"We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all."

Step Eight

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All human beings struggle with self-centeredness.  The chronic self-centeredness that lies at the very core of addiction makes that struggle doubly difficult for people like us.  Many of us have lived as if we believed we were the last people on earth, utterly blind to the effect our behavior has had on those around us.

The Eighth Step is the process our program has given us to honestly examine our past relationships.  We take a look at the writing we did on our Fourth Step to identify the effects our actions had on the people in our lives.  When we recognize harm done to some of those people, we become willing to take responsibility for our actions by making amends to them.

The variety of people we encounter in our day and the quality of our relations with them determines, to a great extent, the quality of our very lives. Love, humor, excitement, caring--the things that make life worth living derive much of their meaning from being shared with others.  Understanding this, we want to discover the true nature of our relationships with other people and mend whatever breaks we may find in those relations.  We want to work the Eighth Step.

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Just for today:  I want to fully enjoy the companionship of my fellows.  I will examine my relationships with the people in my life.  Where I find I've harmed others, I will seek the willingness to make amends to them.