Sep 01 2010
Step Nine
“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
Welcome to the “Using Al-Anon’s Steps in Our Personal Lives” blog. Many people are aware of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and understand how they apply to the alcoholic’s goal of finding sobriety, but few are aware that Al-Anon Family Groups adapted these Steps in 1951 as a program of personal progress and family recovery.
This series of podcasts discusses how Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps have helped people successfully handle a variety of challenges associated with the family illness of alcoholism.
The topic of today’s podcast is Step Nine.
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26 comments
Having been the sole source of income in our family I worked a fulltime job and weekend ‘side jobs’ during the entire time my 2 daughters were growing up, college years and so on. Out on their own now I found myself very resentful that the only time I would hear from them [the oldest especially] was when they wanted me to do work for them or they had a question concerning my trade or a closely related subject.
When doing a 9th step it occured to me that the relationship I was feeling so resentful about was the only way that they knew to have any relationship at all with their father.
I had taught them this thruout their lives. It was imperative for me to do a 9th step with them both and begin to have a different FATHERLY relationship with them both.
This change has been accepted by my youngest [an AA member] but my oldest looked at me like I had 3 heads when I made an amends to her verbally.
I fully understand that amends are not always accepted or even understood so now I have to do the hard work and amend my behavior to gain a place in my daughter’s lives.
The most difficult amends that I have to make are to my family. I grew up in a home affected by alcoholism and developed some crazy, defensive ways of interacting with others and carried this into my marriage and home. When alcohol began to affect my children, I began to react in even crazier ways and said and did many things that hurt family members. When I was ready to make amends to my family, I realized I needed to focus on my actions only and be careful not to allude to their actions or cause further hurt. I also realized that sorting out how I had hurt each person was at times impossible. When I touched base with my sponsor, I realized that the biggest part of my amends should be living amends that would continue to be a part of my relationship with my family. I made verbal amends which were appreciated but my most important amends have been to stop judging, stop trying to control and to accept and love each person for the wonderful individual they are and to treat each person with respect. Part of my living amends has been to see myself as an individual separate from other family members and to love and accept myself for who I am and to treat myself with respect.
It’s good medicine for me —not for the others, but for me to do a Ninth Step. I cannot wait for others to make amends to me; my hope & healing lie in my willingness to make amends to others. I have found it so freeing to achieve a clean slate & to keep it clean. I don’t want any more baggage to carry around; i want to travel real light. It helps keep me humble to realize how many times I stumble and fall. Condemnation isn’t what I experience when i add someone to Step 8 in preparation for doing Step 9. No, it is freedom. I’m allowed to be a person, full of victories and defeats. Perfectionism isn’t my goal. My goal is to live my life fully and freely. Step Nine keeps me clean and fresh & in love with life. I’m so grateful for all the Steps, and for the peace that doing Step 9 brings me.
I had said I was “sorry” most of my life. Why? Because I felt guilty for everything and everyone. It’s a good thing that making amends comes as the 9th step and not an earlier step because I would be saying I’m sorry for about 50 years or more!. The preceeding Steps helped me to separate the reality of whom I had hurt from the need to feel bad about myself for everything. I began my amends with my younger sister who was also in Al-Anon. It was great she took it very well. Even my husband kind of accepted it well, his response was “It’s about time you admitted you were the problem”. I didn’t care, just the action of making amends was worth the sarcasm. I waited awhile to make amends to my children whom I hurt the most. The reason, I was always saying how sorry I was for screaming or swearing and then turn around and do it again a few days later. I learned to say the Serenity Prayer when I became angry and this stopped the horrible reaction I had to whatever childlike things they did. Then when I said I was sorry I knew I wouldn’t turn around and do it again immediately.
The amends that stand out the most were the ones that the person died soon after. My father was in the hospital when I told him I loved him and made amends to him. He died two days later. I used to call my husbands sister and tell her what a rotten brother she had, this time I called and asked if I could come over and talk to her and her husband. I explained about Al-Anon and the Steps. I made my amends and they were very forgiving and loving. It changed our relationship to the point that 6 months later when her husband died suddenly she called me to be with her through it all. And twenty years later when she was dying of ALS I walked with her through that.
