What Is The Step 9 Living Amends

But the rewards you’ll reap from living amends can help make the challenges easier and more productive. Sometimes an indirect or living amends is the best you can do. Of course, if you can make direct amends you should do so; this is why having a sponsor or advisor to help give you direction is so important. If you aren’t able to make direct amends, then you can volunteer your time or help someone else out. Making amends is more than just an apology, it’s changing your life around and changing your ways; eliminating the destructive behaviors that were once part of your life. Direct amends are not always possible or practical, but that doesn’t mean the individual is unable to demonstrate changed behavior.

• Maybe it is a fight you always thought you had time to resolve.
• Sometimes, it’s necessary to make amends to employers or co-workers.
• Addiction has the ability to irrevocably sever the most intimate bonds of family and friendship.
• This was a good start for me but there were still a lot of “I’s” as I experienced this step.
• If they take my words for granted, sometimes, I take a break from talking.
• Rather than trying to hide it, practitioners visibly incorporate the repair into the object’s restoration, honoring and revering the damage rather than using it as an excuse to discard and replace the object.

Avoid initiating a conversation if the other person is distracted or upset by something unrelated. If possible, schedule a time to speak with them in advance to prepare for the conversation. Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today. Turns out, I was a bossy control freak who was terrified of everything. When they didn’t follow my advice, I let them know – repeatedly. When they had the nerve to do things their own way, I reminded them that I had first suggested a better plan.

To understand what living amends are is to understand the concept behind amends in a 12 step program.

Do not try to attempt to work step nine without a sponsor, therapist, or spiritual advisor. Your sponsor can help walk you through this by asking you about your goals in making amends, how you plan to do it, and when. This person should have already worked on step nine, so they understand what it takes and can help guide you through it. Making living amends can take on many different forms depending on the relationship to those affected by the wrongdoing. In most cases, the offender owes apologies to the people closest to them, like their friends, parents, and children.

• Making amends with the people you’ve fallen out with as you’re thinking about mortality and what happens when you die is one way of finding emotional freedom and closure.
• The first being the alcoholics in my life, I had a part in their disease and didn’t know what I had done to them.
• However, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed at your new, honest and sober lifestyle.
• Just thinking about listing those you’ve harmed and how you’ve hurt them can reanimate intense feelings of guilt and shame, as well as fuel new anxieties and fears about how the amends process might go.
• Though he calls her following the argument, she doesn’t answer.

I can’t count how many times I left my parents, relatives and close friends in a state of anger, worry and fear. They were all concerned for me, and for what might happen next. This will give both you and the person you are attempting to make amends to confidence that your sobriety will be a lasting one, providing a better platform for you to begin rebuilding your relationship living amends with them. It is important, during this process, that you understand that a simple apology is not enough to undo the damage you have done. Rather, you need to make a more concrete and serious effort to express that you know what wrongs you have done, and that you have changed, and want to make things right. Making amends is an integral part of personal growth and healing.

Step Series

Working Step 9 is challenging and you’ll likely need support and assistance as you work through it. At Eudaimonia Recovery Homes, we provide personalized recovery support with comfortable sober living Austin, Houston, and Colorado Springs. We also provide regular drug and alcohol testing, professional peer recovery support programming, a three phase recovery program, volunteer placement services, and employment and educational support. Making any type of amends can be challenging, but in this article, we’ll focus on living amends and tips for how to make them. If you or a loved one is struggling to stay sober or needs help maintaining sobriety while working the 12 Steps, Eudaimonia Recovery Homes can help. Call us or fill out our online contact form today to get started.

The more I practiced this step the more I found out how much healing comes from it and not just for me. We do not receive any commission or fee that is dependent upon which treatment provider a caller chooses. Recovery support groups and individual therapy can help you if you are struggling to make amends or accept the responses of others. A sponsor or therapist can help you talk through your choices, determine the best course of action for making amends, and consider how your actions may affect others as you seek to make amends. As we intentionally take responsibility for our actions, the harsh grip of self-aversion loosens, and we come home to a sense of connectedness, peace, and ease.

What Do You Say When Making Amends? – The Step 9 Amends Letter

But the difference between addiction and cancer is that cancer doesn’t make you rob your grandmother. Twelve-Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous put a heavy emphasis on the process of making amends, and there’s a reason for that. We may have been suffering from a disease we never asked to have, but the fact remains we did things that hurt other people. It’s up to us to make it right if we want things to get better. In this case, instead of offering a direct amend or direct apology, you can make indirect amends by doing something like volunteering your time to help others or donating money to a charitable cause. This is where Step 9 may dovetail nicely with Step 12, which suggests that recovered addicts try to carry on the steps’ message to other addicts who are currently struggling.

Though we would certainly suggest she read some of our other posts on seems like regret and self-forgiveness, we also deeply appreciate the option of a ‘living amends’. Suddenly your spinning around things you feel guilty for. Maybe it is a fight you always thought you had time to resolve. Perhaps it is something you said or did while they were ill. Now, whether it is an apology, a want for forgiveness, or an amends, that person isn’t here and it makes it hard to imagine any of those things are possible. Like the definition says, amends is something we do to make up for something we feel guilty for.