Why Making Amends (Step 9) Is Not (Step 1) – Getting Honest With Yourself Is
IMPORTANT – For anyone who thinks they are not in recovery – you are fooling yourself. In this day and age – (LETS BE HONEST – WE ARE ALL RECOVERING FROM SOMETHING – OR PROBABLY SHOULD BE)
Now let’s get on with it – shall we.
Making amends is a humbling experience and is so much more than saying you are sorry. In fact, saying you are sorry should not even be said in a true amends. Saying, “I am sorry” is not saying you are willing to change. It just implies you made an “OOPS” and let’s carry on like nothing happened.
An amends is about compassion and empathy for what we have put the other party through. Acknowledging what they must have felt and went through because of our actions or lack of actions is an important component to a true amends. But it does not stop there. The heavy lifting is being true, honest and committed to making it right and dedicated to changing the behavior necessary to ensure this violation does not continue to happen.
“I’m Sorry” is so shallow compared to all of that. We have said those words so many times by now they mean nothing.
It’s like a sorry dance. We blow things up, everyone suffers around us, we say, “we are sorry”, everyone looks at us and says, “you say that all the time”, we say, “we know”, “but I mean it this time”. They roll their eyes and probably say a few other things, we sit there with our tail between our legs until they give in, one more time, and the cycle starts all over again.
RECOVERY IS NOT AN ACCIDENT BUT IT STARTS WITH A DECISION TO STOP USING AND DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY
It takes time to grow and become self-aware and disciplined with a new set of values and principles that guide our life on a changed path. The last thing you want to do when making an amends is to turn right around and do the same thing again.
Wanting to make amends so soon in recovery or directly after we have wronged someone is our ego wanting to be stroked so we feel like everything is okay and we are forgiven. Making amends is not about being forgiven.
That’s why we need to do an inventory and discuss with someone else the exact nature of our wrongs and get a clear picture of what those defects of character are that keep us stuck in the cycle of addiction and behaviors that cause others to suffer.
If we have been painstaking and thorough then we have begun to make changes in our whole outlook towards life and made some progress on recreating our lives. We have found some humility, we have learned how to deal with resentments and fears in a new way and we have swallowed some very difficult things about ourselves. In essence, we are a new person.
We must begin to see our part in these behaviors and how it manifests itself over and over again in a pattern of upset, dishonesty, passive aggressive, silent grump, victim behavior and how it is really my way of manipulating the world around me. If that new perspective is not reached then we won’t change and it is only a matter of time before we do it again. This is why, “I’m sorry”, are just empty words with no fuel for change.
Here are 2 common ways we manipulate the world. We usually fall into one or the other and many times we use both when it serves us well.
- I defend everything I do to the death. Whenever I am challenged about my actions I launch into a 20 minute rant justifying and rationalizing all the reasons why that thing happened or “the thing” we are doing makes sense. Many times we contradict ourselves but we justify that as well. The words just keep spilling out of my mouth about all the reasons why I did that or thought that or felt that and even though I might acknowledge it wasn’t the right thing to do, here are the 100 reasons why – Blah Blah Blah
- Complete silence. I will not divulge anything about myself and keep all the stuff bottled up inside until the pressure becomes too great and I explode. The less you know about me the better and I will stand in the defense of just not being able to connect with my feelings or some other diversion as to why I am not letting you in on anything going on with me.
That’s why we have to do the work of Step 4 – Writing our inventory and Step 5 – Discussing that inventory with a competent person, before we make an amends.
Acknowledging that I manipulate the world to get what I want is a beginning. Realizing I have a lot of work to do BEFORE I run around and tell everyone how sorry I am and how much I want to change and how great I am doing 23 days clean, with a sponsor and I am going to meetings, and praying and feel so much better and I really have it this time is just B.S.
Do the work, get the results. It takes time and it takes effort. Hope comes through Humility.
There is Strength and Courage in Surrender. There is only exhaustion and tragedy in the Egoic grip of denial.