Step 9 is a beautiful gift. It has freed me from a life of guilt and fear and given me relationships based in love and respect.
When I complained to my sponsor that my husband had not made amends to me, she told me to focus on my program, not his. When he finally did make amends, I complained to my sponsor that he had not done it “right.” Again, she told me that his program was none of my business and asked me about the amends I had made to my husband. Well, I hated making amends and had a hard time making a direct amends to him. No wonder I was so focused on him; it took the focus off of me.
I know now that if I am whining about how someone owes me an amend, that I had better take my own inventory and work the Steps to find out what amends I need to make, and then make them. There is nothing attractive or serene or spiritual about a sense of entitlement. My sponsor told me that other people have the right to not make amends to me. If I start thinking everyone owes me amends, then I have reverted back to who I was before I was practicing Al-Anon; I have become a victim who doesn’t take responsibility for my life.
My sponsor gave me a great foundation in the Steps and this has been useful when I sponsor others. I worked with someone who needed to make amends to her partner. She showed such courage and honesty and did not flinch from taking responsibility for her actions. By being a witness to her recovery, I learned a lot about how I could improve my practice of Step Nine.
Working Step Nine without following it up with Steps Ten and Eleven is too hard for me. I need Step Ten to keep me on track, to make sure I am amending my behavior. I need Step Eleven to keep me close to the god of my understanding; without that I lose my courage.
The 9th Step, that I did few 24 hours ago, forced me into action and required that I be humble and honest. I already had a list of the people I had harmed and I knew the reasons that brought me to place these people on my list. I was anxious to do this Step, but ready.
I had to ask my Higher Power to guide me in this process, in order to find the courage to make amends in an appropriate order and with the appropriate words. Most of all, my aptitude and my attitude had to be moderate and positive. I had to keep the process very simple but I also had to use personall discipline and avoid to point fingers at others.
What was not easy for me was to focus only on myself, on my part in the various events as well as the situations and the incidents that brought me to make these amends. The part of others in the events and their reactions were not mine to worry about. Some people were open-minded, others didn’t recognize anything in the events I was relating, while some of these people just added to the faults I already admitted to. The exercise was not always easy , but it was liberating. I was finally experiencing some peace with others and with myself.
Thanks to that process, mending has taken place. I could start to build on a solid and balanced relationships with others and with myself «One Day At the Time».
Before I came into the program I apologized for everything, all the time. I always said I was sorry – for the weather, for bumping someone, or when someone else stepped on my toes! At the same time, I was living with an active alcoholic who said he was sorry a lot – after he drank and hurt me emotionally, verbally, financially for physically. His apologies, like my own, did nothing to help or change the situation.
After I came into the program and began working the steps, the 4th, 5th and 9th steps loomed ahead – scary for me to even think about – but I continued working through those steps diligently, with the help of a good sponsor, a good step meeting and lots of time spent in Al-Anon meetings and practical application.
Making my 9th step amends has not been easy for me. Although I had prepared myself by working the previous steps, it was still diffcult to look people in the eye and admit my shortcomings. The fact that it was not easy attests to the gravity and committment to my amends, as opposed to the casual “I’m sorries” of the past, or the avoidance I practiced, hoping “things” would smooth over without any action on my part.
My amends to my alcoholic mother were probably the most surprising of all. I never felt truly close to her, even as a child. There was always a distance, a barrier, between us. I wrote her a letter of amends, to make sure I did not leave anything out. I sat in the living room with her and read the letter one afternoon. It was a tearful, emotional experience that freed me in so many ways. After I made my amends, I found I was able to let go of all of the harsh, unrealistic expectations I had of her. I was able to totally accept her and love her unconditionally, and we formed a wonderful, very close, intimate bond. Although she was unable to consistently maintine sobriety, we were able to consistently maintain a close, loving relationship. She died in 1999 and I am grateful every day for the healing we both received through my 9th step amends to her and the lovely years we had before she passed away.
Making direct amends to people implies I’ve done something wrong and I need to make a change. It’s not just saying “I am sorry”. It’s changing direction. But which direction do I take?
