From SAUK News, July 1997

I have been coming to SA for over two years. I am now 150 days sober. I believe that my history of achieving a few months’ sobriety and then slipping lies with my ego. I seem to lack humility, which causes me to believe too much in my own way of seeing the world, no matter how painful that is, rather than accepting other people’s guidance and support.

Recently I decided to do another Step Eight list. This was without any prompting from my sponsor and without any consultation with him. I constructed a list of people I had harmed or misconnected with in the past. However, I decided not to share this list fully with my sponsor and galloped on into my way of working Step Nine.

This is where the trouble began. A lot of the people on my Step Eight list were people I had worked with in a professional capacity. I decided that I had to go to each of these people and make profound apologies and admissions of wrongdoing regardless of whether this would be of any help to them or actually make up for any wrong behavior.

As the prospect of making these apologies loomed, I started to shout at my wife, threatened her when she would not leave me alone and isolated myself. Her advice had been to drop the whole idea of making apologies to these people, saying it would do more harm than good. She also pointed out that I could get myself into deeper water at a professional level.

My sponsor and other members of SA with long-term sobriety also had counseled me in the past that the amends process is about reconnecting with others and that amends in my professional life lies in a new, positive attitude in which I work hard, behave professionally and surrender resentment and hostility as they come up.

Luckily I have a great deal of respect for my boss. My sponsor suggested that I discuss the situation with her. I did so and she told me that my ideas were probably attempts to dump my guilt and would have no benefit for those I was about to approach. She said I should concentrate instead on making amends to people I had really hurt — my wife and children. Funny, this is precisely what my wife, sponsor and other SA members had been telling me all along. I finally dropped the apologies idea.

Moral of the story — I should have listened to my wife, sponsor and trusted members of the SA fellowship. If I have an idea that is driving me crazy, I should check it with my sponsor. The amends process is about repairing the damage I have done to my wife and children by selfish, angry, disturbed behavior and lusting. Recovery through the amends-making process is about healing and the re-establishment of right relations with others.