Month: May 2022

Since my post last week, life has changed once again. I have started the second draft of my novel which consists of retyping the whole thing, I volunteered to read over a play in the hopes of creating a more theatrical vision, and my oldest sister has past away after battling her fourth case of cancer.

We get the chance to be busy and deal with life as it hurtles towards us. Only ongoing recovery gives us the skills and armor to do that. I have imperfect days mostly, but in the imperfection I can find my spiritual center.

This is the last post leading up to a view of the space between Steps Nine and Ten.

The way Step Eight moves into Step Nine is an essential aspect of the program. The Big Book goes into great detail about Step Nine. Probably more detail about the particulars of making amends than about anything else, with maybe the exception of the Fourth Step. The book covers all the different scenarios you might run into, including making amends to people with whom you can’t make direct contact. They don’t say people who have died, but they’re implying that there are people who we can’t reach, and we write them an “honest letter.” There is a lot of information in the Big Book about completing Step Nine.

We need to look at what transpires between Step Nine and Step Ten? Because that’s the next leap, going from Step Nine, which is making amends, to Step Ten which continues the inventory practice and the process of making amends. Both of these things together are worked on continually. There’s an awful lot of work to be done before Step Ten has any real meaning to us other than the things you hear at meetings which are an interpretation of the readings the members have done. Some people do a Step Ten at night, some do a Step Ten in the morning, and some do a Step Ten whenever they feel like they need to do a Step Ten. There’s a lot of controversy, confusion, opinions, attitudes, and experiences regarding Step Ten. Before that, it’s important to look at some of the ideas still present in Step Nine.

When I’ve heard people in meetings or elsewhere speak openly and from the heart about their experience working the steps, by and large, what I hear isn’t dramatically or drastically different from one person to another, with this one exception – and that’s Step Nine. Step Nine is a step that if a person is diligent about going back and making right what they felt was wrong, the results can be life-changing. The Step also takes quite a long time to fulfill successfully. There can be many layers of wrongdoing or harm or behaviors that have to be analyzed or understood for the amend to have the effect it needs to have. In doing the amends, you can run into situations where more people you didn’t think of while doing your Fourth and Fifth Steps will pop up and need to have an amend. You also remember that you have used the Fifth Step to determine the exact nature of your wrongs. Once you’ve understood the exact nature of your wrongs, you will see how people you have not thought of before fit into the nature of those wrongs – fear, impatience, intolerance, dishonesty, self-centeredness, etc.

I’ve heard this numerous times from different people, as in my own experience that every September, if you’re in a step study group, Step Nine is usually what’s discussed in the ninth month. Because it was about making amends, for years, stemming from my early recovery into the middle of my recovery, annually around the ninth month, I’d remember somebody I owed money to or somebody that I had treated poorly who needed an amends, and I had just completely forgotten about them. These people had finally risen to the top of my list of those I had hurt and needed an amends.

Paying back money was one thing, but finding people I was no longer in contact with who I felt I needed an amends was a much more complicated process. Over time I was able to fulfill most of those. I can’t say that I’m completely finished. I can’t say there aren’t people to who I would like to be able to make amends, but I have not figured out a way to get a hold of them. In this world of open communication, where we have many resources to communicate with people, it’s somewhat astounding that I haven’t been able to find some of these people. But that’s beside the point.

Step Nine is a living process, and if we’re diligent about our ongoing recovery, we will continue to keep Step Nine – that list – and we will continue to update it as other things come up and need to be added to that list. Step Nine is very specific. It says that we made direct amends to those people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. That’s not something that we can fold into another step like Step Ten, let’s say. It is its own Step. It’s a process by which we make right the wreckage of our past in little bits – little incremental ways – by going out, finding the people we have harmed, who we have hurt, and figuring out a way to make that right.

“What exactly happens to us as we begin to do Step Nine?” As we begin to make amends, what do we discover? The most prominent thing that we find out is what is discussed in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. They are called “the promises,” and these 12 promises come to fruition as it says, “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.” (Pg. 83) What follows that sentence are the promises.

