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.
Notes from the Half Measures Seats 