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 forgiveness came. Now, I’m praying that I weed out all the subtle “unforgiveness” that has been growing for lo, these many years. Once I have truly, through prayer, forgiven any and all for real and imagined injuries, I’ll be forgiven. When I have really forgiven, then the flow starts towards me, and then the amends can be made. For me, at least, I have lots of forgiving to do before I can make amends.
D. W. R.
Detroit, Michigan
The Eighth Step
(From Around the Tables)
October 1977
I have, of late, participated in a succession of discussions centering on the Eighth Step. I regard this Step as the easiest but perhaps the most subtle in the program. It requires only that I make a list of people I have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. Unlike Step Five, Eight does not require that I seek out a companion and unload it on him. It does not require searching my soul or being humble—only making a list and becoming willing. Step Nine requires some damn bold action, so it is very different from, though obviously dependent on, Step Eight.
The Eighth Step relates to people other than me. Unquestionably, it points outward and not inward. Many of us feel anger about this position and protest, “I didn’t hurt anyone else but me. I figure I have to make amends to me.” The phrasing may vary, but the idea is always the same: “make amends to me.” Frankly, I think this is so much garbage. It’s one of the “old ideas” the Big Book advises us to discard—namely, selfishness. If the founders had meant Eight and Nine to be directed at themselves, they would have so stated in plain English.
But here’s an AA paradox: I have found, to my great joy, that if I work on Eight and Nine and keep the emphasis on my relationships with others, these Steps actually do bring about the ultimate amends to me—a happy, sober day-to-day life that brims over with gladness, happiness, good fortune and all that I could wish for. It’s far better to work on the Steps the way the Big Book and the “Twelve and Twelve” suggest than to risk losing this great life.
Anonymous
Real Men Don’t Make Amends—Do They?
October 1984
Many times at meetings, I’ve heard something like “I did so and so. Do I have to make amends?” Or “A man never says he’s sorry.” Or “I’m just going to make a living amends by behaving myself.” Or “What good does it do?”
Sound familiar? It sure does to me. I’ve had all those negative attitudes at one time or another during my sobriety. It seems as though considering amends removed everything positive from my outlook on life. Then, the excuses started exaggerating themselves, and another chance to become a better person through our program slipped away. How many of those chances did I miss because false pride engendered a negative attitude toward amends? Almost all of them.
Now, thanks to God, good strong sponsorship and a great AA group, my attitude regarding amends is no longer negative. I’ve learned to make an amends that is a positive experience, not just putting a check mark on a list to fill a square. Just filling a square is not growth; it is just filling a square, the way I did when I was drinking. Growth is characterized by an identifiable change in attitude for the better. It is apparent in the way we conduct ourselves, in the way we express ourselves, in our actions. Fortunately, it comes in many ways.
The growth I have experienced through amends began when I found out exactly what
