However, you can still take action in all of these situations to satisfy the spirit and the intent of Step 9 and progress in your step work. Talk with your sponsor or others in your recovery community about what has worked for them. If your actions match your intentions and you reach out in person, you are doing the next right thing to right past wrongs.
Time has come for reparations dialogue, Commonwealth heads agree
What comes up may be feelings of guilt, shame, or something else entirely. The theme of making amends is forgiveness, and although it is one of the steps people may not like, it comes at this point in the AA journey for a reason. It means the person has come to a point where they are ready to move forward through this step, but it takes some finesse to do it without causing more harm to loved ones. Making amends is important, no matter if a person is going through AA or not. Write down what happened, who was harmed, and how you could make amends. Once the pain they caused someone else to experience is understood, the person with a substance use disorder can work to ensure it does not happen again.
How Making Amends Positively Affects the Brain
Perhaps the person is no longer living, or you no longer have contact with them and reestablishing contact would cause more harm. 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. When making direct amends, it is usually best to do so after a sustained period of sobriety and while in a calm state of mind. One very effective way to make amends is to go to treatment. At FHE Health, you’ll learn more about Step 9 and how to handle the worst of experiences. For many, this is one of the most important components of recovery, because it allows them to work on rebuilding their relationships and letting go of those they cannot repair.
Work on your relationships
This action can demonstrate the person’s new way of life in recovery. It goes beyond simply apologizing to taking steps to right a wrong. Whenever possible, those in recovery are encouraged to make direct amends face-to-face with those they’d harmed while living in addiction.
Making Amends in Addiction Recovery
In particular, he discusses how to heal when the person we need to make amends with is no longer living. Making amends with the people you’ve fallen out with as you’re thinking about mortality and 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. Our comprehensive approach includes recovery support services, counseling, and resources for living amends making a sincere apology and working through the amends process.
Living Amends is a non-profit organization that provides scholarships to vetted sober living facilities throughout central Texas. Scholarships are granted to individuals who have completed inpatient treatment and are looking to continue their recovery journey in sober living. Living Amends partners with sober living facilities to closely monitor each scholarship and intervene if obstacles arise to long-term sobriety. Thankfully we are given some insight in to how to make amends through steps 8 and 9. But amends are so much more than just making a list and saying you are sorry, and this is where it becomes important to understand the difference between making an amends and making an apology. When first writing your list, don’t worry about including everyone you have wronged.
- While many people are receptive and supportive to attempts to make amends, some are not.
- And when it comes to our family and children, we might be particularly interested in speeding that process along.
- Speaking in Lagos, a Nigerian port city once central to the transatlantic slave trade, the foreign secretary said the period was “horrific and horrendous” and had left “scars”.
- At Recreate Life Counseling, we offer both inpatient and outpatient programs, with evidence-based addiction treatment designed to support every stage of the recovery process.
- 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.
- Replaces partisan primaries with open top-four primaries and establishes ranked-choice voting for general elections.
When Should You Approach a Person to Make Amends?
If you’re on the fence about Step 9, remember that making amends can help you and the other person. There are three main types of amends, and it’s important to recognize which one is appropriate in a given situation. Understanding some making amends examples can help the individual correct past behaviors. Say, for example, you’re preparing to make amends to a former coworker, whom you once stole from to pay for drugs.
Your Future Starts at Silvermist
When he runs out of medicine because he didn’t call the doctor for a refill, I trust he has the intelligence to solve his own problem. When he handles a situation at work “the wrong way” I keep my opinion to myself. 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. Don’t expect immediate forgiveness, and also, don’t pressure yourself to fix every broken relationship immediately.
In the 12-step program, making these amends is a core part of recovery, helping to rebuild trust and personal accountability, which are key aspects of the 12-step recovery process. We understand that fact and don’t choose to run from it, and we understand that words cannot make those painful memories disappear. https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/how-to-rebuild-your-life-after-addiction-how-to-regain-trust/ We can only become who we intend to be, and acknowledge to others that those addictive behaviors have no place in our lives from here on out. And when it comes to our family and children, we might be particularly interested in speeding that process along. When held in the bonds of an addiction, it’s not uncommon for many relationships to feel strain, or to fall apart together. To discern whether to make amends, ask yourself why you’re wanting to contact the person.