These are the promises that are sustainable. These promises don’t just flick in and flick out as they might earlier in our recovery. Because of changes in us through our actions, we discover that some of these promises are now sustained. They will come about, and they will stay. Not all of them, but many of them. We know that something is happening, but something else must occur to us. During the process of making amends, we begin to recognize how ridiculous or how unworthy our behavior has been. Especially when dealing with other people. Especially in a relationship. We will discover that the context of our relationships has always been, “What can you do for me?” or “This relationship will work out fine as long as you treat me special all the time.” It sounds absurd, but it’s not a unique belief system for someone who is an alcoholic or addict.

We’re “self-centered in the extreme.” (Pg. 24, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions) We believe that all things happen because of us. We also believe that everything happens to us. We think that we’re not only responsible for but need to control all things around us, so the outcomes are precisely what we believe they should be. When that doesn’t work, which it usually doesn’t, that causes us to fly off the handle. Then we need something to stabilize ourselves, such as alcohol or drugs.

As we start to go out and we really admit where we were wrong, not where we were sorry, but where we were wrong, we understand fully why what we did was wrong. We then earnestly ask what can be done to make it right. We have gained some freedom if we’re willing to do whatever is suggested to make it right. I have a friend who calls the Ninth Step “the freedom train.” He calls it that because by making amends, we are clearing away not only the wreckage of our past but we are clearing away all the things that kept gaining on us before we finally started to work this Step. In our use, we always felt like things were following us, gaining on us. Once we began to do Nine, we started to feel, “Nothing is gaining on me. There’s nothing behind me left undone.”

All we’ve got and need to concentrate on is going forward. What is it we’ve got to do next? This is a profound change in the way we view life. In fact, the very first words of the Promises are, “We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.” Freedom is the keyword. We’ve walked around in this life, dragging much of our past with us that we do not know how to behave any other way. We don’t even know how to act appropriately in a relationship. We don’t know how to react appropriately around our family. We no longer know how to function correctly around our friends. As we begin to do Step Nine, the confusion about how we behave starts to coalesce and feels more focused.

We will also notice that we feel a little more comfortable in our skin. We don’t feel like an outsider everywhere we go. We feel like we could fit in. We’ve acquired some strategies by which we can fit in. Almost miraculously, we feel more comfortable as human beings even though it may not be our nature to feel comfortable in any crowd or group without something to lubricate it. As we stay sober little by little, we become more adept at practicing these principles because of the steps we have already taken. Our actions are beginning to change our thinking.

Step Nine is a continuous process. It is its own Step. The amends that we make are based on things we did in our past. As we move from Nine to Ten, we are being recommended to continue a process that we learned in Four and Five and are now learning in Eight and Nine. We continue to take a personal inventory, and when we are wrong, we promptly admit it.

It’s time to move forward. Like writing, waiting for the right time to do something will most likely not get it done. That’s why the steps are so profound. The knowing comes from doing and not contemplation of doing.

I’m embarrassed to say that I was sober 14 or 15 years before I finally heard or understood that my Fourth Step inventory was my Eighth Step list. I wish I’d known that before I did my Eighth Step. However, it’s instructive in these ways. The people on my list most likely have been harmed by me in one way or another, and I need to recognize that the harm was almost always generated through some character defect. Whether it be fear or dishonesty or impatience or intolerance, or self-centeredness, at some point in there, one of those defects of character or several of them combined came together to create a situation where I harmed another human being. Now I understand that my character defects, in general, don’t hurt me. My shortcomings of character harm others. My defects of character keep me out of a relationship with others. They mainly keep me out of healthy relationships with others. As a general rule, my character defects do not directly harm me. They poke or hurt other people almost without exception.

When I’m not diligent in my recovery daily and my alcoholism returns, as do my character defects, I start to hurt other people. Every time, no exceptions. And it’s because these defects have not been removed completely. They’ve only been set aside until I feel it’s necessary to use them again. Usually, when I am fearful.

