Gary T.
Poughkeepsie, New York
From Our Fellows and From God
February 1986
Are you the type of person who makes lists? There are a lot of us around. We make lists of household items, groceries and toiletries; of things to do today, tomorrow and over the weekend; of holidays, vacations and activities for special events.
At many Step discussion meetings in my area, I hear my fellow AAs share their fear upon reaching the Eighth Step. Usually, it’s the fear of the impending Ninth Step confrontation with those they have harmed. “What will she think?” or “What will he say?” followed by our famous “What an order! I can’t go through with it.” Eventually, I was asking the same questions and entertaining similar fears. However, something had to be done because old-timers said that their sobriety depended on how successfully they continued to practice all twelve of the Steps. So I began putting a list together. Fear of losing my sobriety overrode my fear of losing someone’s goodwill.
Naturally, at the head of the list I put my own name, right? No. I was far too used to being first in the universe, far too self-centered. But didn’t I hurt myself more than anybody else by my drinking? Perhaps, but amends to myself began the moment I put the cork in the bottle. At least, that’s the way I came to see it.
My immediate family was high on my list. First my parents, whom I had long blamed for certain deficiencies in my makeup (in addition to my alcoholism); my brother and sisters who I felt had always made unreasonable demands on me.
There were the stores where I had begun a history of petty thievery during my teens. Small thefts, but they totaled up to a pretty penny.
There were couples whose marriages, already a bit shaky, I had done nothing to help. Fact is, I contributed to the grounds for at least one divorce.
There were jobs where I cheated employers of their fair due, as well as setting a very poor example by my drunkenness.
There were romantic love objects, persons used and then tossed aside.
And how many were victims of my big-shotism—people I promised to help find living quarters or jobs through my “connections”? What connections?
That’s a broad outline of my first serious approach to making amends. What did I do about it all? How do you make amends to somebody who has moved to you-know-not-where? How do you return stolen goods to a now-defunct store?
Our founding fathers wisely provided the Eighth Step as a means of collecting our wits, of charting our course as we prepare for a journey that might well prove to be stormy. It is a course where I might find it impossible, due to circumstances, to make amends, but not impossible to include my willingness on my list. To become willing. The Step is also about that, isn’t it?
The Eighth Step provides a time of calm reflection before we get down to the actual amends-making task. As the “Twelve and Twelve” says, “It is the beginning of the end of isolation from our fellows and from God.”
W. H.
New York, New York
From At Wit’s End
June 2001
Heard at Meetings: “When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.”
Susan C.
Richmond, Virginia
8 ½
October 1986
As I continue to live each 24 hours in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and attempt to practice its principles in all my affairs, one Step seems to play an increasingly important role in my life and in my relationships with others. This quiet but potent Step is Step Eight: “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.”
Many people, myself included, tend to lump Steps Eight and Nine together. By doing this, I never really achieved even a glimmer of the humility and love that Step Eight has to offer. Being a person of impatient actions, I was off and running on Step Nine with a simple list of names tightly grasped in my sweaty hand and a bad case of false humility to go along with it. Needless to say, I came home each evening with a battered sense of justice and my tail tucked underneath me.
As usual, I did not read all the words contained in the Step, and just as I had done in Step One, I read only the first half before jumping to the next Step. The resulting self-induced pain has, however, taught me much about myself and the principles of this simple program.
Going back to Step Eight, I read the words at last, “... became willing to make amends to them all.” As I began to absorb what was being said to me, and as I reviewed the first seven Steps leading up to this one, it suddenly became clear what the message was for me and what the hasty mistake of impatient interpretation had cost me in serenity. The word “identify” held the key to my success with this Step. To become willing means to become willing to identify myself in others. I had been using Step Eight not as preparation for Step Nine, which is the carrying out of that willingness, but as a hiding place for my own real fear of my true shortcomings. The purpose of Step Eight for me is not to hide but to identify. In order not to identify, I either condemned or forgave as if I were some kind of standard for comparison. In this Step I receive the humility to “identify,” to see myself in others and to share their burdens and difficulties by sharing myself. In this Step I truly join the human race. My identification becomes my freedom—freedom from fear and anger. When I can identify my own shortcomings in another, the battleground between us is removed.
I cannot make an amends when I am still condemning or forgiving myself or the one I am making amends to, because of the judgment this implies. I have always found condemnation to be a lonely road and have always found forgiveness to be a confusing and impossible task. When I forgive someone I guess what I really mean to say is that I admit I judge others. Forgiving and condemning are God’s business, not mine. Only he has the mercy to judge and to accept at the same time. My job is to achieve enough humility to see myself in others and to accept both myself and others, by identifying. The willingness to make amends will grow from this act of love. When I become “willing to make amends to them all” I am saying to them, “your pain is my pain; when I hurt you, I hurt myself; I will try not to hurt you anymore.”
When I have achieved this kind of willingness to identify, my Higher Power has always set up my amends and allowed both of us to grow from the love involved in such an act.
E. C.
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Learning How to Forgive
(From Around the Tables)
January 1973
Over a period of many 24 hours, I have experienced many versions of the Eighth and Ninth Steps of the AA guide to recovery. As the chemical fog lifted, I endeavored to cope with the havoc caused by my insanity. One particular problem persisted: While I had made financial restitution, I couldn’t grasp an approach toward the emotional amends which I felt necessary.
The answer, as I now see it, is that I had to learn the true meaning of forgiveness. My prayers for aid in amends were getting nowhere because I hadn’t forgiven.
“After all, can’t they see how changed I am? Why don’t they accept me? What’s wrong? Do I have to crawl before them? Here I am not drinking, and they don’t seem impressed by the change.” Maybe you hear a hint of a wee little resentment or self-pride. Right—I wasn’t forgiving them for not forgiving me.
I could pray and pray, but no