When I have made direct amends it implied I knew what I had done wrong, and I knew how to correct it. For me that was not always the case, and pressuring me during those times to make amends just caused me additional harm. I tried to figure things out, and the more I tried the more obsessive and confused I became. It propelled me to force solutions which never worked.
Before making direct amends, I needed to feel my feelings. I needed to ask myself what I felt. What were my thoughts related to those feelings, and what were my beliefs associated with the thoughts? Once I sorted those 3 areas out, I needed to decide what needed to change, my behavior or my beliefs? When I stole someone’s pen I felt guilty. I made amends by returning the pen or I paid for a new pen. When I made 99 out of 100 on a test, I felt guilt or shame because I did not get 100. I needed to ask, “Should I make amends by changing my behavior (by trying harder and studying more on the next test), or changing my belief (by saying a 99 out of 100 is ok)”. Today I tell myself 99 out of 100 is ok. I change my beliefs rather than my behavior.
Past experiences have taught me to make direct amends by either changing by behavior or changing my beliefs. Knowing this has better prepared me to make direct amends to people I have harmed.
Step 8 was ‘easy’ for me because I felt like I had harmed so many people, but working on how to make amends was not so easy. There are still people on my list who I know I caused harm to years ago, but to whom I cannot make direct amends. One in particular weighed heavy on my heart for a long time until I was driving toward a huge thunderstorm – this person entered my thoughts again for the pain I caused them, and I felt my higher power telling me ‘that was the past – let it go’ and I felt relief. The second part of Step 9 instructs me to avoid direct amends if the act would cause harm. I know I don’t want to behave like I did before, and that’s the best amends I can offer.
Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion says, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This has been my guidance for Step 9. When I find that I have wronged someone, I need to make amends. Rather than just set things on the correct path or merely apologize, I feel an obligation to repay the wrong I have done. If I have caused someone loss, I need to make an effort to repay them for that loss, be it monetary, property, time, or whatever. This can be particularly difficult when it comes to emotional loss, and cannot always be accomplished in “one lump sum,” but can be achieved.
The other huge stumbling block I have found is the situation of not having a person to make amends to because of death or being unable to find them. When I cannot find a person, my Higher Power may not determine me quite ready, and may have that person “appear” in my life at some future point, so patience is sometimes necessary. If I do not expect to be able to make direct contact with a person, such as in the case of death, I have found that I need to use some creativity. Not being a terribly creative person, this has been a challenge for me, but this challenge is part of the accomplishment of my step. For someone who has passed away, I have been able to extend the amend to a family member, repaying my debt to them. For someone I do not expect to locate, I have found a newer acquaintance with similarities, to whom I can extend my amend. I have written a letter to someone to whom I cannot make amends, and read it aloud to myself and my Higher Power. The cleansing effect has been quite effective.
I recently aimed to finish my ninth step by my 50th birthday in early December, and I did it! That in itself shows the power of the program: I could recognize and use my God-given gift of perseverance to stick around the rooms long enough, effectively use various sponsors, and work hard enough to get this far. It’s been a long haul but well worth it, so keep coming back!
As for my process, most of my ninth-step amends involved apologizing to people who are no longer in my life. I don’t subscribe to the “mere-apology” theory of making amends; they must also include changed behavior (and I have done that where needed). However, because these people are no longer in my life, there is no relationship context in which to make amends?except by “paying them forward”?so I did in fact write quite a few apology letters. I made sure to keep the focus on me, to acknowledge and apologize sincerely for what had been my part of the situation, and to share how I would do things differently in the future if faced with a similar situation. I also shared the letters with someone whose opinion I respect before I actually mailed them.
It had been my theory long ago in my program that completing Step Nine would free up much mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual energy so that my Higher Power could use me as a tool. I knew I was consuming so much energy remembering and reliving my guilty moments and that this energy would have to go somewhere when it was released and I finally became able to forgive myself and get on solid ground with God.
Well, my hunch was right! I’ve been invited by my church’s Youth Director to present a workshop on Finding Your Spiritual Gifts, and I was voted in as a new deacon starting in 2011; things I never, ever would have thought would happen to me. I am so excited for the future now that I’ve finally put the past behind me by working Step Nine!
