of the shame we have lived in, shame that feeds the cycle of substance https://ecosoberhouse.com/ use and addiction. We strengthen and reinforce healthy recovery whenever we do our part to repair relationships or reach out to others with support and understanding.
It takes willingness and courage to reflect on and find a resolution to your mistakes. If the recovering alcoholic is able to do this, then it demonstrates that they are progressing positively and ready for the tenth step. The guilt for your wrongdoings will eventually dissipate and by making an apology and amends, you will be able to let go and live. In many 12-step recovery programs, making amends is an important part of the process. For example, Alcoholic Anonymous (AA)’s ninth step involves making amends to the individuals in your life who were affected by your addiction. The goal of the program is to improve yourself and make strides to be a better person for yourself and your loved ones alike while also remaining sober.
Where Do You Start with Step 9 AA?
Some might be too tested by prior behaviors and actions that they simply need space. Or the people you need to apologize and make amends to are no longer living. On a similar note, the sixth and seventh steps give recovering alcoholics newfound humility in order to prevent blame, anger, or self-righteousness during their recovery. The eighth step then helps the individual prepare to accomplish step nine. State how you are taking personal responsibility for the hurt you’ve caused. Making amends means apologizing but also goes one step further—doing everything in your power to repair the damage, restore the relationship, and/or, replace what you took.
These promises are often the most difficult to keep because addiction plays a decisive role in a person’s ability to live up to their promises. Their parent may feel more pain for their addicted child’s inability to get sober than the material items lost due to the thefts. ” most psychologists agree that learning to apologize with genuine grace is something everyone should know. We’ve all crossed a line at one point or another with our actions or behaviors by unnecessarily hurting another person, or inadvertently making a mistake that requires an apology. I think if we can move beyond the anxiety and dread and despair, there is a promise of something shifting not just culturally, but spiritually, too. Collective grief can bring extraordinary change, a kind of conversion of the spirit, and with it a great opportunity.
When and Why Do People Make Living Amends?
To make amends means to apologize for something you have done or for wronging someone in some way. It means mending, or (quite literally) fixing, the relationship. Notice the words “right to resentment” and “underserved qualities” in there?
Many times, these kinds of promises serve to alleviate the wrongdoer’s guilt and so that they can say they apologized before their loved one died. With these kinds of promises, there may not be enough genuine intention of changing their hurtful patterns and behaviors. The 12-step program instills honesty and integrity in members. If making amends requires the recovering alcoholic to report a past crime, they must be willing to go to jail to complete this step on their road to a complete and limitless recovery. From the steps leading up to nine, recovering alcoholics begin to develop tools to handle stressful situations without liquor and believe in a Higher Power greater than themselves.
Support Your Recovery
For example, say that you stole $20 from your brother while you were using. In the midst of your ninth step, you say to him “I’m so sorry that I stole that money from you and used it for drugs”. A true amend would be giving him living amends $20 back along with the apology. Unfortunately, there are many things that we do in our using that we can not rectify with tangible goods or direct amends. What about the late nights that we kept our parents up worrying?
- Some of these same things can happen to the other person in the process.
- Addiction takes over your life, stealing both your joy and your time, and making it impossible for you to give back to others and live a generous life.
- We likely promised to sober up in the past, only to revert to alcohol abuse or another drug of choice.
Making amends is an integral part of personal growth and healing. It is so imperative to make amends with those people whom you have wronged that it is outlined, clearly, in Alcoholics Anonymous. Steps eight and nine of the Twelve Steps specifically call for amends. An alcoholic in recovery first creates the list of individuals they have harmed during step eight and then divides the list into four categories. The four categories determine the manner in which the recovering alcoholic will express their amends.
What Makes Me Healthy 2022 Graphic Design Winner – Kelly Zalewski Poster
Suddenly your spinning around things you feel guilty for. Maybe it is a fight you always thought you had time to resolve. Perhaps it is something you said or did while they were ill.