However, if after talking with your sponsor you decide to proceed anyway, make sure you have spoken to your family especially if you are the head of the household or primary source of income. Also, it may not be a good idea to make direct amends if it could potentially stir something up. Your AA sponsor, therapist, or another trusted person can help you determine how best to address making amends. Often, people with substance use disorders cause harm to others, either intentionally or inadvertently.

You could donate money to an elderly group or organization. Making amends is about restoring justice as much as possible. Therefore, the motivation of an amends should be to restore – in a direct way – that which we have broken or damaged. If this is not possible, than a living amends can be made, one we perform in a symbolic way by incorporating a new healthy action or set of behaviors in our daily lives. I cannot go back and change the past, but I can take responsibility for my actions. Each day I ask my Higher Power for the strength to help me stay sober and live responsibly and with honesty.

Making Amends Is an Important Step to Rebuilding Family Connections

We are not tied to the old behaviors of our disease, or to our character defects. Although it sounds lofty, there are realistic, achievable ways to implement examples of making amends. Although recovery in general must be done selfishly (i.e. you must put yourself before others in order to get well), Step Nine is the most selfless of all steps. It’s the point where we acknowledge that our behaviors damage others beyond ourselves. But to rectify this damage, we can’t maintain the same “me first” attitude that many of the other steps require. Should others be unreceptive or outcomes aren’t as planned, don’t blame yourself. What you can control is how you’ll continue to make positive changes and live an authentic life free from substances.

I was thinking that he will be ok because the doctor was telling us that he will be discharge but after 3 days of that then the doctor says that his body is declining. He then went to the ICU the next day then died the following day. I dont recall what we talked about during the time when we was at the living amends hospital. Prior to his admission he also wanted for me to resign from my workplace so i can spend time with him but i didnt follow him and that is one of my regrets right now. The second regret is that i am taking his illness not seriously thinking that he will he ok, i should have be more careful.

Let’s be grief friends.

A living amend might include a posthumous promise to the deceased child to, from now on, make it a point to walk their surviving siblings to the bus stop each day. It is not a time to make excuses for our behavior instead, it’s an open door for the wronged person to express themselves. They get the opportunity to express how my actions affected them. 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.

It also requires open communication and a desire on the part of the alcoholic to understand the other person’s feelings on the matter fully. Guilt for our wrongs can be one of the most deceptive recovery demons to bear because it damages us from the inside, where it happily hides. Get rid of that guilt; apologize, make your amends and let go of them. 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. You can start making amends by showing up, even if it’s years later, to do the things you said you’d do. These changes in behavior help toward the goal of reestablishing relationships or making them stronger. Ways of accepting their death, making living amends can help bereaved individuals find forgiveness and closure, especially when reconciliation is no longer an option.

Making Living Amends in 12 Step Recovery

It is about what we do despite that wrongdoing, “abandoning right to resentment . Making amends does not undoing the wrongdoing, just as forgiveness doesn’t undo the wrongdoing.

If we had not developed a relationship with aHigher Power, we wouldn’t now have the faith and trust that we definitely need to work Step Nine! If we had not done ourFourthandFifth Steps, we would probably still be so confused about our own personal responsibility, we wouldn’t know specifically what we’re making amends for. If we hadn’t developed https://ecosoberhouse.com/ humility in theSixthandSeventh Stepswe’d likely approach our amends with self-righteousness, blame or anger. OurEighth Steplist was our practical preparation for working Step Nine. As we go into this step we must remember to stay connected to a higher power and have faith that the previous eight steps have prepared us to work the Ninth Step.