Making Amends

Scott · Veteran Member

Making Amends

Tahir · Member

Hey Scott, glad to hear from you again.

Thank you for sharing this. NA I believe is not at all about frowning upon what others share, it's about listening to what others share, it's about identification, it's about sharing and caring...

Why don't you call him up, and ask to meet him, and then just admit your part of the wrongs and apologize. As for being sloppy, it's okay to be sloppy while doing this. There's no rigid rule in the way or method we choose to work the steps. There are so many ways members across the world do it. The point is that it works for each of us.

Here are some directions that my first Sponsor gave me as part of my Ninth Step worksheet that has helped me a lot during the last few years. I share this with the hope that it might be of some help to you too:

At times when we made our amends, we sometimes discovered that some of the areas we had brought out in the open had been forgotten by the people involved or had not been considered by others as something serious at all, and we felt a great relief upon discovering this from this person. We realized that the way we had felt about what we did for so long, suffering from overwhelming guilt and shame was not warranted at all.

We experienced how relieved we felt about resolving all such situations from our Eighth Step list, one after another, and therefore, many call Step Nine The Step of Liberation.

Even though we longed for this liberation, we accepted the fact that we had to be patient and wait for the right circumstances to occur to make each of these amends; but we did not use this to postpone a Ninth Step that we could do now.

We shared our Ninth Step experiences with others and listened to their experiences too.

We shared with our Sponsor how far we had come with our amends and asked for our Sponsors help in ascertaining if we were too slow or too hasty in working our Ninth Step.

If we had harmed others materially or physically they might not be willing to forgive us for this harm but we tried to make amends to them anyway, unless we thought that they were still so embittered by our action that it was dangerous for us to approach them.

If that was the case, we made indirect amends by helping another person who was in the same situation as the person we had harmed, and by making a decision to not harm another materially or physically from thereon.

We expressed to the person to people whom we owed amends what we were into back then and that we wouldnt have acted today like we did at the time when the harm took place if we had known then what we know today, and then we offered our amends.

Sometimes the amends we offered were accepted and sometimes not.

Sometimes the one we had harmed forgave us and at other times the person was not ready to forgive us.

We accepted this, knowing very well that now we had done our sincere best, and we let go of the situation by turning it to our Higher Power.

In some instances, we had an impression that the one we needed to make amends to had harmed us too or had been the cause for the situation to occur, but in this work we only dealt with our own feelings of guilt and not with others guilt or the lack of it.

We took responsibility for that part which we felt guilty about and let go of their feelings of guilt or the lack of it as something which is between them and their Higher Power.

When we had made amends for the mistakes of our past we let go of them and the harm done even if we had not achieved the forgiveness of others or not, remembering that we did not carry out our Ninth Step to achieve the forgiveness of others, but to be able to forgive ourselves, and to right our wrongs as much as we could.

We also knew that we were limited, ignorant, powerless and mortal, and thus fallible, and as such we knew that we would make mistakes in the future too.

Instead of being hard on ourselves by expecting us to be flawless from hereon, we drew hope from Steps Eight and Nine, grateful that we now had the tools to own our wrong and make amends.

By making amends for the mistakes we commit in our daily lives we were able to keep our path free of guilt and shame with the help of a daily inventory as suggested in Step Ten, remembering that as long as we keep hurting other people, we will never be free.

avid · Guru

I don't think it's necessary to put your remorse in the context of the 9th step.
You feel bad about how you acted toward another person. You want to apologize and repair the damage to whatever extent possible. This is a wonderful, intimate human interaction that people of good character engage in.
I would suggest approaching him and telling him that your sorry things ended so badly between you two, and you would like to continue to call him and have him be part of your support group. He will react to that however he reacts (I suspect he will embrace the moment), but in any event the best true amends you can make is to stay clean.
I hope that this strengthens your recovery but relieving you of a burden.
I agree with Tahir, don't worry about it being sloppy...it's not how it appears that matters here, what's important is that it be sincere. The best way to insure that is to pray to the God of your understanding that you make the best amends you possibly can, then just do it.

MIKEF · Guru

Hi Scott! Nice to meet you. You are saying you destroyed the friendship and the relationship because "you relapsed"?If your relapse is the only reason you feel you have destroyed the relationship then I believe a direct talk with him should be forthcoming because maybe thats not his feelings?If there were other things that occurred then that is different,..I also feel that just being honest(the antidote to our diseased thinking) and talking with him directly is all thats necessary.For each person on my 8th step list I formulated the relationship I had with the person/the nature of the harm I caused/the character defects that caused the harm/and my forgiveness of myself and the person/place etc..It was long but helped me see all my parts in what was going on,helped me to see an exact nature' of my defects(did same things keep showing up etc)I believe I am sorry for how our relationship ended and I wanted to set it right is more than sufficient but you know where you have to go with it..If you feel you need to free yourself,then do it.We can't have any hanging strings that could return us to the word of oblivion BECAUSE WE SUPRESS CERTAIN THINGS.Feel blessed that you are willing to say your sorry,in active use,I know for me, that wasn;t something I was big on....!Give it to God,share it from your heart,try to find the lesson it teaches and keep moving forward......peace

-- Edited by MIKEF on Tuesday 25th of May 2010 09:42:30 AM

Fiesty · Senior Member

ADMIT YOUR WRONGS WHENEVER POSSIBLY - I SUGGEST THAT YOU JUST DO IT - TO THE POINT WITHOUT A LONG SAD STORY OF WHY - JUST OWN YOUR PART - SOMETIMES WE CAN GET CAUGHT UP IN THE DRAMATICS AND LOSE THE POINT - WITHOUT ANY EXPECTATIONS - JUST TO CLEAR YOUR SIDE OF THE STREET SO YOU CAN MOVE ON WITHOUT GUILT OR JUST STUFF. TAKES ACT OF FAITH AND COURAGE TO DO - BUT I HAVE FREEDOM IN KNOWING THE STEPS WORK - JUST WORK IT - AS YOU SAID YOU MAY NOT GET THE OPPORTUNITY AGAIN - SO HERE WE GO - SOMETIMES WE DON'T HAVE TO WAIT TO BE ON THE STEP - SOMETIMES WE JUST HAVE TO GET RID OF STUFF. DID YOU TALK TO YOUR SPONSOR - IF YOU HAVE NOT - I SUGGEST BRINGING IT UP AND IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ONE - I SUGGEST YOU GET ONE - NO LONGER DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS STUFF ALONE - WELCOME TO THE STEPS OF NA

Scott · Veteran Member

Thank you all for your responses, I don't have a sponsor at the moment, or else I'd have have sought help with this there, I haven't seen anyone at meetings who I feel I can relate to enough yet. Things ended with a lot of anger and dishonesty, not just simply relapsing, so I guess that's why I have the extra guilt/shame.

I really appreciate all the advice and I'm taking it all in, I'm going to try and make this amends tomorrow, I can't really function that well with this much anxiety.. so.. just gonna get it done with and move on.

thanks, peace.

rocky · Senior Member

i think if it is important to you to tell him you are sorry and to make amends do it if he has the inclination he will forgive we all stub our toes lord knows i have it dont make it any easier but waiting till it is to ate can bring other baggage good luck

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