Step Seven is spiritual in that it asks for us to take spiritual action. In Step Three, we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. In Step Five, we share our defects of character and the nature of our wrongs with another person, but we also let God know that we knew. We now need to commit ourselves to understanding what we’re turning over. What do our will and our life consist of?

In Step Seven, we are further making good on our decision in Step Three. These objectionable behaviors, these defects of character that we have found out about, that have ruled our lives and made us miserable, we discover they have caused us to hurt other people repeatedly. So we are now committing ourselves to remove them. It’s not like, “Please take away my hurts and little owies.” This is a commitment to turn my will and my life over entirely. If I do this and let go of the need to control things, then my need to have character defects is nonexistent. I will no longer be managing life; I will be living life.

Step Seven is part of a spiritual condition of which the Big Book speaks. It is the constant struggle between my will and God’s will. The Seventh Step and the prayer that I say to humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings is the commitment to act out of God’s will rather than react out of my will.

Moving into Step Eight and understanding precisely what the commitment in Seven is all about changes the dynamic of why we’re making this list. Whether we’re using our Fourth Step or starting all over again from whole-cloth using the Fourth Step as a guide, we will undoubtedly add others who we remember being harmed by our behavior. Preparing ourselves to make these amends is to commit to changing the behavior that created the need for the amends. Step Eight isn’t a list of people to whom we need to apologize or say we’re sorry. We don’t go back and say, “Well, I hurt you, but you were mean to me.” That’s not going to work. Instead, it has to do with amending a life incident in which our behavior caused another person distress. It harmed them in some way. It harmed them emotionally. It harmed them physically. It may have harmed them financially. In whatever way it was, we have to offer to make that whole somehow.

When I did these steps, my sponsor said something to me that I didn’t understand at first. I understand it clearly now. What he said to me was, “If you’re not intending to in any way change the behavior that created the need for this amend, then just don’t bother to put it down.” What I thought he was talking about was a parsing of who needed an amends and who didn’t. And what he was actually saying was that this is a commitment to change the way you act. This is a wrong that you’re correcting. Not an incident. Not a bad mistake. Not an error in judgment. This is a wrong. When you create wrongs, it’s from a place of misguided or defective character. When you wish to correct that behavior and not ever do it again, then you are ready to make that amends. Because you can close the door and make whole what was wrong and eventually close the door on that behavior saying, “I’m never going to do that behavior again.”

I’m not sure if I’ve said everything I need to say about Step Eight. I think I made my point regarding what happens in Seven that leads to Eight. And how that informs the preparation of Step Eight – making a list of all persons and then becoming willing to make amends to them all. After reading Step Eight is the point where often we’re told the story of three columns. The people we’re willing to make amends to right away. The people that we know we need to make amends to, but we want to put it off until the last possible moment. And then there’s the third column which is the “no way in hell” will we make amends to that person. If anything, they owe amends to us, etc., etc., etc.

The truth is a little more nuanced. There aren’t really three solid columns. Some people fall into areas between those columns. During the first few experiences in making amends, at least appropriately making amends, one may find that the results are not what they had dreaded. That magnifying mind of ours tells us that it will be horrible, that the person will ask us to do things we don’t want to do. I suggested to my sponsor that I was worried that somebody might ask me to paint their house to make amends. My sponsor looked askance and said, “Well, are you a house painter?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “Well, then, why in the hell would they ask you to paint their house?”

These irrational beliefs are the kind of nonsense someone going through this for the first time will make up in their minds. This is why it’s critical that this step, in particular, as with all the steps, have guidance. Guidance is the most vital aspect of working the Steps. You cannot do this by yourself. You need either a sponsor or a mentor, or a spiritual leader. Someone who can help you traverse the minefield that your mind creates for these steps. It’s about how horrible it’s going to be, and if I do this, then this will happen, and if I don’t do this, then this will happen. The sponsor is not emotionally attached to all the craziness in your head. They have been through it themselves in a way that suggests that some of the things we’re thinking are also the things they believed. So that they can actually relate to it and help re-guide or redirect the individual back on the road to getting into recovery without stepping in something or breaking a leg.