I apply Step 9 in my life when I participate directly in the lives of others while consciously amending my behavior and my reactions. This kind of full-on living can only happen – for me – if I’m working all the steps in Al-Anon on an ongoing basis! Fortunately I just love the program and all it has done for me, so living the program is a choice I’m happy to make on a daily basis.
Step 9 is not, to me, about saying I’m sorry (I think of that as more of a Step 10 thing) but it is the way that I live today with the knowledge and understanding I have about yesterday. Step 9 grows out of all that came before, particularly Step 4-8. Once I made that searching and fearless moral inventory I became aware of just what was going on in the past, and my part in it. Steps 6 and 7 helped me get in the right relationship with those problems — turn them over to God, don’t struggle with them myself! And Step 8 guides me toward how to live today with a new course heading!
Step 9 is my compass heading. Every day I can practice Step 9 by being aware that what I do today is my choice, and doesn’t have to be driven by my experiences, behaviors or choices of the past. If I see someone in my life to whom I owe an amends, I can proceed directly and honestly toward them and thus live my life with simplicity and serenity.
What a program!
I am always amazed how this program works! Reading over the comments, I am awed by the power of Al-Anon! I hope that I have some good ESH (experience, strength and hope) to share on Step 9.
ls
Even after working the Steps with my sponsor, there was one part of my 4th Step inventory that I had been unable to tell my sponsor or a trusted Al-Anon friend about. The truth is, I could not even say this thing out loud and practice talking about it in the mirror, much less tell God or another human being. I finally picked a nun (in recovery) to hear this last little bit of my 5th Step. She listened, almost yawned and asked me if that was all of it. “Yes”, I said. She then said the most interesting thing. “God forgave you a long time ago… so when are you going to forgive yourself?” I was flabbergasted. It had not ever occurred to me how I was hurting myself by hanging on to my shame. She went on to instruct me to write a letter to the person that I had harmed, allowing myself to feel every feeling and “get it all out.” She said to cry or yell or “whatever it takes.” Then I was supposed to destroy the letter in a ritualistic fashion by burning or tearing it up; releasing it to God. I followed her instructions and worked in tandem with a close Al-Anon friend. And a funny thing happened… in the process, I ended up writing an amends letter to MYSELF! I finally had come to see how I had harmed myself even more than I’d harmed others. I had to be responsible for my actions and how my actions had harmed ME! I had to be responsible for the people that I put in my life that treated me badly- for the dangerous situations that I placed myself in… I couldn’t blame anyone else, anymore!
One of the most difficult amends to make was to my parents. Then, one day, my HP prompted me to write my parents a gratitude letter to make my amends. Instead of focusing on what was bad in my alcoholic childhood home, I focused on what was good- the good qualities they gave me- my assets! My parents were thrilled and this amends has gone a long way to heal our relationship today!
Step 9 makes me responsible. I have learned to say- “I was wrong when I ________. What can I do to make it up to you?”
Now, I make amends to myself when I pray and ask my HP for guidance, when I attend meetings, when I speak to a newcomer or perform service work. For instance, important amends to myself (and my son) were made when I served as an Alateen sponsor. I make amends to myself every day and I can hold my head up. I am a truly grateful Al-Anon.
Direct amends, for me, requires courage–courage to face someone, look that person in the eye, and admit my wrong. Early in recovery I was very fearful of others. I somehow felt that if I ever confronted anyone that at least one of us would have a meltdown. I realize now how much of my fear was simply imagined and unrealistic.
Today, I do have that courage to be me. I know I am a human and make mistakes. The first time I admitted to someone I was wrong was actually a great feeling. I felt good about recognizing I had been a failure, and owning up to my immature behavior was a relief. I was no longer pretending. I recall that person was shocked to hear me say I was wrong, and that was the end of it. I felt better about myself in the days after that I suppose beneath all the fear is that element of pride. Who wants to be weak or wrong? Today I really do not mind admitting that I have things about me that need changing. I do not want to hurt others.
I don’t take my 10th step inventory when I go to bed at night. That is too late. I take it minute by minute as I measure my thoughts and words during the day. Most times, I know immediately when I need to admit to someone that I could have been more patient or more kind. Living in the Tenth Step is like standing in the middle of the seasaw, always striving for balance. It was fun as a kid, and it’s almost becoming fun again.
