How To Make Amends With Family

However, even if you feel extremely motivated to make direct amends, it is advisable to take your time with this step. Make sure that you are comfortable with your progress during recovery and that both you and the other person are ready to engage in the process. We can also make a living amends by changing the behaviors that hurt or harmed them, and we can let go of the all-consuming guilt that would only tempt us to use again. And when it comes to our family and children, we might be particularly interested in speeding that process along. In early recovery, parents might feel pressured to make up for lost time and experiences.

Making Amends: How to Approach Step 9 AA… and When Not To

To fix broken relationships, you have to put a lot of effort into making things work. It’s not enough to say to someone that you apologize and feel badly for how you acted in the past. It takes a certain maturity and level of respect for yourself and the person living amends you’re hoping to reconnect with to get past any past issues. For every time you said you’d be there or that you’d help someone do something and didn’t show up, you’ve left an impression upon that person that they can’t rely on you to keep your word.

Making Living Amends in 12 Step Recovery

Self-forgiveness is often not even possible, and certainly cannot be complete, until we have in some way made amends to those we’ve injured. Making amends is not for satisfying an external standard https://ecosoberhouse.com/ of morality. Rather, it is an expression of our belonging to the world and our own hearts. The urge to make amends arises when we have dared to face the reality of our impact on others.

• You can also turn to AA’s Big Book and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (the 12 & 12) for guidance specific to Step 8.
• In addition to apologizing and asking for their forgiveness regarding the incident in question, you might offer to repay them in full for the money you stole.
• Recognize and acknowledge your behaviors that caused harm to someone else.
• Instead, you may need to engage in a dialogue with them over time.
• In Twelve Step terminology, another word for “amend” is “fix.” Not the fix we might have chased back in the day, but a fix to a broken relationship.

Kinds Of Property Loss Damage

It also shares useful coping tools, and helps the reader reflect on their unique relationship with grief and loss. An example would be telling someone how sorry you are that you stole from them and actually giving back what you took. To act beyond our old patterns of behavior, many of us require guidance. 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.

We’ve had a spiritual awakening, and we suddenly want to fit as much as possible into each day—and we want to quickly repair all the harm we caused during active addiction. Undoubtedly, you, too, have a list of ways in which you want to live out your living amends, and that’s great! The more personalized your lifestyle changes are, the more they’re going to resonate and stick with you. Yet, to be truly successful at forgiving and releasing past wrongs, you need to go directly to the individual you’ve hurt. When you go directly to the person, real spiritual transformation is more likely to occur.

Moving from Amends to Forgiveness

• Another example would be of a person who’s been a taker all their lives suddenly decides they no longer want to be self-centered and selfish.
• How you start these conversations depends on your relationship with the person you harmed and the circumstances in which you plan to make direct amends.
• Steps 8 and 9 help us to move out of the shame we have lived in, shame that feeds the cycle of substance use and addiction.
• Ninety percent of the time, I keep my mouth shut, but I am my son’s mother.
• To learn about our scholarship program, please click below or contact our team today.
• When you’re ready to make amends, you can find support to guide you through the process.

But, as difficult as it is, completing this step can provide an immense sense of relief and newfound hope for the future. At the heart of this step is the need for forgiveness and restoration—forgiving yourself, forgiving others, and making amends. All types of amends are good, but living amends are some of the best kinds you can make! They affirm your decision to make lifelong changes, which has a positive effect on both you and everyone around you.

Step Series

In the midst of your ninth step, you say to him “I’m so sorry that I stole that money from you and used it for drugs”. A true amend would be giving him $20 back along with the apology. Unfortunately, there are many things that we do in our using that we can not rectify with tangible goods or direct amends. What about the late nights that we kept our parents up worrying?

These are territories hard to navigate, which is why you need some recovery time and a support network to help you. In rare cases, making amends in recovery may inadvertently lead to further harm or negative consequences for the individual or the person receiving the amends. It’s crucial to consider the potential risks carefully and work closely with a sponsor or therapist to navigate these situations.

• These changes in behavior help toward the goal of reestablishing relationships or making them stronger.
• Early in my recovery, I learned neither my son nor my husband was listening to anything I said.
• She works with couples and individuals, specializing in intimacy, sexuality, and self-realization.
• However, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed at your new, honest and sober lifestyle.

Apologizing in this way may open the door to continued healing, growth, and restored relationships in recovery. Resolve to work at making things better between you and keeping your promises. Give each other space to figure out any new roles within your relationship and take things slowly.

I’m In Recovery

Apologies, while they can be well meaning, feel like lip service to many people. Especially if the disease behaviors created deep fissures, or if they are used in place of more direct amends. Sometimes, you may not have the opportunity to make direct amends to the person you harmed. Perhaps the person is no longer living, or you no longer have contact with them and reestablishing contact would cause more harm. Other individuals who have completed Step 9, such as your sponsor, may be able to help you choose a meaningful way to make indirect amends. If you have devoted the necessary time and energy to the first 8 steps, you should have a solid foundation from which to approach making amends in Step 9.