A Study Of Step 9 Of The 12 Step Program

In these cases, they make promises of cleaning up their act and changing their behaviors to their loved ones just before they die. What happens when you die is one way of finding emotional freedom and closure. But what happens when the person you need to make amends with dies before you’re able to apologize and change your ways? Unfortunately, this scenario plays out much too often in the lives of people who didn’t get a chance to correct their mistakes and past behaviors in time. In drug rehab, as you learn to adjust your behaviors and attitudes, you may feel some remorse and anxiety regarding the way you treated your loved ones in the past. Making amends with them can provide a sense of emotional relief and resolution in your own life, as well as the lives of others. • Indirect Amends— made only when contact with the person is harmful to your sobriety, or direct contact with a person cannot be made face to face.

They must take ownership of those actions and begin to take new actions that show the commitment they have made to their recovery. As a person works the steps of recovery, they begin to discover—or perhaps remind themselves—who they want to be. Part of this process is recognizing the harm they may have caused during active addiction and making amends to those they hurt. Upon completion of your drug and alcohol rehab program, you may feel like a completely different person but you’ll still need to work to regain the trust of your friends and family members.

The Best Way To Make Amends

I truly struggled with this one because I was unsure how to make this amends and it brought me so much guilt. For this amends, it would be an indirect and living amends. An indirect amend is when things cannot be fixed or undone so you find ways to repair them by volunteering and helping others. My therapist told me to volunteer at an Alzheimer’s home, which I struggle with immensely.

You apologize to your spouse or child and how not being present was irresponsible behavior. To demonstrate your amends, you would show how you have changed your behavior by being present for your spouse or child, keeping any promises you make, and showing them you can be reliable. You stole property or money from a family member or friend.

Making Amends: How To Approach Step 9 Aa And When Not To

Living amends represent the long-term actions you will take to remain committed to recovery. You may also have the opportunity in the future to make more direct amends with certain people in time. However, this future possibility should not keep you from working your steps. People get tired of broken promises, of forgiving over and over and giving second and third, fourth, or fifth chances only to get hurt again. When you’re looking to change both your behavior and your broken relationships, stop making excuses to fulfill your promises. Soon, you’ll run out of reasons to give your loved ones why you’ve failed them once again.

• If you take the direct approach, you make an effort to contact the person and repair the damages you caused.
• Making living amends can take on many different forms depending on the relationship to those affected by the wrongdoing.
• Ask Ask what you can do, if anything, to right your wrong.
• Because of the times you lied and manipulated them, your friends and family probably won’t believe a word you say.

Many times, these kinds of promises serve to alleviate the wrongdoer’s guilt and so that they can say they apologized before their loved one died. With these kinds of promises, there may not be enough genuine intention of changing their hurtful patterns and behaviors. Deathbed promises are a common way people make living amends. They want to find ways of making up for all their past wrongs, and they don’t want to miss the opportunity to do so once their loved one dies.

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Additional calls will also be forwarded and returned by one of our treatment partners below. Guilt and shame are emotions that hold us in the past if we don’t deal with our issues and right the wrongs we have done to others. Through love and spirituality, we can free ourselves from the emotional anchor that weighs us down and begin to enjoy the freedom from addiction that we have sought for so long. What’s more, every time we make efforts to refrain from hurting those close to us, we have continued to make amends. These efforts might entail much more than just being sober. Alcoholics tend to incur financial, legal, and emotional consequences that have to be dealt with. And unfortunately, the time it may take to address all these problems is indefinite.

I offered them their money back – some took it, others did not. Some of them were satisfied enough with the proof of my lifestyle and attitude. Now mind you I did not do these all at once, but rather over a period of time. I can honestly tell you I did not have a bad experience with any of them. You Making Living Amends During Addiction Recovery will be surprised by how many people are simply happy to see you smiling and healthy, and that is enough for them. The good news is, if we work the steps, we will be given the opportunity to do offer a sincere apology to those we have hurt and take whatever action is necessary to make things right.

Making amends is not the same thing as simply making an apology.1 An apology expresses the fact that you are remorseful for your behavior and you regret the decision you made to hurt a person. On the other hand, making amends with someone deals more with justice, and righting a previous wrong. Ask Ask what you can do, if anything, to right your wrong. If you are not willing to ask how you can make it up to the person, you are not ready to be making the amends in the first place. Just because you are getting better, doesn’t mean that everyone else is growing also. Making amends is an intentional action that will help you stay sober long-term.