This is the step that set me free. Finally, I could start to look people in the eye again. When I came to Al-anon, I was unable to say I was sorry let alone make an honest, sincere amends. I felt too vulnerable. But I knew that I had harmed others and all of the self-righteous justifications didn’t make me feel better about it. But I really didn’t know how to change that behavior. I felt trapped and hopeless. Admitting my wrongs didn’t feel like it was possible. Certainly people would hold that over my head and gain power over me. This is the insanity of the al-anon disease. It keeps me from the very solution to the problem. In making amends, I have found most people very gracious and forgiving. Some people do need to rub our noses in it and make us squirm a little but I have even found that I can survive that today. I cannot let my fears keep me from doing the right thing today. I cannot tolerate the mental anguish of harming others today.
When I got to the 9th Step, I was anxious about making amends. The first one I attempted was the hardest, but it had been plaguing me the longest. The summer before I entered 4th grade, I was riding bikes with my two best friends. We began to race to my house. I’m very competitive, and I wanted to win. I was leading when I got to an intersection. Without looking either way, I flew through the intersection. My friend, who was just behind me in second place, followed me. She was hit by a car and thrown into the air, landing 50 feet away. Her leg was severely broken, and she required several surgeries to repair it, with metal plates and screws to hold it in place. Because the fourth grade classrooms in our school were on the second floor, and she was in a wheelchair, she had to attend a different school that year. During her year of inactivity, she gained a lot of weight and has remained obese. She has never married. I took responsibility for all this.
When I visited her to make amends, she was incredulous. She said she’d never thought to blame me. She was the one who had decided to follow me through the intersection. She laughed at my feelings of guilt. She assured me that I had never had any control over her actions.
As I continued down my list of amends, I discovered the same thing repeatedly. People either never held me responsible or were very forgiving. I had thought I was much more important in their lives than I had been. It was a great relief. I’m so happy to have made the amends, and to have lifted the weight off me, but mostly to realize that I’m not God.
After working on Step Eight with my sponsor, I realized that my list of amends for Step Nine were already right there, on my 8th Step page. I found I had three columns on the page, #1 those I wanted/needed to make amends…#2 those I did not want to make amends to and #3 those I didn’t think “deserved” an amend from me.
As I worked on my list, I found that the names on #2 moved over to #1 and those on #3 seemed to “creep” over to #2. One of the ones on #2 then #1 was my mother. She had passed away when I was 18, 7 years before I found my way into the program. I had not spoken to her for 5 years before she died, due to my parents divorce and subsequent turmoil. I started praying to my HP to show me how to make amends to her. Soon after this, my grandmother passed away and I asked my grandpa (mom’s dad) what I could do for him. He asked for a home cooked meal once in a while. My job took me past his home every afternoon, so every Tues for over a year I would make my family supper, leave 2 hours early, and stop and have an early dinner with him, as I worked nights. I found out a lot of things I never knew about my mom’s childhood. I spent the time with him just being a good granddaughter. We talked and shared and laughed and even shared a few tears. When grampa became ill and needed to move to my aunt’s house the dinners stopped.
This has been over 25 years ago now. My aunts and uncles have told me, over the years, thank you for doing this simple thing.
I realized that not only had I made amends to Grampa, for the way I had treated him, I had made amends to my mom by being a better granddaughter, plus amends to my aunts and uncles for the way I had treated their sister. I had only needed to become willing to listen to my HP and be a better person, the person he wants me to be. An amend is an action done right. That is what I learned from this. I only needed to be willing.
i need advice. My husband is in Overeaters Annonymous and doing very, very well (almost a year).
He is on Step 9. I do NOT want to hear his amends, because:
1) I am dealing with a severe anger management problem of my own
2) I am almost certain I am going to respond in anger and explosion
3) He is not listening that I am not ready for this and keeps trying to force it
4) I love my husband and I want to support him, but he just does not realize how much I am going through a bad time mentally nor the depths of the pain he has caused me
I have tried 3 times to create boundaries and speak and write clearly to him about this, but he keeps trying to force this.
Please advise me. He is doing living amends and really doing his share of the housework now consistently.
