Some people may not be ready to forgive, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to force forgiveness—it’s to own your part and do what you can to make things right. This involves reaching out to the person you’ve harmed, face-to-face if possible, living amends and having an honest conversation. You acknowledge what you did, express genuine remorse, and ask for a way to make things right.
Your Future Starts at Silvermist
When you make living amends, you make genuine changes to support your emotional and physical sobriety. In doing so, you promise to live a sober and honest life and never return to your old ways of alcoholism symptoms lying and hurting the people you love the most. In some cases, you may have to make indirect amends if a relationship proves to be beyond repair or if seeing you again would cause the person further distress. Though that could be hard to accept, that doesn’t take away from the process of actively working to improve your character. Ultimately, the goal of making amends is to achieve more personal responsibility – not necessarily total forgiveness. Living amends demonstrate personal growth and commitment to change in recovery.
How To Make 9th Step Amends In Recovery
I was taught to distinguish between a ‘contractual’ amends and a ‘living’ amends. You confront, admit your wrong, ask what you can do to make it right, and then wipe your hands and check it off your 8th Step amends list. Being accountable to an old friend or colleague is easy. Because you get to walk away afterwards, cross it off, and probably never see these people again.
Tips For Growing Up My 20 Years of Recovery
Judaism has a yearly practice of accountability and apology to those whom you have harmed with your actions. There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen. There is a right time and a wrong time to offer forgiveness or to make amends. You need to approach those to whom you are offering your forgiveness or amends humbly, honestly, sincerely, and willingly.
- The purpose of Step Nine is to acknowledge the harm caused during active addiction and to make it right with the people involved, as much as possible.
- More often than not, step nine will be painful, but also equally freeing.
- Let them know all the things you’re actively doing to try to prevent these behaviors from happening again.
- To learn from our experiences, we want to look at those patterns in detail.
It’s painful, but it forces us to understand ourselves more deeply and hold ourselves with compassion. It helps us learn from the experience and grow – in our relationship with ourselves and our capacity to love others. Living Amends is a positive way to display to others and to prove to yourself that you have evolved from the person that you used to be.
- Making an amend means taking accountability and action to repair any damages done.
- You should express your regret for past behaviors and be willing to accept their feelings, understanding that you cannot control how they respond.
- Steps 8 and 9 of Alcoholics Anonymous involve listing those harmed and making direct amends to such people wherever possible, unless doing so would cause further harm.
- When we realize that we have done this, it is time to repair the bridge.
- You should also keep in mind that not everyone may forgive you or accept your attempt to make amends and if they do, it may not happen right away.
Celebrate Recovery Lesson 16 Highlights
Sometimes I can listen supportively for a short period of time. Over the years, in small bits and pieces, I have been able to share small pearls of my Al-anon wisdom. It’s not one we use too frequently in our everyday language, but it still holds significant meaning. To make amends means to apologize for something you have done or for wronging someone in some way. It means mending, or (quite literally) fixing, the relationship.
Do what you can to rectify the situation.Ask the other person if there is a way to amend wrongdoings. This shows a willingness to make right that which was wrong. Negative self-labeling can hinder making amends by reinforcing feelings of unworthiness or shame.
To learn more about addiction recovery, including AA, reach out to Silver Mist Recovery. Making amends is challenging, but the outcome can be one of the most rewarding parts of recovery. Be willing to listen to the other person’s point of view. Recognize and acknowledge your behaviors that caused harm to someone else.