A sincere apology is a necessary step for sure, but an apology by itself is not enough to undo the pain and heartache that one’s addiction can cause. Making amends is a way to for the individual in addiction recovery to work towards an achievable goal that helps to restore faith and goodwill to people they inflicted pain towards. There are direct ways to make amends, such as fulfilling loan agreements, repairing broken property, or any number of kind acts. The most important part of making amends to someone is to alter your behavior and actions to become beneficial to the person you inflicted harm against, not simply apologizing.

• In some instances, a direct amend may also not be possible.
• So, speaking with your friend or family member face-to-face is important.
• Recognize that you’re now moving in a positive direction and working toward getting healthy.
• A direct amend entails going to the person you have wronged and taking ownership of the harm you caused.

You may feel guilty, stressed out, anxious, or fearful that you’ll be flat-out rejected. But there is a lot of good that can come from making amends that outweigh the potential bad. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ We offer a wide variety of rehab programs that cater to every situation. There may be a situation when the person has an outlandish or manipulative request that you cannot fulfill.

Making Symbolic Amends

When we get to Step Nine it is time to resolve that destruction, where and when we can. Some are eager to make amends and just want to get it over with. However, there is a reason the steps are in the order they are, and it takes time and work to get to Step Nine. You have your list of people or places you have harmed, and you’ll sit with your sponsor and go over each one to decide if it will be a direct amends, an indirect amends, or a living amends.

It is also just as important to avoid putting off making amends. Many people in recovery have relapsed after they allowed their fears to keep them from completing step 9. And it’s also important to be realistic—there is no set timeline for completing this step. In fact, some amends will remain ongoing for some time, requiring long-term effort or never truly being completed. Nothing shows a commitment to real recovery more than entering an intensive outpatient program. By entering a program like the one offered at BlueCrest Recovery Center, you’ll have all the tools and resources available to you to improve your mental health and put drug abuse behind you. Remember that part of making amends is demonstrating changed behavior.

After acknowledging how actions tied to their addictions had a negative impact on people in their lives, those in 12-step recovery programs commit to making direct amends whenever possible. When someone who is dependent on substances finally makes the decision to get sober, shame and guilt usually set in almost immediately. For the majority of people, the feelings of guilt are usually what cause the most pain, as many addicts have grown used to drowning out these feelings using substances. Recovering addicts can no longer deny the downright despicable and awful acts they may have committed. The good news is however, that with the right steps and mindset, you can offer a sincere apology and make amends to the people you may have hurt.

• This will guide you in determining the best type of amend to begin rebuilding trust with those you have harmed.
• If an individual damaged someone else’s home while they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, direct amends may require that they go to the property owner, apologize and repair damages.
• It may seem like much of this is out of your control; you may decide you shouldn’t contact some people and others might not forgive you.
• When you’re looking to change both your behavior and your broken relationships, stop making excuses to fulfill your promises.
• Your fellow recovery peers and support network at your rehab center will be your best resource during this time.

This part is perhaps the most daunting, but it is also the most important. Let the other person explain how they feel, how they were affected, and what they need to move forward. Never force someone to resume a relationship with you when they are not ready or willing. To the best of my abilities, I have calculated the total amount of money that I stole from you so that I can pay you back.

If Youre Struggling To Make Amends

Our focus at BlueCrest is on solutions to addiction and mental health challenges, not living in the problem. If something has been done in the past that can’t be fixed now, your sincerity may be the best thing you can offer. However, if there’s something you have done that can be rectified, make the commitment to do it. No matter how you approach it, finding the strength to talk with someone about what you’ve done and to ask for forgiveness is difficult. Being able to do it should give you more confidence in your road to recovery.

Ask the person what you can do to remedy the situation and what would need to happen for them to feel better. If you stole money from someone or borrowed in excess, arrange to pay back or work off the debt.

The point of a living amends is showing that you have learned from the hurt you’ve caused, and have vowed to be a better person from it. A living amends is necessary in some cases to show the person that you’ve changed. This is also the type of amends you will make to someone who has passed away that you owe an amends to.

At this point in the recovery process, people who are working through the twelve steps must begin to repair strained and broken relationships actively. Alcoholics are not known for their honesty or their outstanding consideration for the people around them. Instead, alcoholics can be very deceptive, and often exhibit little concern for others as they engage in destructive patterns of behavior. They continue to act in this way because addiction, in part, leads people to fail morally at times. In Step 8, people in recovery look back on their actions and identify where they are at fault and what can be done moving forward.

Who Do I Need To Make Amends With?

On the opposite side of the street are those individuals who simply say, “All of my amends would hurt people. I’m just not going to speak to anyone.” Avoid the temptation to get out of this step.