I like what Nikki says about how our shortcomings are a gift to
me to help me learn to be a better person.
Step nine is a step of ACTION, that requires me to understand the difference between an apology and an amends. Step nine requires me to understand that these amends that are required are because I had a part in creating the need for them. The most important part of this step is to understand tht I did not know perhaps at the time what I did not know, and to be able to forgive myself first and caring for my lack of knowledge. This is to say that I must understand self forgiveness before I can expect to give or recieve this piceless gift from others or to others. I must understand unconditional love for myself and my own shortcomings be whatever they are, for if I understand this I can then begin to forgive and understand the shortcomings of others which may have affected the choices that I made in my past, again to remember that I did not know this then. Or even understand the idea of unconditional love. My motives must be not for self justification but must be to nuture my relationship with my CREATOR. For now in my heartI know that my CREATOR made everyone perfect in his own eyes,not mine, and therefore it is only my job to clean up my part in the harm that has happened to others as a direct result or an indirect result of my behaviour. My only desire at this time is to be the best person that I can be and to accept my shortcomings and the unconditional love that my CREATOR has given me. These shortcomings are his gift to me to help me learn to be a better person.
Peace Love and Serenity to all
i step 9 is basicly saying frogive people if youre ready if youstill have anger with a person youdon have to just speed through the steps becasue in the end youre just going to do them agian and agan ect so i you think you will ingure this person in anyway (in nyway! or gosip about this person then hold back i know i wouold
I am grateful that our program is a process, which I participate in one day at a time. I have been living the Al Anon program for six years now. I find myself at Step 9 once again. With the help of my Higher Power, I clearly see where working the steps has helped me in the past. I can appreciate restored relationships that were once shattered. They were restored due to my commitment to my program, and commitment to setting aside time for that relationship. The types of direct amends I have made, to my mother, to my sisters, and to my younger daughter, have consisted of acknowledging my part in damaging relationships. They have been willing to trust me and rebuild our relationship again. On my part, I contribute ongoing prayers to keep my Higher Power in the center of my relationships. I pray to accept our differences and open my mind to appreciating the “gifts” of the relationship rather than judge what the relationship should be, based on my expectations. Acceptance, gratitude and humility keep me in a state of grace to honor those restored relationships.
Despite indirect amends, however, some cherished relationships remain shattered. I have no relationship with my older daughter. Making direct amends would only dredge up hideous scenes and deep pain. My sponsor suggested indirect amends, changing my attitudes and behaviors and accepting my daughter for who she is. I can love her and hate her disease. So I ask my Higher Power to let my daughter know that she is loved. I remind myself that she has her own Higher Power, and it is NOT me. I continue to keep my daughter in my daily prayers. With much faith to overcome my deep fear of rejection, I have decided to contact her once a month, with a postcard. I “Keep it simple,” and use “Easy does it.” I send the post cards because I want her to know I think of her. I do not expect her to call me or to write back. Using these slogans helps me to give my Higher Power lots of room to act, rather than me try to steam roll communication and force a solution to our shattered mother-daughter relationship. Every thing happens in God’s time, for God’s reasons. So I mail my post card, and then direct my thoughts,energies and actions to taking very good care of myself and nourishing my relationship with my Higher Power.
To me, too, love is the greatest and true-est gift of this program. Love is the heart and soul of every single one of our 12 Steps, 12 Traditions, and 12 Concepts. Cultivating love of self, Spirit, and others, is the foundation of this entire program…and is a lifetime’s journey. And for me, love is the only antidote to fear.
So… Step 9 grows out of Step 8, where I asked myself what actual harm I had done. In my magical-child thinking, I had assumed that every ill thought had harmed somebody. Truth was, my secret ill thoughts harmed *Me.* (Can you imagine living inside a stew of negative thoughts? Ugh!) My sponsor spent a lot of time with me on what constitutes harm.
Then she spent nearly as much time with me on what might reverse that harm, or mitigate it, or compensate for it. And what could prevent its repeat.
It felt as if it were taking forever, and some of the amends felt scary and I resisted like mad, even though it was a fascinating journey and I could see that it would free me and open me and change my life and make me happy, joyous and free. “Direct” amends? Noooo, let me make indirect amends! Thank goodness for a sponsor with a sense of humor.
She was not big on “apology,” and suggested I inventory the exact purpose of any apology. Was it to make *Me* feel better, or was it truly going to improve the life of the recipient? “Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?” was one of her tests. Does it actually *Amend* the harm? was another. (I have a friend who is always late. She always apologizes. She never amends her lateness, just apologizes. For years!)
OK, so all of that was in Step 8, where I listed the harms and became willing to directly address those harms in whatever healing way was possible.
Step 9 is where I went down the list and—from an inner place of love for myself, Spirit and others—actually took those healing actions that my sponsor and I had agreed would amend the situation. It took time. It took ongoing willingness, and a sense of trust in the process. It took a gentle, rigorously honest sponsor (with a sense of humor).
Now when I amend a new harm that I’ve done, I still feel vulnerable and scared, and yet I know that until I’ve taken that action, I’ll feel stuck somehow, like having a block in the love-channel. Keeping those channels open, for love to grow and flow through, is like maintaining any channel on Planet Earth—scooping out the debris, deepening the channel, keeping it clear…it’s a life’s work. And what wonderful, life-enhancing work!
Thank you, Al-Anon, for Step 9 and all the other tools for deepening the channel for love to manifest.
To me, Step Nine was the second half of Step Eight. In Eight, I started the list, now it was time for me to put my money where my mouth was. If I wanted to grow in the program, then I needed to start doing some remodeling in my life now that the trash was cleaned out – well, lots of it anyway.
The first thing I needed to look at was whether I was making the amends because I truly felt I needed to amend the relationship or if I was making amends just to get it off my chest and make me feel better regardless of what I messed up in the process. That’s where the “except when to do so would injure them or others” part comes in.
If I am going to do more harm than good by making direct amends to that person or harm to myself (I am also included in the “others”), then for me, the way to make amends was to change the way I acted toward that person. I still needed to make amends, just not directly. Maybe the day will come when I can address the person directly, but until that time comes – and my Higher Power will let me know – I can be a better person and act kindly and courteously toward that person. It’s not the end, it’s just the beginning.
There were people on my list who were no longer alive, like my mother. My sponsor suggested that I write her a letter, then put two chairs face to face, sit in one of them, act as if my mother were sitting in the other one and read the letter aloud as though I were talking to her.
I have made amends in various ways over the years to various people. My sponsor said that my Higher Power would give me the time, the place and the action to take, all I had to do was be willing.
Im writing from Perú. How do I apply step 9.
Something that helped me to go through step 9, it was to” keep it simple”. I offended somebody, so the decent thing to do is to apologize. I made some harm, so the decent thing to do is to make amends. I had moral debts with people that is impossible to me to contact, so the decent thing to do and my moral obligation is to not commit the same faults with somebody else. It was just a matter of changing my attitudes and behavior.
One thing though, just now I started to be aware of, and it is that the person that I affected most was myself. So now, Im in the path to make amends to my own self, being kind, patient, tolerant, fair, caring and loving to myself.
This is the first Step that asks me to face my past honestly, and to do something about it today. It was much more that uncomfortable – it was scary. I had lots of resentments, and anger. I was not ready, but with the support of the fellowship, with the having completed the first Eight Steps, and with my desire to change – I found the willingness. What was most important was that this Step asked me to change.
A new life is possible and everything I learn and do in Al-Anon guides me in that effort. I came to the program humbled and defeated. It was always so hard to see my parent drunk, fighting, crying and the chaos. I felt disgrace, shame and powerless. I was hurting, and I was hurting – hurting those I loved. I wanted to be different from my parents, and I wanted a different life, and I wanted my wife and children to have a different life. But these goals were so elusive – not hard to understand now but impossible to understand then.
When I entered my first Al-Anon Adult Children’s meeting I felt something incredible – I felt safe. It was in this atmosphere that I knew and trusted things could be different. I could change. But this was not going to happen in a week, or a month – maybe a year. No way. This disease was so ingrained in my spirit – my recovery had to come one day at a time, one Step at a time, and one amends at a time.
I learned it was not about saying I’m sorry, I wanted to and became willing to behave different. The true gift of Al-Anon is the Love that makes this possible.